In both, heaven never announces the flood openly. The warning is smuggled to exactly one man through an absurdly humble intermediary — a reed partition, a minnow in wash-water — and its entire content is naval: build the vessel before the decree is public. The deniability of the channel is itself part of the story.
Enki, oath-bound not to warn any human, addresses the architecture instead of the man: 'Wall, listen constantly to me! Reed hut, make sure you attend to all my words!' — 'Reed house, reed house! Wall, wall! O man of Shuruppak... Tear down the house and build a boat!' The survivor overhears; the god's oath stays technically intact.
The warning arrives in Manu's morning hand-washing water as a tiny fish: 'Rear me, I will save thee!... A flood will carry away all these creatures: from that I will save thee' — with the same private instruction: 'Thou shalt then attend to me by preparing a ship; and when the flood has risen thou shalt enter into the ship.'
Reed-wall lines verified at Livius (Atrahasis i.20–21) and in Gilgamesh XI (Kovacs); fish's speech verified verbatim at wisdomlib SB 1.8.1.1–4 (Eggeling 1882).
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The same three-stage avian reconnaissance protocol from a grounded vessel, with overlapping species (dove, raven) and the identical inferential logic: the bird that does not come back is the good news.
An identical four-beat sequence: landing → burnt offering → the deity smells the smoke and is moved → vow of never-again sealed by a physical token of remembrance (a string of sky-blue lapis at the goddess's throat; a bow of color in the cloud).
In both traditions repopulation after the flood is not biological but liturgical: the survivor's post-landing sacrifice is the literal manufacturing step for the next humanity.
Same skeleton with no shared geography: humanity's crime is an affront to the senior god's comfort or dignity, a council formalizes extermination, the killing is halted mid-course by subversion within the pantheon itself, a remnant survives, and the wearied god afterward binds or removes himself.