The ark part of the story seems to have its origins in Babylon. Every so often the Tigris and Euphrates would flood. To the point you could almost set your calendar by it. The story goes that one of the wealthier farmers in the region built a carrack to save his animals and it was large enough that he was able to save some of the livestock of his neighbours as well.
Yep, that's Sumer. Tigris-Euphrates plain. Can't swear to it, but I think it was Sumer first, later came to be Babylon.
Is your story the right one, or mine? I'll look it up at some point out of curiosity, but can't be arsed at the moment. Basically the same. . . smart guy does something smart, and centuries of re-telling and dramatization blow it way out of proportion.
Kinda like
Henry V. Henry didn't make those cool speeches. Shakespeare did.
Or David and Goliath. It's entirely possible some teenage shepherd killed an armored warrior with a sling. A sling is a no-shit deadly weapon in experienced hands. But generations of storytellers can't leave it at that. He wasn't just an armored warrior, he was really big and tough! No, no, not really big and tough, a GIANT!"
The
Monty Python sketch where the scriptwriters decided Scott had to be threatened in Antarctica, so they came up with a 20-foot, electric penguin. . .