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The Epic of Gilgamesh (/ ˈ ɡ ɪ l ɡ ə m ɛ ʃ /) is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia that is often regarded as the earliest surviving great work of literature. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about Bilgamesh (Sumerian for 'Gilgamesh'), king of Uruk, dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Epic of Gilgamesh is, perhaps, the oldest written story on Earth. It comes to us from Ancient Sumeria, and was originally written on 12 clay tablets in cunieform script. It is about the adventures of the historical King of Uruk (somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE). The Gilgamesh Epic is a traditional Babylonian story that is read in most national high schools. The epic itself is eternity, and serves as a model for truly similar stories that have been written ever since.

The Epic of Gilgamesh (/ˈɡɪlɡəmɛʃ/)^[1] is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia that is often regarded as the earliest surviving great work of literature. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about Bilgamesh (Sumerian for 'Gilgamesh'), king of Uruk, dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2100 BC). These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic in Akkadian. The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the 'Old Babylonian' version dates to the 18th century BC and is titled after its incipit, Shūtur eli sharrī ('Surpassing All Other Kings'). Only a few tablets of it have survived. The later 'standard' version compiled by Sîn-lēqi-unninni dates from the 13th to the 10th centuries BC and bears the incipitSha naqba īmuru ('He who Saw the Abyss', in modern terms: 'He who Sees the Unknown'). Approximately two thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have been recovered. Some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BC Assyrian kingAshurbanipal.

The first half of the story discusses Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and Enkidu, a wild man created by the gods to stop Gilgamesh from oppressing the people of Uruk. After Enkidu becomes civilized through sexual initiation with a prostitute, he travels to Uruk, where he challenges Gilgamesh to a test of strength. Gilgamesh wins the contest; nonetheless, the two become friends. Together, they make a six-day journey to the legendary Cedar Forest, where they plan to slay the Guardian, Humbaba the Terrible, and cut down the sacred Cedar.^[2] The goddess Ishtar sends the Bull of Heaven to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Bull of Heaven after which the gods decide to sentence Enkidu to death and kill him.

In the second half of the epic, distress over Enkidu's death causes Gilgamesh to undertake a long and perilous journey to discover the secret of eternal life. He eventually learns that 'Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands'.^[3][4] However, because of his great building projects, his account of Siduri's advice, and what the immortal man Utnapishtim told him about the Great Flood, Gilgamesh's fame survived well after his death with expanding interest in the Gilgamesh story which has been translated into many languages and is featured in works of popular fiction.

• 2Versions
  • 2.1Standard Akkadian version
    • 2.1.1Content of the standard version tablets
  • 2.2Old Babylonian versions
• 3Later influence
  • 3.1Relationship to the Bible
• 5References
  • 5.2Bibliography

History[edit]

Distinct sources exist from over a 2000-year timeframe. The earliest Sumerian poems are now generally considered to be distinct stories, rather than parts of a single epic.^[5]:45 They date from as early as the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2100 BC).^[5]:41–42 The Old Babylonian tablets (c. 1800 BC),^[5]:45 are the earliest surviving tablets for a single Epic of Gilgamesh narrative.^[6] The older Old Babylonian tablets and later Akkadian version are important sources for modern translations, with the earlier texts mainly used to fill in gaps (lacunae) in the later texts. Although several revised versions based on new discoveries have been published, the epic remains incomplete.^[7] Analysis of the Old Babylonian text has been used to reconstruct possible earlier forms of the Epic of Gilgamesh.^[8] The most recent Akkadian version (c. 1200 BC), also referred to as the standard version, consisting of twelve tablets, was edited by Sin-liqe-unninni^[9] and was found in the Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh.^[10]

The New York Times, front page, 1872^[11]

The Epic of Gilgamesh/inno-installer-windows-10.html. was discovered by Austen Henry Layard, Hormuzd Rassam, and W. K. Loftus in 1853.^[12] The central character of Gilgamesh was initially reintroduced to the world as 'Izdubar', before the cuneiformlogographs in his name could be pronounced accurately. The first modern translation was published in the early 1870s by George Smith.^[13] Smith then made further discoveries of texts on his later expeditions, which culminated in his final translation which is given in his book The Chaldaean Account of Genesis (1880).

The most definitive modern translation is a two-volume critical work by Andrew George, published by Oxford University Press in 2003. A book review by the Cambridge scholar, Eleanor Robson, claims that George's is the most significant critical work on Gilgamesh in the last 70 years.^[14] George discusses the state of the surviving material, and provides a tablet-by-tablet exegesis, with a dual language side-by-side translation. In 2004, Stephen Mitchell supplied a controversial version that takes many liberties with the text and includes modernized allusions and commentary relating to the Iraq War of 2003.^[15][16]

The first direct Arabic translation from the original tablets was made in the 1960s by the Iraqi archaeologist Taha Baqir.^{[citation needed]}

The discovery of artifacts (c. 2600 BC) associated with Enmebaragesi of Kish, mentioned in the legends as the father of one of Gilgamesh's adversaries, has lent credibility to the historical existence of Gilgamesh.^[5]:40–41

In 1998, American historian Theodore Kwasman discovered a piece believed to have contained the first lines of the epic in the storeroom of the British Museum, the fragment, found in 1878 and dated to between 600BC and 100BC, had remained unexamined by experts for more than a century since its recovery.^[17] The fragment read 'He who saw all, who was the foundation of the land, who knew (everything), was wise in all matters: Gilgamesh.'^[18]

Versions[edit]

From the diverse sources found, two main versions of the epic have been partially reconstructed: the standard Akkadian version, or He who saw the deep, and the Old Babylonian version, or Surpassing all other kings. Five earlier Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh have been partially recovered, some with primitive versions of specific episodes in the Akkadian version, others with unrelated stories.

Standard Akkadian version[edit]

The standard version was discovered by Hormuzd Rassam in the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh in 1853. It was written in a dialect of Akkadian that was used for literary purposes. This version was compiled by Sin-liqe-unninni sometime between 1300 and 1000 BC from earlier texts.

The standard Akkadian version has different opening words, or incipit, from the older version. The older version begins with the words 'Surpassing all other kings', while the standard version has 'He who saw the deep' (ša nagba īmuru), 'deep' referring to the mysteries of the information brought back by Gilgamesh from his meeting with Uta-Napishti (Utnapishtim) about Ea, the fountain of wisdom.^[7] Gilgamesh was given knowledge of how to worship the gods, why death was ordained for human beings, what makes a good king, and how to live a good life. The story of Utnapishtim, the hero of the flood myth, can also be found in the Babylonian Epic of Atrahasis.

The 12th tablet is a sequel to the original 11, and was probably added at a later date. It bears little relation to the well-crafted 11-tablet epic; the lines at the beginning of the first tablet are quoted at the end of the 11th tablet, giving it circularity and finality. Tablet 12 is a near copy of an earlier Sumerian tale, a prequel, in which Gilgamesh sends Enkidu to retrieve some objects of his from the Underworld, and he returns in the form of a spirit to relate the nature of the Underworld to Gilgamesh.

Content of the standard version tablets[edit]

This summary is based on Andrew George's translation.^[7]

Tablet one[edit]

The story introduces Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. Gilgamesh, two-thirds god and one-third man, is oppressing his people, who cry out to the gods for help. For the young women of Uruk this oppression takes the form of a droit du seigneur, or 'lord's right', to sleep with brides on their wedding night. For the young men (the tablet is damaged at this point) it is conjectured that Gilgamesh exhausts them through games, tests of strength, or perhaps forced labour on building projects. The gods respond to the people's pleas by creating an equal to Gilgamesh who will be able to stop his oppression. This is the primitive man, Enkidu, who is covered in hair and lives in the wild with the animals. He is spotted by a trapper, whose livelihood is being ruined because Enkidu is uprooting his traps. The trapper tells the sun-god Shamash about the man, and it is arranged for Enkidu to be seduced by Shamhat, a temple prostitute, his first step towards being tamed. After six days and seven nights (or two weeks, according to more recent scholarship^[19]) of lovemaking and teaching Enkidu about the ways of civilization, she takes Enkidu to a shepherd's camp to learn how to be civilized. Gilgamesh, meanwhile, has been having dreams about the imminent arrival of a beloved new companion and asks his mother, Ninsun, to help interpret these dreams.

Tablet two[edit]

Shamhat brings Enkidu to the shepherds' camp, where he is introduced to a human diet and becomes the night watchman. Learning from a passing stranger about Gilgamesh's treatment of new brides, Enkidu is incensed and travels to Uruk to intervene at a wedding. When Gilgamesh attempts to visit the wedding chamber, Enkidu blocks his way, and they fight. After a fierce battle, Enkidu acknowledges Gilgamesh's superior strength and they become friends. Gilgamesh proposes a journey to the Cedar Forest to slay the monstrous demi-god Humbaba in order to gain fame and renown. Despite warnings from Enkidu and the council of elders, Gilgamesh is not deterred.

Tablet three[edit]

The elders give Gilgamesh advice for his journey. Gilgamesh visits his mother, the goddess Ninsun, who seeks the support and protection of the sun-god Shamash for their adventure. Ninsun adopts Enkidu as her son, and Gilgamesh leaves instructions for the governance of Uruk in his absence.

Tablet four[edit]

Gilgamesh and Enkidu journey to the Cedar Forest. Every few days they camp on a mountain, and perform a dream ritual. Gilgamesh has five terrifying dreams about falling mountains, thunderstorms, wild bulls, and a thunderbird that breathes fire. Despite similarities between his dream figures and earlier descriptions of Humbaba, Enkidu interprets these dreams as good omens, and denies that the frightening images represent the forest guardian. As they approach the cedar mountain, they hear Humbaba bellowing, and have to encourage each other not to be afraid.

Tablet five[edit]

The heroes enter the cedar forest. Humbaba, the guardian of the Cedar Forest, insults and threatens them. He accuses Enkidu of betrayal, and vows to disembowel Gilgamesh and feed his flesh to the birds. Gilgamesh is afraid, but with some encouraging words from Enkidu the battle commences. The mountains quake with the tumult and the sky turns black. The god Shamash sends 13 winds to bind Humbaba, and he is captured. Humbaba pleads for his life, and Gilgamesh pities him. He offers to make Gilgamesh king of the forest, to cut the trees for him, and to be his slave. Enkidu, however, argues that Gilgamesh should kill Humbaba to establish his reputation forever. Humbaba curses them both and Gilgamesh dispatches him with a blow to the neck, as well as killing his seven sons.^[19] The two heroes cut down many cedars, including a gigantic tree that Enkidu plans to fashion into a gate for the temple of Enlil. They build a raft and return home along the Euphrates with the giant tree and (possibly) the head of Humbaba.

Tablet six[edit]

Gilgamesh rejects the advances of the goddess Ishtar because of her mistreatment of previous lovers like Dumuzi. Ishtar asks her father Anu to send Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven, to avenge her. When Anu rejects her complaints, Ishtar threatens to raise the dead who will 'outnumber the living' and 'devour them'. Anu becomes frightened, and gives in to her. Ishtar leads Gugalanna to Uruk, and it causes widespread devastation. It lowers the level of the Euphrates river, and dries up the marshes. It opens up huge pits that swallow 300 men. Without any divine assistance, Enkidu and Gilgamesh attack and slay it, and offer up its heart to Shamash. When Ishtar cries out, Enkidu hurls one of the hindquarters of the bull at her. The city of Uruk celebrates, but Enkidu has an ominous dream about his future failure.

Tablet seven[edit]

In Enkidu's dream, the gods decide that one of the heroes must die because they killed Humbaba and Gugalanna. Despite the protestations of Shamash, Enkidu is marked for death. Enkidu curses the great door he has fashioned for Enlil's temple. He also curses the trapper and Shamhat for removing him from the wild. Shamash reminds Enkidu of how Shamhat fed and clothed him, and introduced him to Gilgamesh. Shamash tells him that Gilgamesh will bestow great honors upon him at his funeral, and will wander into the wild consumed with grief. Enkidu regrets his curses and blesses Shamhat instead. In a second dream, however, he sees himself being taken captive to the Netherworld by a terrifying Angel of Death. The underworld is a 'house of dust' and darkness whose inhabitants eat clay, and are clothed in bird feathers, supervised by terrifying beings. For 12 days, Enkidu's condition worsens. Finally, after a lament that he could not meet a heroic death in battle, he dies. In a famous line from the epic, Gilgamesh clings to Enkidu's body and denies that he has died until a maggot drops from the corpse's nose.

Tablet eight[edit]

Gilgamesh delivers a lament for Enkidu, in which he calls upon mountains, forests, fields, rivers, wild animals, and all of Uruk to mourn for his friend. Recalling their adventures together, Gilgamesh tears at his hair and clothes in grief. He commissions a funerary statue, and provides grave gifts from his treasury to ensure that Enkidu has a favourable reception in the realm of the dead. A great banquet is held where the treasures are offered to the gods of the Netherworld. Just before a break in the text there is a suggestion that a river is being dammed, indicating a burial in a river bed, as in the corresponding Sumerian poem, The Death of Gilgamesh.

Tablet nine[edit]

Tablet nine opens with Gilgamesh roaming the wild wearing animal skins, grieving for Enkidu. Having now become fearful of his own death, he decides to seek Utnapishtim ('the Faraway'), and learn the secret of eternal life. Among the few survivors of the Great Flood, Utnapishtim and his wife are the only humans to have been granted immortality by the gods. Gilgamesh crosses a mountain pass at night and encounters a pride of lions. Before sleeping he prays for protection to the moon god Sin. Then, waking from an encouraging dream, he kills the lions and uses their skins for clothing. After a long and perilous journey, Gilgamesh arrives at the twin peaks of Mount Mashu at the end of the earth. He comes across a tunnel, which no man has ever entered, guarded by two scorpion monsters, who appear to be a married couple. The husband tries to dissuade Gilgamesh from passing, but the wife intervenes, expresses sympathy for Gilgamesh, and (according to the poem's editor Benjamin Foster) allows his passage. He passes under the mountains along the Road of the Sun. In complete darkness he follows the road for 12 'double hours', managing to complete the trip before the Sun catches up with him. He arrives at the Garden of the gods, a paradise full of jewel-laden trees.

Tablet ten[edit]

Daxter psp game. Gilgamesh meets alewifeSiduri, who assumes that he is a murderer or thief because of his disheveled appearance. Gilgamesh tells her about the purpose of his journey. She attempts to dissuade him from his quest, but sends him to Urshanabi the ferryman, who will help him cross the sea to Utnapishtim. Gilgamesh, out of spontaneous rage, destroys the stone charms that Urshanabi keeps with him. He tells him his story, but when he asks for his help, Urshanabi informs him that he has just destroyed the objects that can help them cross the Waters of Death, which are deadly to the touch. Urshanabi instructs Gilgamesh to cut down 120 trees and fashion them into punting poles. When they reach the island where Utnapishtim lives, Gilgamesh recounts his story, asking him for his help. Utnapishtim reprimands him, declaring that fighting the common fate of humans is futile and diminishes life's joys.

Tablet eleven[edit]

Gilgamesh observes that Utnapishtim seems no different from himself, and asks him how he obtained his immortality. Utnapishtim explains that the gods decided to send a great flood. To save Utnapishtim the god Ea told him to build a boat. He gave him precise dimensions, and it was sealed with pitch and bitumen. His entire family went aboard together with his craftsmen and 'all the animals of the field'. A violent storm then arose which caused the terrified gods to retreat to the heavens. Ishtar lamented the wholesale destruction of humanity, and the other gods wept beside her. The storm lasted six days and nights, after which 'all the human beings turned to clay'. Utnapishtim weeps when he sees the destruction. His boat lodges on a mountain, and he releases a dove, a swallow, and a raven. When the raven fails to return, he opens the ark and frees its inhabitants. Utnapishtim offers a sacrifice to the gods, who smell the sweet savor and gather around. Ishtar vows that just as she will never forget the brilliant necklace that hangs around her neck, she will always remember this time. When Enlil arrives, angry that there are survivors, she condemns him for instigating the flood. Ea also castigates him for sending a disproportionate punishment. Enlil blesses Utnapishtim and his wife, and rewards them with eternal life. This account matches the flood story that concludes the Epic of Atra-Hasis (see also Gilgamesh flood myth).

The main point seems to be that when Enlil granted eternal life it was a unique gift. As if to demonstrate this point, Utnapishtim challenges Gilgamesh to stay awake for six days and seven nights. Gilgamesh falls asleep, and Utnapishtim instructs his wife to bake a loaf of bread on each of the days he is asleep, so that he cannot deny his failure to keep awake. Gilgamesh, who is seeking to overcome death, cannot even conquer sleep. After instructing Urshanabi the ferryman to wash Gilgamesh, and clothe him in royal robes, they depart for Uruk.

As they are leaving, Utnapishtim's wife asks her husband to offer a parting gift. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that at the bottom of the sea there lives a boxthorn-like plant that will make him young again. Gilgamesh, by binding stones to his feet so he can walk on the bottom, manages to obtain the plant. Gilgamesh proposes to investigate if the plant has the hypothesized rejuvenation ability by testing it on an old man once he returns to Uruk.

There is a plant that looks like a box-thorn, it has prickles like a dogrose, and will prick one who plucks it. But if you can possess this plant, you'll be again as you were in your youth

This plant, Ur-shanabi, is the 'Plant of Heartbeat', with it a man can regain his vigour. To Uruk-the-sheepfold I will take it, to an ancient I will feed some and put the plant to the test!^[7]:98

Unfortunately, when Gilgamesh stops to bathe, it is stolen by a serpent, who sheds its skin as it departs. Gilgamesh weeps at the futility of his efforts, because he has now lost all chance of immortality. He returns to Uruk, where the sight of its massive walls prompts him to praise this enduring work to Urshanabi.

Tablet twelve[edit]

This tablet is mainly an Akkadian translation of an earlier Sumerian poem, Gilgamesh and the Netherworld (also known as 'Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld' and variants), although it has been suggested that it is derived from an unknown version of that story.^[5]:42 The contents of this last tablet are inconsistent with previous ones: Enkidu is still alive, despite having died earlier in the epic. Because of this, its lack of integration with the other tablets, and the fact that it is almost a copy of an earlier version, it has been referred to as an 'inorganic appendage' to the epic.^[20] Alternatively, it has been suggested that 'its purpose, though crudely handled, is to explain to Gilgamesh (and the reader) the various fates of the dead in the Afterlife' and in 'an awkward attempt to bring closure',^[21] it both connects the Gilgamesh of the epic with the Gilgamesh who is the King of the Netherworld,^[22] and is 'a dramatic capstone whereby the twelve-tablet epic ends on one and the same theme, that of 'seeing' (= understanding, discovery, etc.), with which it began.'^[23]

Gilgamesh complains to Enkidu that various of his possessions (the tablet is unclear exactly what — different translations include a drum and a ball) have fallen into the underworld. Enkidu offers to bring them back. Delighted, Gilgamesh tells Enkidu what he must and must not do in the underworld if he is to return. Enkidu does everything which he was told not to do. The underworld keeps him. Gilgamesh prays to the gods to give him back his friend. Enlil and Suen don't reply, but Ea and Shamash decide to help. Shamash makes a crack in the earth, and Enkidu's ghost jumps out of it. The tablet ends with Gilgamesh questioning Enkidu about what he has seen in the underworld.

Old Babylonian versions[edit]

This version of the epic, called in some fragments Surpassing all other kings, is composed of tablets and fragments from diverse origins and states of conservation.^[7]:101–26 It remains incomplete in its majority, with several tablets missing and big lacunae in those found. They are named after their current location or the place where they were found.

Pennsylvania tablet[edit]

Surpassing all other kings Tablet II, greatly correlates with tablets I-II of the standard version.Gilgamesh tells his mother Ninsun about two dreams he had. His mother explains that they mean that a new companion will soon arrive at Uruk. In the meanwhile the wild Enkidu and the priestess (here called Shamkatum) are making love. She tames him in company of the shepherds by offering him bread and beer. Enkidu helps the shepherds by guarding the sheep. They travel to Uruk to confront Gilgamesh and stop his abuses. Enkidu and Gilgamesh battle but Gilgamesh breaks off the fight. Enkidu praises Gilgamesh.

Yale tablet[edit]

Surpassing all other kings Tablet III, partially matches tablets II-III of the standard version.For reasons unknown (the tablet is partially broken) Enkidu is in a sad mood. In order to cheer him up Gilgamesh suggests going to the Pine Forest to cut down trees and kill Humbaba (known here as Huwawa). Enkidu protests, as he knows Huwawa and is aware of his power. Gilgamesh talks Enkidu into it with some words of encouragement, but Enkidu remains reluctant. They prepare, and call for the elders. The elders also protest, but after Gilgamesh talks to them, they agree to let him go. After Gilgamesh asks his god (Shamash) for protection, and both he and Enkidu equip themselves, they leave with the elder's blessing and counsel.

Philadelphia fragment[edit]

Possibly another version of the contents of the Yale Tablet, practically irrecoverable.

Nippur school tablet[edit]

In the journey to the cedar forest and Huwawa, Enkidu interprets one of Gilgamesh's dreams.

Tell Harmal tablets[edit]

Fragments from two different versions/tablets tell how Enkidu interprets one of Gilgamesh's dreams on the way to the Forest of Cedar, and their conversation when entering the forest.

Ishchali tablet[edit]

After defeating Huwawa, Gilgamesh refrains from slaying him, and urges Enkidu to hunt Huwawa's 'seven auras'. Enkidu convinces him to smite their enemy. After killing Huwawa and the auras, they chop down part of the forest and discover the gods' secret abode. The rest of the tablet is broken.

The auras are not referred to in the standard version, but are in one of the Sumerian poems.

Partial fragment in Baghdad[edit]

Partially overlapping the felling of the trees from the Ishchali tablet.

Sippar tablet[edit]

Partially overlapping the standard version tablets IX–X.Gilgamesh mourns the death of Enkidu wandering in his quest for immortality. Gilgamesh argues with Shamash about the futility of his quest. After a lacuna, Gilgamesh talks to Siduri about his quest and his journey to meet Utnapishtim (here called Uta-na'ishtim). Siduri attempts to dissuade Gilgamesh in his quest for immortality, urging him to be content with the simple pleasures of life.^[3] After one more lacuna, Gilgamesh smashes the 'stone ones' and talks to the ferryman Urshanabi (here called Sur-sunabu). After a short discussion, Sur-sunabu asks him to carve 300 oars so that they may cross the waters of death without needing the 'stone ones'. The rest of the tablet is missing.

The text on the Old Babylonian Meissner fragment (the larger surviving fragment of the Sippar tablet) has been used to reconstruct possible earlier forms of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and it has been suggested that a 'prior form of the story – earlier even than that preserved on the Old Babylonian fragment – may well have ended with Siduri sending Gilgamesh back to Uruk..' and 'Utnapistim was not originally part of the tale.'^[24]

Sumerian poems[edit]

There are five extant Gilgamesh stories in the form of older poems in Sumerian.^{[7]:141–208} These probably circulated independently, rather than being in the form of a unified epic. Some of the names of the main characters in these poems differ slightly from later Akkadian names; for example, 'Bilgamesh' is written instead of 'Gilgamesh', and there are some differences in the underlying stories such as the fact that Enkidu is Gilgamesh's servant in the Sumerian version:

1. The lord to the Living One's Mountain and Ho, hurrah! correspond to the Cedar Forest episode (standard version tablets II–V). Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel with other men to the Forest of Cedar. There, trapped by Huwawa, Gilgamesh tricks him (with Enkidu's assistance in one of the versions) into giving up his auras, thus losing his power.
2. Hero in battle corresponds to the Bull of Heaven episode (standard version tablet VI) in the Akkadian version. The Bull's voracious appetite causes drought and hardship in the land while Gilgamesh feasts. Lugalbanda convinces him to face the beast and fights it alongside Enkidu.
3. The envoys of Akka has no corresponding episode in the epic, but the themes of whether to show mercy to captives, and counsel from the city elders, also occur in the standard version of the Humbaba story. In the poem, Uruk faces a siege from a Kish army led by King Akka, whom Gilgamesh defeats and forgives.
4. In those days, in those far-off days, otherwise known as Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld, is the source for the Akkadian translation included as tablet XII in the standard version, telling of Enkidu's journey to the Netherworld. It is also the main source of information for the Sumerian creation myth and the story of 'Inanna and the Huluppu Tree'.^[25]
5. The great wild bull is lying down, a poem about Gilgamesh's death, burial and consecration as a semigod, reigning and giving judgement over the dead. After dreaming of how the gods decide his fate after death, Gilgamesh takes counsel, prepares his funeral and offers gifts to the gods. Once deceased, he is buried under the Euphrates, taken off its course and later returned to it.

Later influence[edit]

Relationship to the Bible[edit]

Various themes, plot elements, and characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh have counterparts in the Hebrew Bible—notably, the accounts of the Garden of Eden, the advice from Ecclesiastes, and the Genesis flood narrative.

Garden of Eden[edit]

The parallels between the stories of Enkidu/Shamhat and Adam/Eve have been long recognized by scholars.^[26][27] In both, a man is created from the soil by a god, and lives in a natural setting amongst the animals. He is introduced to a woman who tempts him. In both stories the man accepts food from the woman, covers his nakedness, and must leave his former realm, unable to return. The presence of a snake that steals a plant of immortality from the hero later in the epic is another point of similarity.

Advice from Ecclesiastes[edit]

Several scholars suggest direct borrowing of Siduri's advice by the author of Ecclesiastes.^[28]

A rare proverb about the strength of a triple-stranded rope, 'a triple-stranded rope is not easily broken', is common to both books.

Noah's flood[edit]

Andrew George submits that the Genesis flood narrative matches that in Gilgamesh so closely that 'few doubt' that it derives from a Mesopotamian account.^[29] What is particularly noticeable is the way the Genesis flood story follows the Gilgamesh flood tale 'point by point and in the same order', even when the story permits other alternatives.^[30] In a 2001 Torah commentary released on behalf of the Conservative Movement of Judaism, rabbinic scholar Robert Wexler stated: 'The most likely assumption we can make is that both Genesis and Gilgamesh drew their material from a common tradition about the flood that existed in Mesopotamia. These stories then diverged in the retelling.'^[31]Ziusudra, Utnapishtim and Noah are the respective heroes of the Sumerian, Akkadian and biblical flood legends of the ancient Near East.

Additional biblical parallels[edit]

Matthias Henze suggests that Nebuchadnezzar's madness in the biblical Book of Daniel draws on the Epic of Gilgamesh. He claims that the author uses elements from the description of Enkidu to paint a sarcastic and mocking portrait of the king of Babylon.^[32]

Many characters in the Epic have mythical biblical parallels, most notably Ninti, the Sumerian goddess of life, was created from Enki's rib to heal him after he had eaten forbidden flowers. It is suggested that this story served as the basis for the story of Eve created from Adam's rib in the Book of Genesis.^[33]Esther J. Hamori, in Echoes of Gilgamesh in the Jacob Story, also claims that the myth of Jacob and Esau is paralleled with the wrestling match between Gilgamesh and Enkidu.^[34]

Book of Giants[edit]

Gilgamesh is mentioned in one version of The Book of Giants which is related to the Book of Enoch presumably written by biblical grandfather of Noah. The Book of Giants version found at Qumran mentions the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh and the monster Humbaba with the Watchers and giants.^[35]

Influence on Homer[edit]

Numerous scholars have drawn attention to various themes, episodes, and verses, indicating that the Epic of Gilgamesh had a substantial influence on both of the epic poems ascribed to Homer. These influences are detailed by Martin Litchfield West in The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth.^[36] According to Tzvi Abusch of Brandeis University, the poem 'combines the power and tragedy of the Iliad with the wanderings and marvels of the Odyssey. It is a work of adventure, but is no less a meditation on some fundamental issues of human existence.'^[37]

In popular culture[edit]

The Epic of Gilgamesh has inspired many works of literature, art, and music, as Theodore Ziolkowski points out in his book Gilgamesh Among Us: Modern Encounters With the Ancient Epic (2011).^[38][39] It was only after World War I that the Gilgamesh epic reached a modern audience, and only after World War II that it was featured in a variety of genres.^[39]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

1. ^'Gilgamesh'. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
2. ^Krstovic, Jelena O., ed. (2005). Epic of Gilgamesh Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. 74. Detroit, MI: Gale. ISBN9780787680213. OCLC644697404.
3. ^ ^abThrower, James (1980). The Alternative Tradition: A Study of Unbelief in the Ancient World. The Hague, The Netherlands: Mouton Publishers.
4. ^Frankfort, Henri (1974) [1949]. 'Chapter VII: Mesopotamia: The Good Life'. Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, an essay on speculative thought in the ancient near East. Penguin. p. 226. OCLC225040700.
5. ^ ^abcdeDalley, Stephanie, ed. (2000). Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-953836-2.
6. ^Mitchell, T.C. (1988). The Bible in the British Museum. The British Museum Press. p. 70.
7. ^ ^abcdefGeorge, Andrew R. (2003) [1999, 2000]. The Epic of Gilgamesh: the Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian. Penguin Classics (Third ed.). London: Penguin Books. ISBN978-0-14-044919-8. OCLC901129328. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
8. ^Abusch, T. (1993). 'Gilgamesh's Request and Siduri's Denial. Part I: The Meaning of the Dialogue and Its Implications for the History of the Epic'. The Tablet and the Scroll; Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William W. Hallo. CDL Press. pp. 1–14.
9. ^George, Andrew R. (2008). 'Shattered tablets and tangled threads: Editing Gilgamesh, then and now'. SOAS University of London. p. 11. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
10. ^George, Andrew R. (2008). 'Shattered tablets and tangled threads: Editing Gilgamesh, then and now'. SOAS University of London. p. 2. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
11. ^'The New York Times'. The New York Times. front page. 22 December 1872.
12. ^George, Andrew R. (2008). 'Shattered tablets and tangled threads: Editing Gilgamesh, then and now'. SOAS University of London. p. 1. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
13. ^Smith, George (3 December 1872). 'The Chaldean Account of the Deluge'. Sacred-Texts.com.
14. ^Mawr, Bryn (21 April 2004). 'Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2004.04.21'. Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
15. ^Jarman, Mark (1 January 2005). Mitchell, Stephen (ed.). 'When the Light Came on: The Epic Gilgamesh'. The Hudson Review. 58 (2): 329–34. JSTOR30044781.
16. ^Mitchell, Stephen (24 January 2006). Gilgamesh: A New English Version. Simon and Schuster. ISBN978-0-7432-6169-2. Retrieved 9 November 2012.
17. ^'First lines of oldest epic poem found'. The Independent. 16 November 1998. Retrieved 16 September 2019.
18. ^Evans, Barry. 'It Was a Dark and Stormy Night'. North Coast Journal. Retrieved 16 September 2019.
19. ^ ^abAl-Rawi, F. N. H.; George, A. R. (2014). 'Back to the Cedar Forest: The Beginning and End of Tablet V of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgameš'(PDF). Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 66: 69–90. doi:10.5615/jcunestud.66.2014.0069. JSTOR10.5615/jcunestud.66.2014.0069.
20. ^Maier, John R. (1997). Gilgamesh: A reader. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. p. 136. ISBN978-0-86516-339-3.
21. ^Patton, Laurie L.; Doniger, Wendy (1996). Myth and Method. University of Virginia Press. p. 306. ISBN978-0-8139-1657-6.
22. ^Kovacs, Maureen (1989). The Epic of Gilgamesh. University of Stanford Press. p. 117. ISBN978-0-8047-1711-3.
23. ^van Driel, G.; Krispijn, Th. J. H.; Stol, M.; Veenhof, K. R., eds. (1982). Zikir Šumim: Assyriological Studies Presented to F.R. Kraus on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday. p. 131. ISBN978-90-6258-126-9.
24. ^Abusch, T. Gilgamesh's Request and Siduri's Denial. Part I: The Meaning of the Dialogue and Its Implications for the History of the Epic. 11.05 MB The Tablet and the Scroll; Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William W. Hallo, 1–14. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
25. ^Kramer, Samuel Noah (1961). Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C.: Revised Edition. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 30–41. ISBN978-0-8122-1047-7. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
26. ^Gmirkin, Russell (2006). Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus. Continuum. p. 103.
27. ^Blenkinsopp, Joseph (2004). Treasures old and new. Eerdmans. pp. 93–95.
28. ^Van Der Torn, Karel (February 2000). 'Did Ecclesiastes copy Gilgamesh?'. Bible Review. 16. p. 22ff. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
29. ^George, A. R. (2003). The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts. Oxford University Press. pp. 70–. ISBN978-0-19-927841-1. Retrieved 8 November 2012.
30. ^Rendsburg, Gary. 'The Biblical flood story in the light of the Gilgamesh flood account,' in Gilgamesh and the world of Assyria, eds Azize, J & Weeks, N. Peters, 2007, p. 117
31. ^Wexler, Robert (2001). Ancient Near Eastern Mythology.
32. ^Leiden, Brill (1999). The Madness of King Nebuchadnezzar..
33. ^Meagher, Robert Emmet (1995). The meaning of Helen: in search of an ancient icon. United States: Bolchazy-Carducci Pubs (IL). ISBN978-0-86516-510-6.
34. ^Hamori, Esther J. (Winter 2011). 'Echoes of Gilgamesh in the Jacob Story'. Journal of Biblical Literature. 130 (4): 625–642. doi:10.2307/23488271. JSTOR23488271.
35. ^https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/divinity/rt/otp/abstracts/bgiants/
36. ^West, Martin Litchfield (2003) [1997]. The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 334–402. ISBN978-0198152217. OCLC441880596.
37. ^Abusch, Tzvi (December 2001). 'The Development and Meaning of the Epic of Gilgamesh: An Interpretive Essay'. Journal of the American Oriental Society. 121 (4): 614–22. Bibcode:1964JAOS..84.128H. doi:10.2307/606502. JSTOR606502.
38. ^Ziolkowski, Theodore (8 December 2011). Gilgamesh Among Us: Modern Encounters With the Ancient Epic. Cornell Univ Pr. ISBN978-0-8014-5035-8.
39. ^ ^abZiolkowski, Theodore (1 November 2011). 'Gilgamesh: An Epic Obsession'. Berfrois. Retrieved 18 October 2017.

Bibliography[edit]

Translations[edit]

• Jastrow, Morris; Clay, Albert Tobias (2016). An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic: On the Basis of Recently Discovered Texts. Cambridge Library Collection – Archaeology. ISBN978-1108081276.
• Jastrow, M.; Clay, A. (1920). An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic: On the Basis of Recently Discovered Texts.
• Sandars, N. K. (2006). The Epic of Gilgamesh. Penguin Epics, Penguin Classics. London: Penguin. ISBN978-0-14-102628-2.: re-print of the Penguin Classic translation (in prose) by N. K. Sandars 1960 (ISBN0-14-044100-X) without the introduction.
• Kovacs, Maureen Gallery, transl. with intro. (1985). The Epic of Gilgamesh. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN978-0-8047-1711-3.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Glossary, Appendices, Appendix (Chapter XII=Tablet XII). A line-by-line translation (Chapters I-XI).
• Parpola, Simo (1997). The Standard Babylonian, Epic of Gilgamesh. Mikko Luuko and Kalle Fabritius. The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. ISBN978-951-45-7760-4.: (Volume 1) in the original Akkadian cuneiform and transliteration; commentary and glossary are in English
• Foster, Benjamin R., trans. & edit. (2001). The Epic of Gilgamesh. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN978-0-393-97516-1.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• George, Andrew R. (2003). George, Andrew R. (ed.). The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts. translated by Andrew R. George. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-814922-4.

Versions[edit]

• Ferry, David (1993). Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN978-0-374-52383-1.
• Jackson, Danny (1997). The Epic of Gilgamesh. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. ISBN978-0-86516-352-2.
• Mason, Herbert (2003) [1970, 1972]. Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative. Boston: Mariner Books. ISBN978-0-618-27564-9. First published in 1970 by Houghton Mifflin; Mentor Books paperback published 1972.
• Mitchell, Stephen (2004). Gilgamesh: A New English Version. New York: Free Press. ISBN978-0-7432-6164-7.

Analysis[edit]

• Jacobsen, Thorkild (1976). The Treasures of Darkness, A History of Mesopotamian Religion. Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-300-01844-8.
• Tigay, Jeffrey H. (1982). The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN978-0-8122-7805-7.
• Kluger, Rivkah (1991). The Gilgamesh Epic: A Psychological Study of a Modern Ancient Hero. Daimon. ISBN978-3-85630-523-9.
• West, Martin Litchfield (1991). The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth. Clarendon Press. ISBN978-0-19-815042-8.
• Best, Robert (1999). Noah's Ark and the Ziusudra Epic. Eisenbrauns. ISBN978-0-9667840-1-5.
• Damrosch, David (2007). The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh. Henry Holt and Co.ISBN978-0-8050-8029-2.

External links[edit]

• Translations of the legends of Gilgamesh in the Sumerian language can be found in Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Fluckiger-Hawker, E, Robson, E., and Zólyomi, G., The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, Oxford 1998–
  • Gilgamesh and Huwawa, version A
  • Gilgamesh and Huwawa, version B
• An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic by Anonymous at Project Gutenberg, edited by Morris Jastrow, translated by Albert T. Clay
• Gilgamesh by Richard Hooker (wsu.edu)
• The Epic of Gilgamesh, Complete Academic Translation by R. Campbell Thompson
• The Epic of Gilgamesh by Kovacs, M.G.

Epic Of Gilgamesh Free Online

Gilgamesh^[a] was a historical king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk, a major hero in ancient Mesopotamian mythology, and the protagonist of the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem written in Akkadian during the late second millennium BC. He probably ruled sometime between 2800 and 2500 BC and was posthumously deified. He became a major figure in Sumerian legends during the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112 – c. 2004 BC). Tales of Gilgamesh's legendary exploits are narrated in five surviving Sumerian poems. The earliest of these is probably Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld, in which Gilgamesh comes to the aid of the goddess Inanna and drives away the creatures infesting her huluppu tree. She gives him two unknown objects called a mikku and a pikku, which he loses. After Enkidu's death, his shade tells Gilgamesh about the bleak conditions in the Underworld. The poem Gilgamesh and Agga describes Gilgamesh's revolt against his overlord King Agga. Other Sumerian poems relate Gilgamesh's defeat of the ogre Huwawa and the Bull of Heaven and a fifth, poorly preserved one apparently describes his death and funeral.

In later Babylonian times, these stories began to be woven into a connected narrative. The standard Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh was composed by a scribe named Sîn-lēqi-unninni, probably during the Middle Babylonian Period (c. 1600 – c. 1155 BC), based on much older source material. In the epic, Gilgamesh is a demigod of superhuman strength who befriends the wildman Enkidu. Together, they go on adventures, defeating Humbaba (the East Semitic name for Huwawa) and the Bull of Heaven, who, in the epic, is sent to attack them by Ishtar (the East Semitic equivalent of Inanna) after Gilgamesh rejects her offer for him to become her consort. After Enkidu dies of a disease sent as punishment from the gods, Gilgamesh becomes afraid of his own death, and visits the sage Utnapishtim, the survivor of the Great Flood, hoping to find immortality. Gilgamesh repeatedly fails the trials set before him and returns home to Uruk, realizing that immortality is beyond his reach.

Most classical historians agree that the Epic of Gilgamesh exerted substantial influence on both the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems written in ancient Greek during the eighth century BC. The story of Gilgamesh's birth is described in a second-century AD anecdote from On the Nature of Animals by the Greek writer Aelian. Aelian relates that Gilgamesh's grandfather kept his mother under guard to prevent her from becoming pregnant, because he had been told by an oracle that his grandson would overthrow him. She became pregnant and the guards threw the child off a tower, but an eagle rescued him mid-fall and delivered him safely to an orchard, where he was raised by the gardener. The Epic of Gilgamesh was rediscovered in the Library of Ashurbanipal in 1849. After being translated in the early 1870s, it caused widespread controversy due to similarities between portions of it and the Hebrew Bible. Gilgamesh remained mostly obscure until the mid-twentieth century, but, since the late twentieth-century, he has become an increasingly prominent figure in modern culture.

• 2Deification and legendary exploits
• 3Later influence
• 6References

Historical king[edit]

Most historians generally agree that Gilgamesh was a historical king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk,^[6][7][8][9] who probably ruled sometime during the early part of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2900 – 2350 BC).^[6][7]Stephanie Dalley, a scholar of the ancient Near East, states that 'precise dates cannot be given for the lifetime of Gilgamesh, but they are generally agreed to lie between 2800 and 2500 BC.'^[7] No contemporary mention of Gilgamesh has yet been discovered,^[8] but the 1955 discovery of the Tummal Inscription, a thirty-four-line historiographic text written during the reign of Ishbi-Erra (c. 1953 – c. 1920 BC), has cast considerable light on his reign.^[8] The inscription credits Gilgamesh with building the walls of Uruk.^[10] Lines eleven through fifteen of the inscription read:^[11]

For a second time, the Tummal fell into ruin,
Gilgamesh built the Numunburra of the House of Enlil.
Ur-lugal, the son of Gilgamesh,
Made the Tummal pre-eminent,
Brought Ninlil to the Tummal.^[11]

Gilgamesh is also referred to as a king by King Enmebaragesi of Kish, a known historical figure who may have lived near Gilgamesh's lifetime.^[10] Furthermore, Gilgamesh is listed as one of the kings of Uruk by the Sumerian King List.^[10] Fragments of an epic text found in Me-Turan (modern Tell Haddad) relate that at the end of his life Gilgamesh was buried under the river bed.^[10] The people of Uruk diverted the flow of the Euphrates passing Uruk for the purpose of burying the dead king within the river bed.^[12][10]

Deification and legendary exploits[edit]

Sumerian poems[edit]

It is certain that, during the later Early Dynastic Period, Gilgamesh was worshipped as a god at various locations across Sumer.^[6] In the twenty-first century BC, Utu-hengal, the king of Uruk, adopted Gilgamesh as his patron deity.^[6] The kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112 – c. 2004 BC) were especially fond of Gilgamesh,^[6][10] calling him their 'divine brother' and 'friend'.^[6] King Shulgi of Ur (2029–1982 BC) declared himself the son of Lugalbanda and Ninsun and the brother of Gilgamesh.^[10] Over the centuries, there may have been a gradual accretion of stories about Gilgamesh, some possibly derived from the real lives of other historical figures, such as Gudea, the Second Dynasty ruler of Lagash (2144–2124 BC).^[16] Prayers inscribed in clay tablets address Gilgamesh as a judge of the dead in the Underworld.^[10]

During this period, a large number of myths and legends developed surrounding Gilgamesh.^{[6][17][18]:95[19]} Five independent Sumerian poems narrating various exploits of Gilgamesh have survived to the present.^[6] Gilgamesh's first appearance in literature is probably in the Sumerian poem Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld.^[20][10][21] The narrative begins with a huluppu tree—perhaps, according to the Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer, a willow,^[22] growing on the banks of the river Euphrates.^[22][10][23] The goddess Inanna moves the tree to her garden in Uruk with the intention to carve it into a throne once it is fully grown.^[22][10][23] The tree grows and matures, but the serpent 'who knows no charm,' the Anzû-bird, and Lilitu, the Sumerian forerunner to the Lilith of Jewish folklore, all take up residence within the tree, causing Inanna to cry with sorrow.^[22][10][23] Gilgamesh, who in this story is portrayed as Inanna's brother, comes along and slays the serpent, causing the Anzû-bird and Lilitu to flee.^[24][10][23] Gilgamesh's companions chop down the tree and carve its wood into a bed and a throne, which they give to Inanna.^[25][10][23] Inanna responds by fashioning a pikku and a mikku (probably a drum and drumsticks respectively, although the exact identifications are uncertain),^[26][10] which she gives to Gilgamesh as a reward for his heroism.^[27][10][23] Gilgamesh loses the pikku and mikku and asks who will retrieve them.^[28] Enkidu descends to the Underworld to find them,^[29] but disobeys the strict laws of the Underworld and is therefore required to remain there forever.^[29] The remaining portion of the poem is a dialogue in which Gilgamesh asks the shade of Enkidu questions about the Underworld.^[6][28]

Gilgamesh and Agga describes Gilgamesh's successful revolt against his overlord Agga, the king of the city-state of Kish.^[6][30]Gilgamesh and Huwawa describes how Gilgamesh and his servant Enkidu, aided by the help of fifty volunteers from Uruk, defeat the monster Huwawa, an ogre appointed by the god Enlil, the ruler of the gods, as the guardian of the Cedar Forest.^[6][31][32] In Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven, Gilgamesh and Enkidu slay the Bull of Heaven, who has been sent to attack them by the goddess Inanna.^[6][33][34] The plot of this poem differs substantially from the corresponding scene in the later Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh.^[35] In the Sumerian poem, Inanna does not seem to ask Gilgamesh to become her consort as she does in the later Akkadian epic.^[33] Furthermore, while she is coercing her father An to give her the Bull of Heaven, rather than threatening to raise the dead to eat the living as she does in the later epic, she merely threatens to let out a 'cry' that will reach the earth.^[35] A poem known as the Death of Gilgamesh is very poorly preserved,^[6][36] but appears to describe a major state funeral followed by the arrival of the deceased in the Underworld.^[6] It is possible that the modern scholars who gave the poem its title may have misinterpreted it,^[6] and the poem may actually be about the death of Enkidu.^[6]

Epic of Gilgamesh[edit]

Eventually, according to Kramer, 'Gilgamesh became the hero par excellence of the ancient world—an adventurous, brave, but tragic figure symbolizing man's vain but endless drive for fame, glory, and immortality'.^[17] By the Old Babylonian Period (c. 1830 – c. 1531 BC), stories of Gilgamesh's legendary exploits had been woven into one or several long epics.^[6] The Epic of Gilgamesh, the most complete account of Gilgamesh's adventures, was composed in Akkadian during the Middle Babylonian Period (c. 1600 – c. 1155 BC) by a scribe named Sîn-lēqi-unninni.^[6] The most complete surviving version of the Epic of Gilgamesh is recorded on a set of twelve clay tablets dating to the seventh century BC, found in the Library of Ashurbanipal in the Assyrian capital of Nineveh.^[6][10][41] The epic survives only in a fragmentary form, with many pieces of it missing or damaged.^[6][10][41] Some scholars and translators choose to supplement the missing parts of the epic with material from the earlier Sumerian poems or from other versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh found at other sites throughout the Near East.^[6]

In the epic, Gilgamesh is introduced as 'two thirds divine and one third mortal'.^[42] At the beginning of the poem, Gilgamesh is described as a brutal, oppressive ruler.^[6][42] This is usually interpreted to mean either that he compels all his subjects to engage in forced labor^[6] or that he sexually oppresses all his subjects.^[6] As punishment for Gilgamesh's cruelty, the god Anu creates the wildman Enkidu.^[43] After being tamed by a prostitute named Shamhat, Enkidu travels to Uruk to confront Gilgamesh.^[38] In the second tablet, the two men wrestle and, although Gilgamesh wins the match in the end,^[38] he is so impressed by his opponent's strength and tenacity that they become close friends.^[38] In the earlier Sumerian texts, Enkidu is Gilgamesh's servant,^[38] but, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, they are companions of equal standing.^[38]

In tablets III through IV, Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel to the Cedar Forest, which is guarded by Humbaba (the Akkadian name for Huwawa).^[38] The heroes cross the seven mountains to the Cedar Forest, where they begin chopping down trees.^[44] Confronted by Humbaba, Gilgamesh panics and prays to Shamash (the East Semitic name for Utu),^[44] who blows eight winds in Humbaba's eyes, blinding him.^[44] Humbaba begs for mercy, but the heroes decapitate him regardless.^[44] Tablet VI begins with Gilgamesh returning to Uruk,^[38] where Ishtar (the Akkadian name for Inanna) comes to him and demands him to become her consort.^[38][44][45] Gilgamesh repudiates her, insisting that she has mistreated all her former lovers.^[38][44][45] In revenge, Ishtar goes to her father Anu and demands that he give her the Bull of Heaven,^[46][47][35] which she sends to attack Gilgamesh.^{[38][46][47][35]} Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Bull and offer its heart to Shamash.^[48][47] While Gilgamesh and Enkidu are resting, Ishtar stands up on the walls of Uruk and curses Gilgamesh.^[48][49] Enkidu tears off the Bull's right thigh and throws it in Ishtar's face,^[48][49] saying, 'If I could lay my hands on you, it is this I should do to you, and lash your entrails to your side.'^[50][49] Ishtar calls together 'the crimped courtesans, prostitutes and harlots'^[48] and orders them to mourn for the Bull of Heaven.^[48][49] Meanwhile, Gilgamesh holds a celebration over the Bull of Heaven's defeat.^[51][49]

Tablet VII begins with Enkidu recounting a dream in which he saw Anu, Ea, and Shamash declare that either Gilgamesh or Enkidu must die as punishment for having slain the Bull of Heaven.^[38] They choose Enkidu and Enkidu soon grows sick.^[38] He has a dream of the Underworld and then he dies.^[38] Tablet VIII describes Gilgamesh's inconsolable grief over his friend's death^[38][52] and the details of Enkidu's funeral.^[38] Tablets IX through XI relate how Gilgamesh, driven by grief and fear of his own mortality, travels a great distance and overcomes many obstacles to find the home of Utnapishtim, the sole survivor of the Great Flood, who was rewarded with immortality by the gods.^[38][52]

The journey to Utnapishtim involves a series of episodic challenges, which probably originated as major independent adventures,^[52] but, in the epic, they are reduced to what Joseph Eddy Fontenrose calls 'fairly harmless incidents.'^[52] First, Gilgamesh encounters and slays lions in the mountain pass.^[52] Upon reaching the mountain of Mashu, Gilgamesh encounters a scorpion man and his wife;^[52] their bodies flash with terrifying radiance,^[52] but, once Gilgamesh tells them his purpose, they allow him to pass.^[52] Gilgamesh wanders through darkness for twelve days before he finally comes into the light.^[52] He finds a beautiful garden by the sea in which he meets Siduri, the divine barmaid.^[52] At first she tries to prevent Gilgamesh from entering the garden,^[52] but later she instead attempts to persuade him to accept death as inevitable and not journey beyond the waters.^[52] When Gilgamesh refuses to do this, she directs him to Urshanabi, the ferryman of the gods, who ferries Gilgamesh across the sea to Utnapishtim's homeland.^[52] When Gilgamesh finally arrives at Utnapishtim's home, Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that, to become immortal, he must defy sleep.^[38] Gilgamesh fails to do this and falls asleep for seven days without waking.^[38]

Next, Utnapishtim tells him that, even if he cannot obtain immortality, he can restore his youth using a plant with the power of rejuvenation.^[38][23] Gilgamesh takes the plant, but leaves it on the shore while swimming and a snake steals it, explaining why snakes are able to shed their skins.^[38][23] Despondent at this loss, Gilgamesh returns to Uruk,^[38] and shows his city to the ferryman Urshanabi.^[38] It is at that this point that the epic stops being a coherent narrative.^[38][23][53] Tablet XII is an appendix corresponding to the Sumerian poem of Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld describing the loss of the pikku and mikku.^[38][23][53] Numerous elements within this narrative reveal lack of continuity with the earlier portions of the epic.^[53] At the beginning of Tablet XII, Enkidu is still alive, despite having previously died in Tablet VII,^[53] and Gilgamesh is kind to Ishtar, despite the violent rivalry between them displayed in Tablet VI.^[53] Also, while most of the parts of the epic are free adaptations of their respective Sumerian predecessors,^[54] Tablet XII is a literal, word-for-word translation of the last part of Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld.^[54] For these reasons, scholars conclude this narrative was probably relegated to the end of the epic because it did not fit the larger narrative.^[38][23][53] In it, Gilgamesh sees a vision of Enkidu's ghost, who promises to recover the lost items^[38][28] and describes to his friend the abysmal condition of the Underworld.^[38][28]

In Mesopotamian art[edit]

Although stories about Gilgamesh were wildly popular throughout ancient Mesopotamia,^[55] authentic representations of him in ancient art are extremely rare.^[55] Popular works often identify depictions of a hero with long hair, containing four or six curls, as representations of Gilgamesh,^[55] but this identification is known to be incorrect.^[55] A few genuine ancient Mesopotamian representations of Gilgamesh do exist, however.^[55] These representations are mostly found on clay plaques and cylinder seals.^[55] Generally, it is only possible to identify a figure shown in art as Gilgamesh if the artistic work in question clearly depicts a scene from the Epic of Gilgamesh itself.^[55] One set of representations of Gilgamesh is found in scenes of two heroes fighting a demonic giant, certainly Humbaba.^[55] Another set is found in scenes showing a similar pair of heroes confronting a giant, winged bull, certainly the Bull of Heaven.^[55]

Later influence[edit]

In antiquity[edit]

The Epic of Gilgamesh exerted substantial influence on the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems written in ancient Greek during the eighth century BC.^{[57][56][58][59]} According to Barry B. Powell, an American classical scholar, early Greeks were probably exposed to Mesopotamian oral traditions through their extensive connections to the civilizations of the ancient Near East^[9] and this exposure resulted in the similarities that are seen between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Homeric epics.^[9]Walter Burkert, a German classicist, observes that the scene in Tablet VI of the Epic of Gilgamesh in which Gilgamesh rejects Ishtar's advances and she complains before her mother Antu, but is mildly rebuked by her father Anu, is directly paralleled in Book V of the Iliad.^[60] In this scene, Aphrodite, the later Greek adaptation of Ishtar, is wounded by the hero Diomedes and flees to Mount Olympus, where she cries to her mother Dione and is mildly rebuked by her father Zeus.^[60]

Powell observes that the opening lines of the Odyssey seem to echo the opening lines of the Epic of Gilgamesh.^[42] The storyline of the Odyssey likewise bears numerous similarities to that of the Epic of Gilgamesh.^[61][62] Both Gilgamesh and Odysseus encounter a woman who can turn men into animals: Ishtar (for Gilgamesh) and Circe (for Odysseus).^[61] In the Odyssey, Odysseus blinds a giant Cyclops named Polyphemus,^[56] an incident which bears similarities to Gilgamesh's slaying of Humbaba in the Epic of Gilgamesh.^[56] Both Gilgamesh and Odysseus visit the Underworld^[61] and both find themselves unhappy whilst living in an otherworldly paradise in the presence of an attractive woman: Siduri (for Gilgamesh) and Calypso (for Odysseus).^[61] Finally, both heroes have an opportunity for immortality but miss it (Gilgamesh when he loses the plant, and Odysseus when he leaves Calypso's island).^[61]

In the Qumran scroll known as Book of Giants (c. 100 BC) the names of Gilgamesh and Humbaba appear as two of the antediluvian giants,^[63][64] rendered (in consonantal form) as glgmš and ḩwbbyš. This same text was later used in the Middle East by the Manichaean sects, and the Arabic form Gilgamish/Jiljamish survives as the name of a demon according to the Egyptian clericAl-Suyuti (c. 1500).^[63]

The story of Gilgamesh's birth is not recorded in any extant Sumerian or Akkadian text,^[55] but a version of it is described in De Natura Animalium (On the Nature of Animals) 12.21, a commonplace book which was written in Greek sometime around 200 AD by the Hellenized Roman orator Aelian.^[65][55] According to Aelian's story, an oracle told King Seuechoros of the Babylonians that his grandson Gilgamos would overthrow him.^[55] To prevent this, Seuechoros kept his only daughter under close guard at the Acropolis of the city of Babylon,^[55] but she became pregnant nonetheless.^[55] Fearing the king's wrath, the guards hurled the infant off the top of a tall tower.^[55] An eagle rescued the boy in midflight and carried him to an orchard, where it carefully set him down.^[55] The caretaker of the orchard found the boy and raised him, naming him Gilgamos (Γίλγαμος).^[55] Eventually, Gilgamos returned to Babylon and overthrew his grandfather, proclaiming himself king.^[55] The birth narrative described by Aelian is in the same tradition as other Near Eastern birth legends,^[55] such as those of Sargon, Moses, and Cyrus.^[55]Theodore Bar Konai (c. AD 600), writing in Syriac, also mentions a king Gligmos, Gmigmos or Gamigos as last of a line of twelve kings who were contemporaneous with the patriarchs from Peleg to Abraham; this occurrence is also considered a vestige of Gilgamesh's former memory.^[66][67]

Modern rediscovery[edit]

The Akkadian text of the Epic of Gilgamesh was first discovered in 1849 AD by the English archaeologist Austen Henry Layard in the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh.^{[10][41][18]:95} Layard was seeking evidence to confirm the historicity of the events described in the Christian Old Testament,^[10] which, at the time, was believed to contain the oldest texts in the world.^[10] Instead, his excavations and those of others after him revealed the existence of much older Mesopotamian texts^[10] and showed that many of the stories in the Old Testament may actually be derived from earlier myths told throughout the ancient Near East.^[10] The first translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh was produced in the early 1870s by George Smith, a scholar at the British Museum,^[68][70][71] who published the Flood story from Tablet XI in 1880 under the title The Chaldean Account of Genesis.^[68] Gilgamesh's name was originally misread as Izdubar.^[68][72][73]

Early interest in the Epic of Gilgamesh was almost exclusively on account of the flood story from Tablet XI.^[74] The flood story attracted enormous public attention and drew widespread scholarly controversy, while the rest of the epic was largely ignored.^[74] Most attention towards the Epic of Gilgamesh in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries came from German-speaking countries,^[75] where controversy raged over the relationship between Babel und Bibel ('Babylon and Bible').^[76] In January 1902, the German Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch gave a lecture at the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin in front of the Kaiser and his wife, in which he argued that the Flood story in the Book of Genesis was directly copied off the one in the Epic of Gilgamesh.^[74] Delitzsch's lecture was so controversial that, by September 1903, he had managed to collect 1,350 short articles from newspapers and journals, over 300 longer ones, and twenty-eight pamphlets, all written in response to this lecture, as well as another lecture about the relationship between the Code of Hammurabi and the Law of Moses in the Torah.^[77] These articles were overwhelmingly critical of Delitzsch.^[77] The Kaiser distanced himself from Delitzsch and his radical views^[77] and, in fall of 1904, Delitzsch was forced to give his third lecture in Cologne and Frankfurt am Main rather than in Berlin.^[77] The putative relationship between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Hebrew Bible later became a major part of Delitzsch's argument in his 1920–21 book Die große Täuschung (The Great Deception) that the Hebrew Bible was irredeemably 'contaminated' by Babylonian influence^[74] and that only by eliminating the human Old Testament entirely could Christians finally believe in the true, Aryan message of the New Testament.^[74]

Early modern interpretations[edit]

The first modern literary adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh was Ishtar and Izdubar (1884) by Leonidas Le Cenci Hamilton, an American lawyer and businessman.^[78] Hamilton had rudimentary knowledge of Akkadian, which he had learned from Archibald Sayce's 1872 Assyrian Grammar for Comparative Purposes.^[79] Hamilton's book relied heavily on Smith's translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh,^[79] but also made major changes.^[79] For instance, Hamilton omitted the famous flood story entirely^[79] and instead focused on the romantic relationship between Ishtar and Gilgamesh.^[79]Ishtar and Izdubar expanded the original roughly 3,000 lines of the Epic of Gilgamesh to roughly 6,000 lines of rhyming couplets grouped into forty-eight cantos.^[79] Hamilton significantly altered most of the characters and introduced entirely new episodes not found in the original epic.^[79] Significantly influenced by Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Edwin Arnold's The Light of Asia,^[79] Hamilton's characters dress more like nineteenth-century Turks than ancient Babylonians.^[80] Hamilton also changed the tone of the epic from the 'grim realism' and 'ironic tragedy' of the original to a 'cheery optimism' filled with 'the sweet strains of love and harmony'.^[81]

In his 1904 book Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients, the German Assyriologist Alfred Jeremias equated Gilgamesh with the king Nimrod from the Book of Genesis^[82] and argued that Gilgamesh's strength must come from his hair, like the hero Samson in the Book of Judges,^[82] and that he must have performed Twelve Labors like the hero Heracles in Greek mythology.^[82] In his 1906 book Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur, the Orientalist Peter Jensen declared that the Epic of Gilgamesh was the source behind nearly all the stories in the Old Testament,^[82] arguing that Moses is 'the Gilgamesh of Exodus who saves the children of Israel from precisely the same situation faced by the inhabitants of Erech at the beginning of the Babylonian epic.'^[82] He then proceeded to argue that Abraham, Isaac, Samson, David, and various other biblical figures are all nothing more than exact copies of Gilgamesh.^[82] Finally, he declared that even Jesus is 'nothing but an Israelite Gilgamesh. Nothing but an adjunct to Abraham, Moses, and countless other figures in the saga.'^[82] This ideology became known as Panbabylonianism^[83] and was almost immediately rejected by mainstream scholars.^[83] The most stalwart critics of Panbabylonianism were those associated with the emerging Religionsgeschichtliche Schule.^[84]Hermann Gunkel dismissed most of Jensen's purported parallels between Gilgamesh and biblical figures as mere baseless sensationalism.^[84] He concluded that Jensen and other Assyriologists like him had failed to understand the complexities of Old Testament scholarship^[83] and had confused scholars with 'conspicuous mistakes and remarkable aberrations'.^[83]

In English-speaking countries, the prevailing scholarly interpretation during the early twentieth century was one originally proposed by Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet,^[85] which held that Gilgamesh is a 'solar hero', whose actions represent the movements of the sun,^[85] and that the twelve tablets of his epic represent the twelve signs of the Babylonian zodiac.^[85] The German psychologist Sigmund Freud, drawing on the theories of James George Frazer and Paul Ehrenreich, interpreted Gilgamesh and Eabani (the earlier misreading for Enkidu) as representing 'man' and 'crude sensuality' respectively.^[86][87] He compared them to other brother-figures in world mythology,^[87] remarking, 'One is always weaker than the other and dies sooner. In Gilgamesh this ages-old motif of the unequal pair of brothers served to represent the relationship between a man and his libido.'^[87] He also saw Enkidu as representing the placenta, the 'weaker twin' who dies shortly after birth.^[88] Freud's friend and pupil Carl Jung frequently discusses Gilgamesh in his early work Symbole der Wandlung (1911–1912).^[89] He, for instance, cites Ishtar's sexual attraction to Gilgamesh as an example of the mother's incestuous desire for her son,^[89] Humbaba as an example of an oppressive father-figure whom Gilgamesh must overcome,^[89] and Gilgamesh himself as an example of a man who forgets his dependence on the unconscious and is punished by the 'gods', who represent it.^[89]

Modern cultural significance[edit]

In the years following World War II, Gilgamesh, formerly an obscure figure known only by a few scholars, gradually became increasingly popular with modern audiences.^[90][71] The Epic of Gilgamesh's existential themes made it particularly appealing to German authors in the years following the war.^[71] In his 1947 existentialist novel Die Stadt hinter dem Strom, the German novelist Hermann Kasack adapted elements of the epic into a metaphor for the aftermath of the destruction of World War II in Germany,^[71] portraying the bombed-out city of Hamburg as resembling the frightening Underworld seen by Enkidu in his dream.^[71] In Hans Henny Jahnn's magnum opusRiver Without Shores (1949–1950), the middle section of the trilogy centers around a composer whose twenty-year-long homoerotic relationship with a friend mirrors that of Gilgamesh with Enkidu^[71] and whose masterpiece turns out to be a symphony about Gilgamesh.^[71]

The Quest of Gilgamesh, a 1953 radio play by Douglas Geoffrey Bridson, helped popularize the epic in Britain.^[71] In the United States, Charles Olson praised the epic in his poems and essays^[71] and Gregory Corso believed that it contained ancient virtues capable of curing what he viewed as modern moral degeneracy.^[71] The 1966 postfigurative novel Gilgamesch by Guido Bachmann became a classic of German 'queer literature'^[71] and set a decades-long international literary trend of portraying Gilgamesh and Enkidu as homosexual lovers.^[71] This trend proved so popular that the Epic of Gilgamesh itself is included in The Columbia Anthology of Gay Literature (1998) as a major early work of that genre.^[71] In the 1970s and 1980s, feminist literary critics analyzed the Epic of Gilgamesh as showing evidence for a transition from the original matriarchy of all humanity to modern patriarchy.^[71] As the Green Movement expanded in Europe, Gilgamesh's story began to be seen through an environmentalist lens,^[71] with Enkidu's death symbolizing man's separation from nature.^[71]

Theodore Ziolkowski, a scholar of modern literature, states, that 'unlike most other figures from myth, literature, and history, Gilgamesh has established himself as an autonomous entity or simply a name, often independent of the epic context in which he originally became known. (As analogous examples one might think, for instance, of the Minotaur or Frankenstein's monster.)'^[92] The Epic of Gilgamesh has been translated into many major world languages^[93] and has become a staple of American world literature classes.^[94] Many contemporary authors and novelists have drawn inspiration from it, including an American avant-garde theater collective called 'The Gilgamesh Group'^[95] and Joan London in her novel Gilgamesh (2001).^[95][71]The Great American Novel (1973) by Philip Roth features a character named 'Gil Gamesh',^[95] who is the star pitcher of a fictional 1930s baseball team called the 'Patriot League'.^[95] Believing that he can never lose, Gil Gamesh throws a violent temper tantrum when an umpire goes against him^[95] and he is subsequently banished from baseball.^[95] He flees to the Soviet Union, where he is trained as a spy against the United States.^[95] Gil Gamesh reappears late in the novel as one of Joseph Stalin's spies^[95] and gives what American literary historian David Damrosch calls 'an eerily casual description of his interrogation training in Soviet Russia.'^[95] In 2000, a modern statue of Gilgamesh by the Assyrian sculptor Lewis Batros was unveiled at the University of Sydney in Australia.^[91]

Starting in the late twentieth century, the Epic of Gilgamesh began to be read again in Iraq.^[93]Saddam Hussein, the former President of Iraq, had a lifelong fascination with Gilgamesh.^[96]Hussein's first novelZabibah and the King (2000) is an allegory for the Gulf War set in ancient Assyria that blends elements of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the One Thousand and One Nights.^[97] Like Gilgamesh, the king at the beginning of the novel is a brutal tyrant who misuses his power and oppresses his people,^[98] but, through the aid of a commoner woman named Zabibah, he grows into a more just ruler.^[99] When the United States pressured Hussein to step down in February 2003, Hussein gave a speech to a group of his generals posing the idea in a positive light by comparing himself to the epic hero.^[93]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

1. ^/ɡɪlˈɡɑːmɛʃ/,^[2] commonly but incorrectly /ˈɡɪlɡəˌmɛʃ/;^[3]𒄑𒂅𒈦, Gilgameš, originally Bilgamesh𒄑𒉈𒂵𒈩. His name translates roughly to mean 'The Ancestor is a Young-man',^[4] from Bil.ga 'Ancestor', Elder^[5]:33 and Mes/Mesh3 'Young-Man'.^[5]:174 See also The Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary.

References[edit]

Epic Of Gilgamesh Free Online

1. ^Delorme 1981, p. 55.
2. ^George, Andrew R. (2010) [2003]. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic – Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts (in English and Akkadian). vol. 1 and 2 (reprint ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 163. ISBN978-0198149224. OCLC819941336..
3. ^'Gilgamesh'. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
4. ^Hayes, J.L. A Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts(PDF).
5. ^ ^abHalloran, J. Sum.Lexicon.
6. ^ ^{abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx}Black & Green 1992, p. 89.
7. ^ ^abcDalley 1989, p. 40.
8. ^ ^abcKramer 1963, pp. 45–46.
9. ^ ^abcPowell 2012, p. 338.
10. ^ ^{abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw}Mark 2018.
11. ^ ^abKramer 1963, p. 46.
12. ^'Gilgamesh tomb believed found'. BBC News. 29 April 2003. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
13. ^ ^abcKramer 1961, pp. 32–33.
14. ^Possehl, Gregory L. (2002). The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective. Rowman Altamira. p. 146. ISBN9780759116429.
15. ^Kosambi, Damodar Dharmanand (1975). An Introduction to the Study of Indian History. Popular Prakashan. p. 64. ISBN978-8171540389.
16. ^Sandars, N.K. (1972). 'Introduction'. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Penguin.
17. ^ ^abKramer 1963, p. 45.
18. ^ ^abEditors at W. W. Norton & Company (2012). The Norton Anthology of World Literature. A (third ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
19. ^George 2003, p. 141.
20. ^Kramer 1961, p. 30.
21. ^
22. ^ ^abcdKramer 1961, p. 33.
23. ^ ^abcdefghijkFontenrose 1980, p. 172.
24. ^Kramer 1961, pp. 33–34.
25. ^Wolkstein & Kramer 1983, p. 140.
26. ^Kramer 1961, p. 34.
27. ^Wolkstein & Kramer 1983, p. 9.
28. ^ ^abcdFontenrose 1980, pp. 172–173.
29. ^ ^abFontenrose 1980, p. 173.
30. ^ETCSL 1.8.1.1
31. ^Fontenrose 1980, p. 167.
32. ^ETCSL 1.8.1.5
33. ^ ^abTigay 2002, p. 24.
34. ^ETCSL 1.8.1.2
35. ^ ^abcdTigay 2002, pp. 24–25.
36. ^ETCSL 1.8.1.3
37. ^Black & Green 1992, p. 109.
38. ^ ^{abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzaaabac}Black & Green 1992, p. 90.
39. ^Powell 2012, p. 342.
40. ^Powell 2012, pp. 341–343.
41. ^ ^abcRybka 2011, pp. 257–258.
42. ^ ^abcPowell 2012, p. 339.
43. ^Black & Green 1992, pp. 89–90.
44. ^ ^abcdefFontenrose 1980, p. 168.
45. ^ ^abPryke 2017, pp. 140–159.
46. ^ ^abDalley 1989, pp. 81–82.
47. ^ ^abcFontenrose 1980, pp. 168–169.
48. ^ ^abcdeDalley 1989, p. 82.
49. ^ ^abcdeFontenrose 1980, p. 169.
50. ^George 2003, p. 88.
51. ^Dalley 1989, p. 82-83.
52. ^ ^{abcdefghijklmn}Fontenrose 1980, p. 171.
53. ^ ^abcdefTigay 2002, pp. 26–27.
54. ^ ^abTigay 2002, p. 26.
55. ^ ^{abcdefghijklmnopqrst}Black & Green 1992, p. 91.
56. ^ ^abcdAnderson 2000, pp. 127–128.
57. ^West 1997, pp. 334–402.
58. ^Burkert 2005, pp. 297–301.
59. ^Powell 2012, pp. 338–339.
60. ^ ^abBurkert 2005, pp. 299–300.
61. ^ ^abcdeAnderson 2000, p. 127.
62. ^Burkert 2005, pp. 299–301.
63. ^ ^abGeorge 2003, p. 60.
64. ^Burkert 2005, p. 295.
65. ^Burkert, Walter (1992). The Orientalizing Revolution. p. 33, note 32.
66. ^George 2003, p. 61.
67. ^Tigay. The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. p. 252.
68. ^ ^abcdZiolkowski 2012, pp. 1–25.
69. ^Ziolkowski 2012, pp. 20–28.
70. ^Rybka 2011, p. 257.
71. ^ ^{abcdefghijklmnopqrs}Ziolkowski 2011.
72. ^Smith, George. 'The Chaldean Account of the Deluge'. Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Volumes 1–2. 2. London: Society of Biblical Archæology. pp. 213–214. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
73. ^Jeremias, Alfred (1891). Izdubar-Nimrod, eine altbabylonische Heldensage (in German). Retrieved 12 October 2017.
74. ^ ^abcdeZiolkowski 2012, pp. 23–25.
75. ^Ziolkowski 2012, pp. 28–29.
76. ^Ziolkowski 2012, pp. 23–25, 28–29.
77. ^ ^abcdZiolkowski 2012, p. 25.
78. ^ ^abZiolkowski 2012, pp. 20–21.
79. ^ ^abcdefghZiolkowski 2012, p. 21.
80. ^Ziolkowski 2012, pp. 22–23.
81. ^Ziolkowski 2012, p. 23.
82. ^ ^abcdefgZiolkowski 2012, p. 26.
83. ^ ^abcdZiolkowski 2012, pp. 26–27.
84. ^ ^abZiolkowski 2012, p. 27.
85. ^ ^abcZiolkowski 2012, p. 28.
86. ^Freud, Sigmund, William McGuire, Ralph Manheim, R. F. C. Hull, Alan McGlashan, and C. G. Jung. Freud-Jung Letters: The Correspondence between Sigmund Freud and C.G. Jung. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1994, at 199.
87. ^ ^abcZiolkowski 2012, p. 29.
88. ^Ziolkowski 2012, pp. 29–30.
89. ^ ^abcdZiolkowski 2012, p. 30.
90. ^Ziolkowski 2012, p. xii.
91. ^ ^abStone 2012.
92. ^Ziolkowski 2012, pp. xii–xiii.
93. ^ ^abcDamrosch 2006, p. 254.
94. ^Damrosch 2006, pp. 254–255.
95. ^ ^abcdefghiDamrosch 2006, p. 255.
96. ^Damrosch 2006, pp. 254–257.
97. ^Damrosch 2006, p. 257.
98. ^Damrosch 2006, pp. 259–260.
99. ^Damrosch 2006, p. 260.

Bibliography[edit]

• Ackerman, Susan (2005), When Heroes Love: The Ambiguity of Eros in the Stories of Gilgamesh and David, New York City, New York: Columbia University Press, ISBN978-0-231-50725-7
• Anderson, Graham (2000), Fairytale in the Ancient World, New York City, New York and London, England: Routledge, pp. 127–131, ISBN978-0-415-23702-4
• Black, Jeremy; Green, Anthony (1992), Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary, Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, pp. 166–168, ISBN978-0-7141-1705-8
• Burkert, Walter (2005), 'Chapter Twenty: Near Eastern Connections', in Foley, John Miles (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Epic, New York City, New York and London, England: Blackwell Publishing, ISBN978-1-4051-0524-8
• Dalley, Stephanie (1989), Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, ISBN978-0-19-283589-5
• Damrosch, David (2006), The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh, New York City, New York: Henry Holt and Company, ISBN978-0-8050-8029-2
• Delorme, Jean (1981) [1964], 'The Ancient World', in Dunan, Marcel; Bowle, John (eds.), The Larousse Encyclopedia of Ancient and Medieval History, New York City, New York: Excaliber Books, ISBN978-0-89673-083-0
• George, Andrew R. (2003) [1999, 2000], The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian, Penguin Classics (Third ed.), London: Penguin Books, ISBN978-0-14-044919-8, OCLC901129328
• Kramer, Samuel Noah (1961), Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C.: Revised Edition, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN978-0-8122-1047-7
• Kramer, Samuel Noah (1963), The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character, Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, ISBN978-0-226-45238-8
• Mark, Joshua J. (29 March 2018), 'Gilgamesh', ancient.eu, Ancient History Encyclopedia
• Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy (1980) [1959], Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins, Berkeley, California, Los Angeles, California, and London, England: The University of California Press, ISBN978-0-520-04106-6
• Powell, Barry B. (2012) [2004], 'Gilgamesh: Heroic Myth', Classical Myth (Seventh ed.), London, England: Pearson, pp. 336–350, ISBN978-0-205-17607-6
• Pryke, Louise M. (2017), Ishtar, New York City, New York and London, England: Routledge, ISBN978-1-315-71632-9
• Rybka, F. James (2011), 'The Epic of Gilgamesh', Bohuslav Martinu: The Compulsion to Compose, Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc., ISBN978-0-8108-7762-7
• Tigay, Jeffrey H. (2002) [1982], The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic, Wauconda, Illinois: Bolchazzy-Carucci Publishers, Inc., ISBN978-0-86516-546-5
• Stone, D. (2012), 'The Epic of Gilgamesh: Statue brings ancient tale to life'(PDF), MUSE, no. 12/2781, p. 28, archived(PDF) from the original on 30 May 2018
• West, M. L. (1997), The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth, Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, ISBN978-0-19-815221-7
• Wolkstein, Diane; Kramer, Samuel Noah (1983), Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer, New York City, New York: Harper&Row Publishers, ISBN978-0-06-090854-6
• Ziolkowski, Theodore (1 November 2011), 'Gilgamesh: An Epic Obsession', Berfrois
• Ziolkowski, Theodore (2012), Gilgamesh among Us: Modern Encounters with the Ancient Epic, Ithaca, New York and London, England: Cornell University Press, ISBN978-0-8014-5035-8

Further reading[edit]

• 'Narratives featuring… Gilgameš'. Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. Retrieved 8 October 2017.
• Gmirkin, Russell E (2006). Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus. New York: T & T Clark International.
• Foster, Benjamin R., ed. (2001). The Epic of Gilgamesh. Translated by Foster, Benjamin R. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN978-0-393-97516-1.
• Hammond, D.; Jablow, A. (1987). 'Gilgamesh and the Sundance Kid: the Myth of Male Friendship'. In Brod, H. (ed.). The Making of Masculinities: The New Men's Studies. Boston. pp. 241–258.
• Jackson, Danny (1997). The Epic of Gilgamesh. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. ISBN978-0-86516-352-2.
• The Epic of Gilgamesh. Translated by Kovacs, Maureen Gallery. Stanford University Press: Stanford, California. 1989 [1985]. ISBN978-0-8047-1711-3. Glossary, Appendices, Appendix (Chapter XII=Tablet XII).
• Maier, John R. (2018). 'Gilgamesh and the Great Goddess of Uruk'.
• Mitchell, Stephen (2004). Gilgamesh: A New English Version. New York: Free Press. ISBN978-0-7432-6164-7.
• Oberhuber, K., ed. (1977). Das Gilgamesch-Epos. Darmstadt: Wege der Forschung.
• Parpola, Simo; Mikko Luuko; Kalle Fabritius (1997). The Standard Babylonian, Epic of Gilgamesh. The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. ISBN978-9514577604.
• Pettinato, Giovanni (1992). La saga di Gilgamesh. Milan, Italy: Rusconi Libri. ISBN978-88-18-88028-1.

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• Media related to Gilgamesh at Wikimedia Commons
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