The Epic of Gilgamesh King of Uruk, Mesopotamia

"Humans are born, they live, then they die; this is the order that the gods have decreed. But until the end comes, enjoy your life, spend it in happiness, not despair. Savor your food, make each of your days a delight, bathe and anoint yourself, wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean, let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand, and gives your [lover] pleasure in your embrace. That is the best way for a [hu]man to live.”

― Anonymous, The Epic of Gilgamesh

Context

Our ancestors 5000 years ago may not have been so primitive after all. The Epic of Gilgamesh is described as the first “masterpiece” of world literature and the oldest surviving written story discovered from our ancestors. The term "epic" describes an ancient narrative poem. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a Sumerian poem that dates back to the 3^rd millennium BCE; it was discovered in 1853 by Hormuzd Rassam (Assyriologist) in the ruins of the vast library at Nineveh. The reason the recorded story of Gilgamesh survived thousands of years was that it was written on clay, in a set of symbols we call cuneiform. Clay tablets bearing the Epic were found not only around Mesopotamia but also in Turkey, Syria, and Palestine.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is a poem about King Gilgamesh was viral in ancient times, and its knowledge extended throughout Asia and Europe. The story provides an open window into the ancient Mesopotamian culture and continues to captivate and entertain. A careful analysis of this 5000-year-old story, human behavior concerning the role of men at the center of creation and domineering, holding women in the subordinate role, and our ancestors searching for the same “meanings of life” as we do today, remain consistent.

Purpose

In this assignment, we will examine the Mesopotamian social and religious lifestyles as portrayed in The Epic of Gilgamesh. You will synthesize information from different sources to understand the formative stage of world history through the lens of ancient heroes. You will also explore the continuities between the ancient past and the modern present as reflected in ancient epics, mythology, and our current understandings of societies.

The epic story's influence can be traced through many texts throughout history, including the Homeric epics - The Iliad and The Odyssey - and the Bible. The similarities between The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Homeric epics are in the personalities of heroes and gods, and how they interact. The most remarkable parallels between The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible are in the Old Testament, particularly the narratives of the Flood and the Garden of Eden.

Learning Outcomes

• Describe how The Epic of Gilgamesh reflects the relationship between ancient people and their gods.
• Discuss multiple characters in The Epic of Gilgamesh.
• Analyze and connect the aspect of the story to your current understandings of modern society.

Instructions

Complete the following tasks:

• As you read the material and watch the videos, be sure to pay special attention to the following different themes and topics. They are your guide into the lifestyles of ancient Mesopotamia and will help you think about different elements of the story.
• Watch the video: The Epic of Gilgamesh. Keep in mind that the Epic of Gilgamesh was written on twelve (12) clay tablets. These tablets are compressed into the three audio chapters embedded in this assignment. Each audio recording is approximately 60 minutes. 
• Listen to the audio version of The Epic of Gilgamesh and see what you can learn about the culture which produced this intriguing story.
• After you finish listening/reading to the materials address one (1) of the following analysis questions. Answer in full paragraphs, revealing your interpretation using the materials provided to support your thinking. Your response should be a minimum of one page, 12-point font, double spaced, with standard margins, per question (250+ words). Submit your response via Canvas. The essay portion of this assignment is worth 20 points. 

Joseph Campbell, a great mythology scholar, describes four major functions of mythology, which are (roughly): (1) Constructing an image of the universe (2) Helping people understand the meaning of suffering (and redemption from suffering) (3) Validating a social or moral order. (4) Dealing with problems of human psychology and development.

1. 1. 1. Which of the four (4) functions does the myth of Gilgamesh serve for the people of Mesopotamia and how? Of course, it may serve more than one function!
      2. Describe Gilgamesh. What are his glories? What are his faults? What transforms Gilgamesh and Enkidu into friends rather than adversaries? What qualities of friendship are exemplified in their relationship?
      3. Analyze the way Enkidu’s transformation is described, especially upon his entry into the City of Uruk. What supports your assertion?
      4. How do the Sumerian composers of the epic look upon their gods?
      5. How are women treated in the City of Uruk?

• Read Tablet XI: The Story of the Flood in The Epic of Gilgamesh Links to an external site. when Utnapishtim tells the flood. 
• The accompanying Epic of Gilgamesh Quiz will assess how well you understand the content of the story. The quiz is worth 30 points.
• In our class discussion, be prepared to share insightful interpretations of the values, beliefs, and ideas important to the Mesopotamian cultures. 

Watch the video: Thug Notes on The Epic of Gilgamesh

Gods and Religion

Religiously, Mesopotamians were a polytheistic society, meaning they were attached to natural phenomena with gods that are very heavily personified. What motivates humans' actions toward Gods or God?

Women

Women in the Mesopotamian society did not live in a sexual society, and their place was outside of the political sphere and the masculine military domain. Men were known to be dominant because women could not control sex and love, which were not triggered by a thought, but by emotion. What role do women play, or what functions do they have in the story?

Compassion

Do Gods feel compassion and pity for others?

Death: Death in Mesopotamia's culture portrays a strange image that the underworld is dark and dangerous and that all the deceased souls appear to be trapped underground. Why do you think the Gods decide to kill Enkidu rather than Gilgamesh? What is there about being alive that makes dying so fearsome?

Friendship: What transforms Gilgamesh and Enkidu into friends?

Focus Questions

• Describe Gilgamesh. What are his glories? What are his faults?
• What is the role of women in the story? Aruru, the Goddess, creates Enkidu, Ishtar, Ninsun, the Harlot, Siduri, and Utnapishtim's wife. What do these roles suggest about the significance of women in this ancient culture?
• What transforms Gilgamesh and Enkidu into friends rather than adversaries? 
• What does the story suggest about ancient Mesopotamian beliefs about the gods?
• Why does Gilgamesh want to find immortality?
• What did Gilgamesh learn by the end of his epic journey?
• How does our society compare to ancient Mesopotamia?
• What is the purpose of this story?
• How does Utnapishtim's flood story compare and contrast with the biblical story of Noah and the Flood?

Points to Consider

• The Epic of Gilgamesh is extremely important, and the Epic is known as the 'first great masterpiece of world literature for several reasons.
• No other literary work crossed so many borders so early, as people in many areas began to respond to the Epic's searching exploration of the meaning of culture in the face of death.
• The Epic is one of the oldest written stories in existence and the most celebrated literary composition of ancient Mesopotamia. 
• The story is based on the historical record of an actual Sumerian king named Gilgamesh, who ruled Uruk in 2700 BCE.
• The first mention of Gilgamesh as a historical ruler is on the Sumerian "King List." He is listed as "the fifth king of the First Dynasty, son of the semi-divine Lugalbanda and the Goddess Ninsun. According to the official Sumerian "List of Kings," he reigned for 126 years. The "King List" is also of interest as it mentions the Flood, specifically "the deluge overthrew the land."
• The Epic of Gilgamesh is a gem in the history of cuneiform literature – it is also noted as the first writing system and developed by the ancient Sumerians around 3500 – 3000 BCE. 
• A thousand years before the Hebrews or the Greeks learned how to write. The Epic of Gilgamesh was recorded and circulated through the Near East and Asia Minor.
• The biblical account of Noah's story in the Old Testament of the Jewish and Christian holy books found in Genesis 6-9 has striking parallels to The Epic of Gilgamesh. 
• The Epic of Gilgamesh predates Homer’s earliest writings by 1500 years. 

Pronunciations:

• Enkidu:Ain-key-dou
• Gilgamesh: GILL-gah-mesh
• Shamash:SHAY-mash
• Shamhat: SHAM-haht
• Utnapishtim:ooh-TA-nah-PEASH-team

Watch the video: The Epic of Gilgamesh Summary

“Gilgamesh was called a god and a man; Enkidu was an animal and a man. It is the story of their becoming human together.”

― Herbert Mason, The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh is divided into twelve tablets, each detailing a different aspect of Gilgamesh's quest for friendship, adventures, and eternal life. The following is a summary of the plot of the Epic:

Mesopotamia and Egypt are believed to be the world's first civilizations. In modern-day Iraq, Mesopotamia, "between rivers," is the territory located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Farmers developed an irrigation system and settled into the lower Mesopotamian plain between 6000 - 5000 BCE. Ancient villages were small, but by 4000 BCE, villages grew to over 10,000 people. Summer, which is the term referring to the area of Southern Mesopotamia, is believed to be where the world's first writing system developed. City-states began to grow as well. A city-state had a ruler who governed not only the urban center but also the surrounding countryside. The Mesopotamians were polytheistic, believing in many gods. The gods managed the environment. The king of the city-state was the intermediary between the gods and the people.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is a recounting of the hero-king who ruled between 3000 to 2500 BCE during the first dynasty of the ancient city-state, Uruk in Mesopotamia near the river Euphrates. King Gilgamesh was also known as ‘Bilgames’ in Sumerian, ‘Gilgamos’ in Greek; he is known to be an amalgamation of two-thirds a god and one-third a man. His father is mortal, and his mother is a goddess. Gilgamesh was handsome, had beyond formidable strength, and an intimidating and appealing physique, and he was a great warrior. As Gilgamesh realized his might was beyond any ordinary human being, he became an arrogant ruler. He was abusive to his people, seducing and molesting any woman he had his eyes upon, and forcing his subjects to complete his projects.

The people of Uruk make an appeal to the Gods for relief from the abusive king Gilgamesh. The God Anu heard their prayers and called on the Goddess Aruru to create another mortal/god-like Gilgamesh. Aruru creates Enkidu from water and clay as a being on par with Gilgamesh in terms of might and power. Enkidu is a wild man living happily in the open countryside, naked, among the animals. Enkidu's instincts and lifestyle are influenced by the wild animals that raised him. For a long time, he remained in complete isolation from the civilized world. One day a temple prostitute is sent to seduce Enkidu, and after seven days of unbridled lust, the prostitute brings him to Uruk. On reaching Uruk, Enkidu wrestles with Gilgamesh as a test of strength. But soon, they become good friends, so much so that Gilgamesh now regards him as his equal brother.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu decide to journey to a distant mountain and slay its guardian monster Humbaba. Things take a dire turn when the two heroes kill the God of earth Enlil's servant Humbaba and then enter into a fatal dispute with the Goddess of love Ishtar. She tries to seduce Gilgamesh, who rejects her advances; she sends a great bull down from heaven to kill him, but Gilgamesh and Enkidu slaughter the bull. Ishtar decrees Enkidu's death, and he gets an illness that slowly poisoned his body, causing his ultimate demise. In despair at his friend's death, Gilgamesh grieving from his friend's death sets out on a quest to attain the secrets of eternal life, abandoning all his glory and power as a king. First, he must find the distant, hidden home of his ancestor Utnapishtim, who, with his wife, was the sole survivor of a worldwide flood. In his pursuit to find Utnapishtim, Gilgamesh ended up at the gates of the underworld at a point in his journey; this is where he met Siduri – a tavern keeper known as the Goddess of wine-making and brewing. Siduri is alarmed when Gilgamesh threatens to smash the tavern into pieces if she does not help him in his quest. Siduri tries her best to talk him out of his search for eternity. Ultimately, she tells Gilgamesh the whereabouts of Urshanabi, the boatman, whose help was essential for him to succeed in his quest.

Long before Gilgamesh's time, Utnapishtim ruled as the king and high priest of the city of Shurrupak. He was then chosen by god Enki to abandon all his possessions and create a giant ship to survive the impending great Flood that would wipe out all plants, animals, and humans. When they finally met, Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh the story of the Flood. After telling his story, Utnapishtim tried to convince Gilgamesh to break away from his quest and live a happy life as a mortal. But he gives Gilgamesh a magical plant that could help him gain immortality, but on his way home, a serpent steals the plant.

At the end of the story, when Gilgamesh lays 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 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 the power to bind and to lose, to be the darkness and the light of mankind." (Sanders, 118)

Listen and watch the three (3) audiobooks: The Epic of Gilgamesh - Chapters 1-2

Listen and watch the three (3) audiobooks: The Epic of Gilgamesh - Chapters 3-4

Listen and watch the three (3) audiobooks: The Epic of Gilgamesh - Chapters 5-7

Philosophical and Theological Implications

The Epic of Gilgamesh is genuinely a remarkable mythic saga with many philosophical and theological implications. Featured in the story is a description of a cleansing flood sent by the Gods; this is in stark contrast to the main story in the Book of Exodus, where Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt. The commonly accepted dates for this story would be circa 1300-1200 BCE; this would make the tales told about Gilgamesh approximately eight (8) hundred to nine (9) hundred years older than any possible oral telling of the Old Testament stories in the Book of Exodus.

The Old Testament is adapted from and finds its roots in The Torah, the sacred text of the Jewish religion. Many scholars believe The Torah accurately represents the history of the Jewish people. The Torah recounts their trials, the words of their God, and the prophet Moses' teachings. The laws of the God Yahweh - known as the "Ten Commandments" - were relayed to Moses, passed on to the "Children of Israel" and written in Exodus's book for all time.  The origins of The Bible are controversial at best. For hundreds of years, there have been debates, academic and religious, about the origin of The Bible. Many in the Jewish faith claim that The Torah represents the literal history of the Hebrew people. Many in the academic field contend that the Torah is roughly five hundred years off the timeline of some stories believed to be written by Moses and the creation of the written language of the Hebrews.

The Great Flood

The Epic of Gilgamesh refers to a great flood. Utnapishtim tells the flood story on Tablet XI: The Story of the Flood. “Utanapishtim spoke to Gilgamesh, saying: "I will reveal to you, Gilgamesh, a thing that is hidden, a secret of the gods I will tell you Shuruppak, a city that you surely know, situated on the banks of the Euphrates, that city was very old, and there were gods inside it. The hearts of the Great Gods moved them to inflict the Flood.” Tablet XI 9-14. One of the foundations in the Old Testament is the story of Noah's Ark: “And God said unto Noah, the end of all flesh comes before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” Genesis 6-13. It appears that in both stories, the "sins" of man have angered their God (s), and so the God (s) are going to punish humans.

In the eleventh tablet, line 180 reads of the Epic it says, "Lay upon the sinner his sin; lay upon the transgressor his transgression." A study of these parallels to Genesis 6-9 and the many others, demonstrates the non-coincidental nature of these similarities. In each story, someone worthy of being spared receives a warning of the destruction of mankind. Both were given specific instructions on how to save themselves and carry out particular wishes of the gods.

Utnapishtim was instructed: "O man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar -Tutu, tear down thy house, build a ship; abandon wealth, seek afterlife; scorn possessions, save thy life.  The boat you are to build, its dimensions must measure equal: its length must correspond to its width. Let its dimensions be well measured." Roof it over like the Apsu." Bring up the seed of all kinds of living things into the ship that thou shalt build. Tablet XI 24 and 28-30.

Noah was instructed to: "Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it." Genesis 14-16.

Both Utnapishtim and Noah, and their families and animals were spared from the wrath that humankind faced: From the Epic: "All the living beings that I had I loaded on it, I had all my kith and kin go up into the boat, all the beasts, and animals of the field…" Tablet XI 84-85.  From the Bible: "But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female." Genesis 18-19. They both also seemed to have the same idea to determine when it was safe to leave their boats' safety and return to land: Utnapishtim may have used doves and ravens: "When a seventh day arrived, I sent forth a dove and released it. The dove went off but came back to me; no perch was visible, so it circled back to me. I sent forth a swallow and released it. The swallow went off but came back to me; no perch was visible, so it circled back to me. I sent forth a raven and released it. The raven went off and saw the waters slither back. It eats, it scratches, it bobs, but does not circle back to me." Tablet XI 145-154.

"And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro until the waters were dried up from off the earth. Also, he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground. Still, the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. And he stayed yet other seven days; and again, he sent forth the dove out of the ark; And the dove came into him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off: so, Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth." Genesis 7-11. Both accounts trace the landing spot to the same general region of the Middle East; Mt. Ararat and Mt. Nisir are about 300 miles apart. The blessing that each hero received after the Flood was also quite different. Utnapishtim was granted eternal life, while Noah was to multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over the animals. The similarities between the story of the Flood of Utnapishtim and Noah's Ark are striking. Did the authors of The Bible simply reuse older tales? This story is not as evident as the flood story, but there are still some striking similarities. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are instructed by God not to partake of the fruits of the "Tree of Knowledge": Genesis 2:17.

In the "Epic," Gilgamesh is told of a "magic plant" called the "The Old Man Becomes a Young Man." This plant promises to make an old man young again, and this offers immortality to anyone who partakes in it. Gilgamesh is denied this opportunity of immortality by a "serpent" who steals his plant while Gilgamesh was bathing Tablet XI 285-289.

Watch the video: Flood Stories - King Gilgamesh and Prophet Noah

In both stories, mankind is denied immortality by a serpent and a plant or tree is involved. In the Bible a serpent causes mankind to lose not only paradise but also innocence and immortality when he entices Eve to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil: Genesis 3 1-6. Once they ate of the Tree of Knowledge, their God said they would die: Genesis: 2:17.

Watch the video: Noah's Flood Story

The widespread nature of flood traditions throughout the entire human race is excellent evidence for the existence of a great flood from a historical point of view. Dating of the oldest fragments of the Gilgamesh account originally indicated that it was older than the assumed dating of Genesis in the Bible. From the early days of the comparative study of these two flood accounts, it has been generally agreed that there is an obvious relationship.  A popular theory, proposed by scholars, said that the Hebrews "borrowed" the story from the Babylonians.

Scholars have recognized the similarities between The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament. The debate on how much of the Old Testament is based on older pagan stories and how indebted the Hebrew religion is to Mesopotamian storytellers continue to this very day. Although not as heated an argument as it has been in the past, there is no doubt that the similarities between the two are apparent and cannot be ignored by anyone seriously exploring the origins of The Bible.

The following table is a comparison of the two accounts of the flood as presented in the Book of Genesis and in the Epic of Gilgamesh. 

Watch the Annenberg video: The Epic of Gilgamesh