gilgamesh essay

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Ira Spar Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The myth known today as the Epic of Gilgamesh was considered in ancient times to be one of the great masterpieces of cuneiform literature . Copies of parts of the story have been found in Israel, Syria, and Turkey, and references to the hero are attested in Greek and Roman literature.

The tale revolves around a legendary hero named Gilgamesh (Bilgames in Sumerian), who was said to be the king of the Sumerian city of Uruk. His father is identified as Lugalbanda, king of Uruk , and his mother is the wise cow goddess Ninsun. No contemporary information is known about Gilgamesh, who, if he was in fact an historical person, would have lived around 2700 B.C. Nor is there any preserved early third-millennium version of the poem. During the twenty-first century B.C., Shulgi, ruler of the Sumerian city of Ur , was a patron of the literary arts. He sponsored a revival of older literature and established academies of scholars at his capital Ur and at the holy city of Nippur. Shulgi claimed Lugalbanda as his father and Gilgamesh as his brother.

Although little of the courtly literature of the Shulgi academies survives, and Sumerian ceased to be a spoken language soon after the end of his dynasty, Sumerian literature continued to be studied in the scribal schools of the following Old Babylonian period . Five Sumerian stories about Gilgamesh were copied in these schools. These tales, which were not part of an epic cycle, were originally oral narratives sung at the royal court of the Third Dynasty of Ur.

“Gilgamesh and Akka” describes the triumph of the hero over his overlord Akka, ruler of the city of Kish. “Gilgamesh and Huwawa” recounts the journey of the hero and his servant Enkidu to the cedar mountains, where they encounter and slay the giant Huwawa, the guardian of the forest. A third tale, “Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven,” deals with Gilgamesh’s rejection of the amorous advances made by Inanna, the Queen of Heaven. Seeking revenge, the goddess sends the Bull of Heaven to kill Gilgamesh, but the hero, with the assistance of Enkidu, slays the monster. In “Gilgamesh and the Netherworld,” the hero loses two sport-related objects, which fall into the Netherworld. Enkidu descends into the depths to find them and, upon his return to life, describes the horrid fate that awaits the dead. In the final composition, “The Death of Gilgamesh,” the hero dreams that the gods are meeting to review his exploits and accomplishments. They decide that he, like all of humankind, shall not be granted eternal life.

In addition to the Sumerian compositions, young scribes studying in the Old Babylonian schools made copies of different oral stories about the hero Gilgamesh. One noteworthy tale was sung in Akkadian rather than in Sumerian. Called “Surpassing All Other Kings,” this poem combined some elements of the Sumerian narrative into a new Akkadian tale. Only fragments of this composition survive. By the end of the eighteenth century B.C., large areas of southern Mesopotamia, including Nippur, were abandoned; the scribal academies closed as the economy collapsed. A shift in political power and culture took place under the newly ascendant Babylonian dynasties centered north of Sumer. Hundreds of years later, toward the end of the second millennium B.C., literary works in Babylonian dominated scribal learning. Differing versions of classic compositions, including the Akkadian Gilgamesh story, proliferated, and translations and adaptations were made by poets in various lands to reflect local concerns.

Some time in the twelfth century B.C., Sin-leqi-unninni, a Babylonian scholar, recorded what was to become a classic version of the Gilgamesh tale. Not content to merely copy an old version of the tale, this scholar most likely assembled various versions of the story from both oral and written sources and updated them in light of the literary concerns of his day, which included questions about human mortality and the nature of wisdom. “Surpassing All Other Kings” now became a new composition called “He Who Saw the Deep.” In the poem, Sin-leqi-unninni recast Enkidu as Gilgamesh’s companion and brought to the fore concerns about unbridled heroism, the responsibilities of good governance, and the purpose of life. The new version of the epic explains that Gilgamesh, although he is king of Uruk, acts as an arrogant, impulsive, and irresponsible ruler. Only after a frustrating and vain attempt to find eternal life does he emerge from immaturity to realize that one’s achievements, rather than immortality, serve as an enduring legacy.

The poem begins by explaining that Gilgamesh, although he thought that he “was wise in all matters,” had to endure a journey of travail in order to find peace. Two-thirds human and one-third deity, the hero as king is unaware of his own strengths and weaknesses. He oppresses his own people. In response to complaints by the citizens of Uruk, the gods create Enkidu, a double, who becomes the hero’s friend and companion. Initially described as a wild animal-like creature, Enkidu (“Lord of the Pleasant Place”) has sex with a temple prostitute and is transformed into a civilized being. No longer animal-like, he now possesses wisdom “like a god,” a distinguishing characteristic of humans. After an initial confrontation, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become friends and decide to make a name for themselves by journeying to the Cedar Forest to fight against Humbaba, the giant whom the gods have placed as guardian of the sacred trees. The two kill the monster and take cedar back to Uruk as their prize. Back in Uruk, the goddess Ishtar, sexually aroused by Gilgamesh’s beauty, tries to seduce him. Repulsed, the headstrong goddess sends the Bull of Heaven to destroy Uruk and punish Gilgamesh. But Gilgamesh and Enkidu meet the challenge and Gilgamesh slays the bull. The gods retaliate by causing Enkidu to fall ill and die. Gilgamesh, devastated by the death of his friend, now realizes that he is part mortal and sets out on a fruitless journey to seek immortality.

On his travels in search of the secret of everlasting life, Gilgamesh meets a scorpion man and later a divine female tavern keeper who tries to dissuade him from continuing his search. But Gilgamesh is arrogant and determined. Upon learning that Uta-napishtim (“I Found Life”), a legendary hero who had obtained eternal life, dwelt on an island across the “Waters of Death,” Gilgamesh crosses the sea and is greeted by the immortal hero. Uta-napishtim explains to Gilgamesh that his quest is in vain, as humans were created to be mortal. But upon questioning, Uta-napishtim reveals that he was placed by the gods on this remote island after being informed that the world would be destroyed by a great flood . Building a boxlike ark in the shape of a cube, Uta-napishtim took on board his possessions, his riches, his family members, craftsmen, and creatures of the earth. After riding out the storm, he and his wife were granted immortality and settled on the island far from civilization. Devastated by this news and realizing that he, too, will someday expire, Gilgamesh returns to Uruk and examines its defensive wall. Finally, he comprehends that the everlasting fame he so vainly sought lay not in eternal life but in his accomplishments on behalf of both his people and his god.

Attempts to identify Gilgamesh in art are fraught with difficulty. Cylinder seals from the Akkadian period (ca. 2350–2150 B.C.) onward showing nude heroes with beards and curls grappling with lions and bovines cannot be identified with Gilgamesh. They are more likely to be associated with the god Lahmu (“The Hairy One”). A terracotta plaque in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin, depicts a bearded hero grasping an ogre’s wrist while raising his right hand to attack him with a club. To his left, a beardless figure pins down the monster’s arm, pulls his hair, and is about to pierce his neck with a knife. This scene is often associated with the death of Humbaba. The Babylonian Gilgamesh epic clearly describes Enkidu as being almost identical to Gilgamesh, but no mention is made of the monster’s long hair, and although Gilgamesh is said to strike the monster with a dagger, he holds an axe rather than a club in his hand. The scene on the Berlin plaque may reflect the older Sumerian story wherein Enkidu is described as a companion rather than a double of the hero. In this older tale, Enkidu is the one who “severed [Huwawa’s] head at the neck.” Similar images appear on cylinder seals of the second and first millennium B.C.

Spar, Ira. “Gilgamesh.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/gilg/hd_gilg.htm (April 2009)

Further Reading

Foster, Benjamin R., trans. and ed. The Epic of Gilgamesh . New York: Norton, 2001.

George, Andrew, trans. The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian . London: Allen Lane, 1999.

Additional Essays by Ira Spar

• Spar, Ira. “ Mesopotamian Creation Myths .” (April 2009)
• Spar, Ira. “ Flood Stories .” (April 2009)
• Spar, Ira. “ Mesopotamian Deities .” (April 2009)
• Spar, Ira. “ The Gods and Goddesses of Canaan .” (April 2009)
• Spar, Ira. “ The Origins of Writing .” (October 2004)

Related Essays

• Flood Stories
• The Isin-Larsa and Old Babylonian Periods (2004–1595 B.C.)
• Mesopotamian Creation Myths
• The Origins of Writing
• Ur: The Royal Graves
• The Akkadian Period (ca. 2350–2150 B.C.)
• The Gods and Goddesses of Canaan
• The Middle Babylonian / Kassite Period (ca. 1595–1155 B.C.) in Mesopotamia
• Ur: The Ziggurat
• Uruk: The First City
• West Asia: Ancient Legends, Modern Idioms

List of Rulers

• List of Rulers of Mesopotamia
• Mesopotamia, 1000 B.C.–1 A.D.
• Mesopotamia, 1–500 A.D.
• Mesopotamia, 2000–1000 B.C.
• Mesopotamia, 8000–2000 B.C.
• 2nd Millennium B.C.
• 3rd Millennium B.C.
• Akkadian Period
• Anatolia and the Caucasus
• Ancient Near Eastern Art
• Ancient Roman Literature / Poetry
• Anthropomorphism
• Babylonian Art
• Cylinder Seal
• Dagger / Knife
• Deity / Religious Figure
• Eastern Mediterranean
• Greek Literature / Poetry
• Immortality
• Literature / Poetry
• Mesopotamian Art
• Mythical Creature
• Religious Art
• Sumerian Art
• Uruk Period

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The Epic of Gilgamesh

April 30, 2020 | yalepress | Ancient History , Literature

John Carey —

The oldest surviving literary work is The Epic of Gilgamesh . It was composed nearly 4,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia (roughly equivalent to where Iraq and eastern Syria are now). No one knows who wrote it, or why, or what readership or audience it was intended for. It is preserved on clay tablets in the earliest known alphabet, which is called cuneiform script because the scribes who wrote it formed the letters by making wedge-shaped (cuneiform) dents in wet clay with bits of reed.

For centuries the secret of how to read cuneiform script was lost. Then, in the 1870s, a self-taught, working-class Londoner called George Smith, studying clay tablets in the British Museum, cracked the code and brought The Epic of Gilgamesh to light.

The epic tells the story of a king, Gilgamesh, whose mother is a goddess. He rules the city of Uruk (now Warka in southern Iraq). He is a great warrior and builds a magnificent city using glazed bricks, a new technique. But he is lustful and tyrannical, seizing and violating brides on their wedding day. So the gods create a wild man called Enkidu to stop Gilgamesh oppressing his people.

Enkidu is made from the clay the mother goddess washes from her hands, and he is an animal rather than a human. He is covered in hair and lives with the gazelles, eating grass as they do. However, a votaress of the temple in Uruk seduces him and after seven days and nights of fervent love-making he becomes human. She teaches him to wear clothes and eat human food.

Gilgamesh falls in love with Enkidu, caressing him like a woman. But when Enkidu tries to stop him violating brides, they fight. They turn out to be equally matched, so they kiss and make friends and embark on heroic adventures. Together they go on a quest to the Cedar Forest and kill the monster Humbaba who lives there. This angers the gods, since Humbaba was their monster. While Gilgamesh is washing after the fight the goddess Ishtar sees him, falls in love, and proposes marriage. But she is the goddess of sex and violence and all her lovers come to a bad end, so Gilgamesh rejects her. She is angry, and calls on her father, the sky god, to send another monster, the Bull of Heaven, to kill Gilgamesh. Instead Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Bull, which angers the gods still more, and they sentence Enkidu to death.

Gilgamesh mourns him bitterly and sets off to discover the secret of eternal life. He is ferried across the waters of death and finds the immortal man Utnapishtim, who survived the great flood, in which all other humans died, by following the gods’ instructions and building a boat. Gilgamesh dives into the ocean to find a plant that is said to make whoever possesses it young again. Though he finds it, and brings it to the surface, it is stolen by a snake, and Utnapishtim tells him that no one can defeat death. So Gilgamesh returns to Uruk, having learned that, though he is mighty and famous, he will be equal in death with all other human beings.

From A Little History of Poetry by John Carey. Published by Yale University Press in 2020. Reproduced with permission.

John Carey  is emeritus professor at Oxford. His books include  The Essential  “Paradise Lost,”  What Good Are the Arts?,  studies of Donne and Dickens, and a biography of William Golding.  The Unexpected Professor,  his memoir, was a  Sunday Times  best-seller.

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• Ancient Origins - The Legend of Gilgamesh
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Gilgamesh , the best known of all ancient Mesopotamian heroes. Numerous tales in the Akkadian language have been told about Gilgamesh, and the whole collection has been described as an odyssey—the odyssey of a king who did not want to die.

The fullest extant text of the Gilgamesh epic is on 12 incomplete Akkadian-language tablets found at Nineveh in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (reigned 668–627 bce ). The gaps that occur in the tablets have been partly filled by various fragments found elsewhere in Mesopotamia and Anatolia. In addition, five short poems in the Sumerian language are known from tablets that were written during the first half of the 2nd millennium bce ; the poems have been titled “Gilgamesh and Huwawa,” “Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven,” “Gilgamesh and Agga of Kish,” “Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld,” and “The Death of Gilgamesh.”

The Gilgamesh of the poems and of the epic tablets was probably the Gilgamesh who ruled at Uruk in southern Mesopotamia sometime during the first half of the 3rd millennium bce and who was thus a contemporary of Agga, ruler of Kish; Gilgamesh of Uruk was also mentioned in the Sumerian list of kings as reigning after the Flood. There is, however, no historical evidence for the exploits narrated in poems and epic.

The Ninevite version of the epic begins with a prologue in praise of Gilgamesh, part divine and part human, the great builder and warrior, knower of all things on land and sea. In order to curb Gilgamesh’s seemingly harsh rule, the god Anu caused the creation of Enkidu , a wild man who at first lived among animals. Soon, however, Enkidu was initiated into the ways of city life and traveled to Uruk, where Gilgamesh awaited him. Tablet II describes a trial of strength between the two men in which Gilgamesh was the victor; thereafter, Enkidu was the friend and companion (in Sumerian texts, the servant) of Gilgamesh. In Tablets III–V the two men set out together against Huwawa (Humbaba), the divinely appointed guardian of a remote cedar forest, but the rest of the engagement is not recorded in the surviving fragments. In Tablet VI Gilgamesh, who had returned to Uruk, rejected the marriage proposal of Ishtar , the goddess of love, and then, with Enkidu’s aid, killed the divine bull that she had sent to destroy him. Tablet VII begins with Enkidu’s account of a dream in which the gods Anu, Ea , and Shamash decided that he must die for slaying the bull. Enkidu then fell ill and dreamed of the “house of dust” that awaited him. Gilgamesh’s lament for his friend and the state funeral of Enkidu are narrated in Tablet VIII. Afterward, Gilgamesh made a dangerous journey (Tablets IX and X) in search of Utnapishtim , the survivor of the Babylonian Flood, in order to learn from him how to escape death. He finally reached Utnapishtim, who told him the story of the Flood and showed him where to find a plant that would renew youth (Tablet XI). But after Gilgamesh obtained the plant, it was seized by a serpent, and Gilgamesh unhappily returned to Uruk. An appendage to the epic, Tablet XII, related the loss of objects called pukku and mikku (perhaps “drum” and “drumstick”) given to Gilgamesh by Ishtar. The epic ends with the return of the spirit of Enkidu, who promised to recover the objects and then gave a grim report on the underworld.

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Gilgamesh is the semi-mythic King of Uruk best known as the hero of The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2150-1400 BCE) the great Babylonian poem that predates Homer 's Iliad and Odyssey by 1500 years and, therefore, stands as the oldest piece of epic world literature . Gilgamesh features in several Sumerian poems but is world-famous from the Mesopotamian epic.

Historical evidence for Gilgamesh's existence is found in inscriptions crediting him with the building of the great walls of Uruk (modern-day Warka, Iraq) which, in the story, are the tablets upon which he first records his quest for the meaning of life. He is also referenced in the Sumerian King List (c. 2100 BCE) and is mentioned by known historical figures of his time such as King Enmebaragesi of Kish (c. 2700 BCE), besides the legends which grew up around his reign.

The quest for the meaning of life, explored by writers and philosophers from antiquity up to the present day, is first fully explored in the Gilgamesh epic as the hero-king leaves the comfort of his city following the death of his best friend, Enkidu, to find the mystical figure Utnapishtim and eternal life. Gilgamesh's fear of death is actually a fear of meaninglessness, and although he fails to win immortality, the quest itself gives his life meaning.

Historical & Legendary King

Gilgamesh's father is said to have been the priest-king Lugalbanda (who is featured in two Sumerian poems concerning his magical abilities which predate Gilgamesh) and his mother the goddess Ninsun (also known as Ninsumun, the Holy Mother and Great Queen). Accordingly, Gilgamesh was a demigod who was said to have lived an exceptionally long life (the Sumerian King List records his reign as 126 years) and to be possessed of super-human strength.

Gilgamesh is widely accepted as the historical 5th king of Uruk who reigned in the 26th century BCE. His influence is thought to have been so profound that myths of his divine status grew up around his deeds and finally culminated in the tales that inform The Epic of Gilgamesh . Later Mesopotamian kings would invoke his name and associate his lineage with their own. Most famously, Shulgi of Ur (r. 2029-1982 BCE), considered the greatest king of the Ur III Period (2047-1750 BCE) in Mesopotamia , claimed Lugalbanda and Ninsun as his parents and Gilgamesh as his brother to elevate his standing among his subjects. Known as Bilgames in Sumerian, Gilgames in Akkadian , and Gilgamos in Greek , his name may mean "the kinsman is a hero" or, according to scholar Stephen Mitchell, "The Old Man is a Young Man" (10). He is sometimes associated with the shepherd- god Dumuzi (Tammuz), an early dying and reviving god figure, legendary king of Uruk, and consort of Inanna / Ishtar , best known in the modern era from the Sumerian poem The Descent of Inanna . Dumuzi was seduced by Inanna/Ishtar and suffered for it by having to spend half the year in the underworld while Gilgamesh rejects her but also suffers through the loss of his friend.

Development of the Text

The Akkadian version of the text was discovered at Nineveh , in the ruins of the library of Ashurbanipal , in 1849 by the archaeologist Austin Henry Layard. Layard's expedition was part of a mid-19th century initiative of European institutions and governments to fund expeditions to Mesopotamia to find physical evidence to corroborate events described in the Bible . What these explorers found instead, however, was that the Bible – previously thought to be the oldest book in the world and comprised of original stories – actually drew upon much older Sumerian myths.

The Epic of Gilgamesh did likewise as it is informed by tales, no doubt originally passed down orally, and finally written down 700-1000 years after the historical king's reign. The author of the version Layard found was the Babylonian writer Shin-Leqi-Unninni (wrote 1300-1000 BCE) who was thought to be the world's first author known by name until the discovery of the works of the poet-priestess Enheduanna (l. 2285-2250 BCE), daughter of Sargon of Akkad (r. 2334-2279 BCE). Shin-Leqi-Unninni drew upon Sumerian sources to create his story and probably had a significant number to work from as Gilgamesh had been a popular hero for centuries by the time the epic was created.

In the Sumerian tale of Inanna and the Huluppu Tree (c. 2900 BCE), for example, Gilgamesh appears as her loyal brother who comes to her aid. Inanna (the Sumerian goddess of love and war ) plants a tree in her garden with the hope of one day making a chair and bed from it. The tree becomes infested, however, by a snake at its roots, a female demon ( lilitu ) in its center, and an Anzu bird in its branches. No matter what, Inanna cannot rid herself of the pests and so appeals to her brother, Utu-Shamash , god of the sun, for help.

Utu refuses, and so she turns to Gilgamesh, who comes, heavily armed, and kills the snake. The demon and Anzu bird then flee, and Gilgamesh, after taking the branches for himself, presents the trunk to Inanna to build her bed and chair from. This is thought to be the first appearance of Gilgamesh in heroic poetry, and the fact that he rescues a powerful goddess from a difficult situation shows the high regard in which he was held even early on.

The early Sumerian tales eventually woven into The Epic of Gilgamesh are:

• Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld (also known as Gilgamesh and the halub tree )
• Gilgamesh and Huwawa

Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven

• The Death of Gilgamesh
• The Flood Story ( Eridu Genesis and later Atrahasis )

These tales represent him as a great hero, and the historical king was eventually accorded completely divine status as a god. He was regularly depicted as the brother of Inanna, one of the most popular goddesses in all of Mesopotamia. Prayers found inscribed on clay tablets address Gilgamesh in the afterlife as a judge in the Underworld comparable in wisdom to the famous Greek afterlife judges, Rhadamanthus, Minos, and Aeacus.

In the poem Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld (which draws on earlier myths including Inanna and the Huluppu Tree ), Gilgamesh is given a firsthand account of the afterlife by Enkidu, who has returned from Ereshkigal 's dark realm where he went to retrieve his friend's lost items. Depending on different interpretations, Enkidu may be a ghost who delivers this vision, making Gilgamesh the only living being to know what waits beyond death or, if Enkidu is understood to have survived his trip to the underworld, only one of two, not counting the divine Dumuzi.

The cuneiform tablets of the work discovered by Layard in 1849, and translated and published by George Smith in 1876, make up the standard version of the tale. Any modern translation relies on these eleven tablets but sometimes a twelfth is added relating Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld . This story is usually omitted, however, as Enkidu dies in Tablet 7 of the standard version, and his appearance in Tablet 12, as a servant and not Gilgamesh's friend, makes no sense.

When Tablet 12 is included in a translation, it is sometimes justified by the translator/editor claiming that Enkidu is a ghost who has returned from the land of the dead to tell Gilgamesh what he has seen. This interpretation is not supported by the text of the poem, however, in which Gilgamesh twice appeals to the gods for Enkidu's release from the underworld, saying he has not died but is being detained unlawfully. Most modern translators, therefore, rightly choose to leave Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld where it belongs: as a separate work composed long before the standard version of the epic, dated to the time of Shin-Leqi-Unninni.

The Epic of Gilgamesh begins with an invitation to the reader to engage in the story of the great king who, at first, is depicted as a proud and arrogant tyrant. He terrorizes his people, sleeps with the brides of his subjects on their wedding night, and consistently uses force to get his way in all things. The gods decide to humble him by creating the wild man, Enkidu. Hearing of Enkidu roaming in the outskirts of his realm, Gilgamesh suggests the temple prostitute Shamhat be sent to tame him, which she does.

Once tamed and introduced to civilization , Enkidu is outraged by the stories he hears of Gilgamesh and his arrogance and travels to Uruk to challenge him. Enkidu and Gilgamesh are considered an even match by the people, but after an epic battle , Enkidu is bested. He freely accepts his defeat, and the two become best friends and embark on adventures together.

In order to make his name immortal, Gilgamesh suggests they travel to the Cedar Forest to kill the monster-demon Humbaba ('demon' understood as 'supernatural entity', not an evil spirit). Humbaba has done nothing wrong and is favored by the gods for his protection of the forest, but this means nothing to Gilgamesh, who is only thinking of himself. Once the two friends have defeated Humbaba, he cries out for mercy, but Enkidu encourages Gilgamesh to kill him, which he does.

They return to Uruk where Gilgamesh prepares to celebrate his victory, putting on his finest clothes. This attracts the attention of Inanna/Ishtar who desires him. Ishtar tries to seduce Gilgamesh, but he rejects her, citing all the other men she has had as lovers who ended their lives poorly, including Dumuzi. Ishtar is enraged and sends her brother-in- law , the Bull of Heaven, down to earth to destroy Uruk and Gilgamesh. The two heroes kill the bull and Enkidu flings one of its legs at Ishtar in contempt. For this affront to a deity, as well as his cruelty to Humbaba, the gods decree he must die.

Enkidu lingers in pain for some time, and when he dies, Gilgamesh falls into deep grief. Recognizing his own mortality through the death of his friend, he questions the meaning of life and the value of human accomplishment in the face of ultimate extinction. He cries:

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How can I rest, how can I be at peace? Despair is in my heart. What my brother is now, that shall I be when I am dead. Because I am afraid of death I will go as best I can to find Utnapishtim whom they call the Faraway, for he has entered the assembly of the gods. (Book 9; Sandars, 97)

Casting away all of his old vanity and pride, Gilgamesh sets out on a quest to find the meaning of life and, finally, some way of defeating death. He travels far, through the mountains and past the Scorpion People, hoping to find Utnapishtim, the man who survived the Great Flood and was rewarded with immortality by the gods. At one point, he meets the tavern keeper Siduri who tells him his quest is in vain and he should accept life as it is and enjoy the pleasures it has to offer. Gilgamesh rejects her advice, however, as he believes life is meaningless if one must eventually lose all that one loves.

Siduri directs him to the ferryman Urshanabi, who takes him across the waters of death to the home of Utnapishtim and his wife. Utnapishtim tells him that there is nothing he can do for him. He was granted immortality by the gods, he says, and has no power to do the same for Gilgamesh. Even so, he offers the king two chances at eternal life. First, he must show himself worthy by staying awake for six days and nights, which he fails at, and then he is given a magic plant which, in a moment of carelessness, he leaves on the shore while he bathes, and it is eaten by a snake. Having failed in his quest, he has Urshanabi bring him back to Uruk, where he writes down his story on the city's walls.

Legacy & Continuing Debate

Through his struggle to find meaning in life, Gilgamesh defied death and, in doing so, becomes the first epic hero in world literature. The grief of Gilgamesh and the questions his friend's death evoke resonate with anyone who has struggled with grief and a meaning to life in the face of death. Although Gilgamesh ultimately fails to win immortality in the story, his deeds live on through his story – and so does he.

Since the tales informing The Epic of Gilgamesh existed in oral form long before it was written down, there has been much debate over whether the extant tale is more early Sumerian or later Babylonian in cultural influence. The best-preserved version of the story, as noted, comes from the Babylonian Shin-Leqi-Unninni, writing in Akkadian, drawing on original Sumerian source material. Regarding this, scholar Samuel Noah Kramer writes:

Of the various episodes comprising The Epic of Gilgamesh , several go back to Sumerian prototypes actually involving the hero Gilgamesh. Even in those episodes which lack Sumerian counterparts, most of the individual motifs reflect Sumerian mythic and epic sources. In no case, however, did the Babylonian poets slavishly copy the Sumerian material. They so modified its content and molded its form, in accordance with their own temper and heritage, that only the bare nucleus of the Sumerian original remains recognizable. As for the plot structure of the epic as a whole – the forceful and fateful episodic drama of the restless, adventurous hero and his inevitable disillusionment – it is definitely a Babylonian, rather than a Sumerian, development and achievement. ( Sumer , 270)

As far as the meaning of the piece goes, however, it is actually irrelevant which civilization contributed more to its composition, as it is with any great work of literature. The Epic of Gilgamesh does not belong to any one civilization or time period, as far as its depiction of the human condition is concerned, any more than the Mahabharata , Iliad, Odyssey, Shahnameh , or Aeneid do. Obviously, a work of literature is influenced by the civilization that produced it, but the greatest works, like Gilgamesh , transcend such considerations.

In the present day, fascination with Gilgamesh continues as it has since the work was first translated in the 1870s. A German team of archaeologists, to cite only one example, claim to have discovered his tomb in April of 2003. Archaeological excavations, conducted through modern technology involving magnetization in and around the old riverbed of the Euphrates, have revealed garden enclosures, specific buildings, and structures described in The Epic of Gilgamesh, including Gilgamesh's tomb. According to The Death of Gilgamesh , he was buried at the bottom of the Euphrates when the waters parted after he died.

Whether the historical king existed is no longer relevant, however, as the character has taken on a life of his own over the centuries. At the end of the story, when Gilgamesh lies dying, the narrator says:

The heroes, the wise men, like the new moon have their waxing and waning. Men will say, "Who has ever ruled with might and with power like [Gilgamesh]?" As in the dark month, the month of shadows, so without him there is no light. O Gilgamesh, you were given the kingship, such was your destiny, everlasting life was not your destiny. Because of this, do not be sad at heart, do not be grieved or oppressed; he has given you power to bind and to loose, to be the darkness and the light of mankind. (Sanders, 118)

The story of Gilgamesh's failure to realize his dream of immortality is the very means by which he attains it. The epic itself is immortality and has served as the model for any similar tale which has been written since. It is far more than that, though, as Mitchell explains:

Part of the fascination of Gilgamesh is that, like any great work of literature, it has much to tell us about ourselves. In giving voice to grief and the fear of death, perhaps more powerfully than any book written after it, in portraying love and vulnerability and the quest for wisdom, it has become a personal testimony for millions of readers in dozens of languages. But it also has a particular relevance in today's world, with its polarized fundamentalisms, each side fervently believing in its own righteousness, each on a crusade, or jihad, against what it perceives as an evil enemy. The hero of this epic is an antihero, a superman (superpower, one might say) who doesn't know the difference between strength and arrogance. By preemptively attacking a monster, he brings on himself a disaster that can only be overcome by an agonizing journey, a quest that results in wisdom by proving its own futility. The epic has an extraordinarily sophisticated moral intelligence. In its emphasis on balance and in its refusal to side with either hero or monster, it leads us to question our dangerous certainties about good and evil. (2)

Gilgamesh encourages hope in that, even though one may not be able to live forever, the choices one makes in life resonate in the lives of others. These others may be friends, family, acquaintances, or may be strangers living long after one's death who continue to be touched by the eternal story of the refusal to accept a life without meaning. Gilgamesh's struggle against apparent meaninglessness defines him – just as it defines anyone who has ever lived – and his quest continues to inspire those who recognize how intrinsically human that struggle is and always will be.

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Bibliography

• BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Gilgamesh tomb believed found , accessed 14 Dec 2022.
• Black, J & Green, A. Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia. University of Texas Press, 1992.
• Black, J. et. al. The Literature of Ancient Sumer. Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Dalley, S. Myths from Mesopotamia Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and others. Oxford University Press., 2000.
• Epic of Gilgamesh , accessed 14 Dec 2022.
• Jacobsen,T. The Treasures of Darkness. Yale University Press, 1978.
• Kramer, S. N. History Begins at Sumer. Thames & Hudson, 1961.
• Kramer, S. N. Sumerian Mythology. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.
• Sandars, N.K. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Penguin Classics, 1960.
• Wolkstein, D. & Kramer, S. N. Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth. Harper Perennial, 1983.

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Gilgamesh: The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell (The Monomyth)

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Every great story requires a hero or heroes. The success of any story depends on how well the readers can align and relate to the story’s hero/heroes. Some stories create heroes that progress from the mythical world into the real world. One of the stories that feature an ancient hero who is still popular today is “The Epic of Gilgamesh”.

This Mesopotamian epic features a number of heroes including King Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh, the ancient Mesopotamian King is on a quest of immortality. The type of hero epitomized by Gilgamesh can be analyzed using Joseph Campbell’s “monomyth”.

Campbell discusses heroism in his book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. According to Campbell, there are three main stages in a hero’s journey. These stages include separation, initiation, and return. All these stages in a hero’s journey have sub categories.

For instance, the separation stage encompasses a “call to adventure, refusal to heed the call, and a crossing of the first threshold” (Campbell 34). Gilgamesh as a hero can be analyzed using definitions from Campbell’s book. Gilgamesh’s journey of heroism coincides with Campbell’s monomyth.

According to Campbell, a hero’s journey begins with a departure from something or somewhere. This departure involves a call to adventure. At first, the hero refuses the call but eventually he crosses the threshold. In Gilgamesh’s case, the call to adventure begins when a trapper asks for his help. The trapper requests Gilgamesh to help him deal with “a fellow who comes from the mountain” (Kovacs 8).

Through this initial call, Gilgamesh is introduced to a world of nature that he finds hard to understand. Campbell notes that after this initial call to adventure, a hero will often refuse to accept the request. Gilgamesh exemplifies this refusal when his compatriot Enkidu tells him not to go on the quest.

Although Gilgamesh’s initial refusal lasts for a very short time, it is still signifies initial hesitation. After this initial refusal, both Enkidu and Gilgamesh eventually agree to face Humbaba in a quest that takes part inside the cedar forest.

Campbell asserts that after a hero accepts the call to adventure, he is then likely to acquire supernatural help. This help often comes from a “protective figure that represents destiny’s power” (Campbell 70). Gilgamesh receives this power from Shamash the sun god.

The supernatural power in this case is requested by Ninsun, Gilgamesh’s mother. Before she addresses Shamash, Ninsun “washes herself with the purity plant, dons a worthy robe, and puts on her crown” (Kovacs 17). She does this in order to get the attention of the revered sun god.

The intervention of this supernatural power gives Gilgamesh the bravery to face the fierce Humbaba. Shamash is able to defeat Humbaba with his fire spitting mouth using his thirteen winds. The only difference between Gilgamesh’s heroism and Campbell’s definition is that the hero in this story does not refuse to accept supernatural help.

Campbell asserts that heroes often possess a “hardened heart” and they are initially reluctant to accept help from supernatural beings. Gilgamesh does not align with this mode of heroism because he is eager to enlist Shamash’s help in his quest against Humbaba.

Before an ordinary human being can be fully transformed to a hero, he has to cross a threshold that opens up his life to danger and darkness (Campbell 77). This threshold is often protected by a larger than life entity. In Gilgamesh’s case, this happens when he enters the cedar forest that is protected by Humbaba the terrible.

Campbell states that a hero has to cross the threshold and enter a world of “darkness and unknown danger”. Gilgamesh’s transition is preempted when the author writes that Gilgamesh and Enkidu “stood at the edge of the forest…gazing at the entrance to the forest” (Kovacs 41).

According to Campbell, the hero is initiated after being separated. This initiation stage is characterized by the hero’s metamorphosis. During this stage, the hero has to undergo various trials and tribulations before achieving an exalted form.

For Gilgamesh, these trials are exemplified through his “journey through the; scorpion beings, road to the sun, garden of jewels, waters of death, and eventually to Utanapishtim’s home” (Kovacs 93). After all these trials, Gilgamesh has almost achieved a new life form.

The last part of a hero’s journey according to Campbell is the Hero’s return. Once a hero has overcome all his trials, he must contemplate a return. In addition, the hero has to return with a significant victory. Sometimes the hero refuses to return at first but he eventually agrees. At the end of his journey, Gilgamesh does not show any strong reservations towards returning to Uruk.

However, in one instance he asks Utanapishtim what he should do. After agreeing to return, the hero often discovers a way to shorten his return journey according to Campbell’s monomyth. This does not happen to Gilgamesh because the epic does not include a quick return scheme for the hero.

The “Epic of Gilgamesh” is a story about the heroic exploits of an ancient king named Gilgamesh. The hero of this story is modeled in accordance with Joseph Campbell’s monomyth. However, there are few disparities between Campbell’s definition and Gilgamesh’s heroism.

Gilgamesh accepts his call to action and then goes through trials to reach to the end of his quest. At the end of the story, he has to return to his kingdom in Uruk. Therefore, his journey as a hero coincides with Campbell’s monomyth.

Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces , Princeton, NJ: Princeton U Press, 1990. Print.

Kovacs, Maureen. The Epic of Gilgamesh , Stanford, CA: Stanford U Press, 2007. Print.

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