SUMMARYFlood legends: the dating test from P817 (agent report, Nov 6, 2026). Full table and sources: agent-reports/flood-dating.md. THE
TESTis each Old World flood legend's earliest physical copy dated before 1519, when the land's books began reaching Europe? RESULT, Record: yes for Mesopotamia and Genesis, by methods that don't depend on the story. The Sumerian Ziusudra flood tablet (CBS 10673, Nippur, Penn Museum; 17th century BCE by script; dug 1896). Atrahasis (a scribe's note names King Ammi-saduqa, about 1646–1626 BCE, ±100 years). Gilgamesh: an Ugarit fragment (about 1200 BCE); Tablet XI (K.3375, British Museum) from Ashurbanipal's library, buried when Nineveh fell in 612 BCE; cuneiform wasn't read again until the 1850s. Genesis: Dead Sea Scroll 6Q1 (Genesis 6:13–21, early Hellenistic by handwriting); the Genesis Apocryphon radiocarbon-dated 89 BCE–118 CE (Zurich, 1991); Chester Beatty V Greek papyrus (3rd century CE). So the narrow form of the lens, "copied from the land's books after 1519," does not fit these copies; the test is named here and the dates come by script, scribe's note, excavation layer and radiocarbon. STILL
OPENManu (no dated pre-1519 copy of the Book I flood passage found; the earliest dated manuscript is 1515, but it is Book VII); Deucalion (2nd-century CE papyri, a flood line not yet confirmed); China (the Sui Gong xu bronze is Disputed, from the market not a dig; the Rong Cheng Shi slips were bought in Hong Kong in 1994). THE LAND'S OWN FLOODS BEFORE CONTACT, Record: the Dresden Codex p. 74 water scene (1200–1345 by style; readings differ); the Sun Stone's 4 Water age; Pané's Taíno gourd-flood record from Ayiti (about 1498; earliest copy 1571). Written after 1519: the Legend of the Suns (22 May 1558), Codex Ríos (1560s), Popol Vuh (Ximénez, 1700–1715). COXCOX: the Codex Boturini shows a boat migration from Aztlán, not a flood; the "Aztec Noah" looks to come from European writers through Humboldt (1810). That is copying onto the land's story, the reverse direction (Open: not traced step by step). WHAT STANDS: both sides had flood traditions before contact. The wider lens (a much older shared source, or contact before 1492 in either direction; see the pre-Columbian contact leads) is Open and needs deep research.