The mother-goddess Ninhursag created eight healing deities for each sick organ. Another biblical parallel is the story of the Noah's flood found on a tablet dated as being from roughly 1967 b.c. Although the text is incomplete and broken in sections it tells of a man named Ziusudra who must have been instructed by the gods to build a boat to survive the deluge. As Gilgamesh is searching for immortality he comes upon Ziusudra who tells him the deluge story. As has been noted this section of the Gilgamesh story may be more of a Babylonian creation rather than a Sumerian one.
Sumerian literature represents some of the oldest known stories to exist.
Although writing began for administrative purposes, creative writing flourished in the hands of these people. It not only impacted their own culture, but influenced others as well as is evidenced from the Babylonians and their Epic of Gilgamesh and the parallels present in the bible. Ranging in type from proverbs and animal fables to myths or stories, Sumerian literature varies from fifty to near one thousand lines. It was written on clay tablets that had to be uncovered by archaeologists and deciphered by cuneiformists. Although many of these tablets were damaged, with the assistance of Sumerian schools and their practice of copying, much of the literature remains today.