The Epic of Gilgamesh

I was inspired to reread this document by a wonderful art book I am reading, slowly, called Art, the Whole Story. It’s a history of art and treats civilizations chronologically, so it’s really a history of society as well. There’s a section on Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, that intrigued me greatly. I knew about Mesopotamia but, not having studied ancient history, it was all very sketchy. So first I delved into more information about Mesopotamia, the Sumerians, the city states, Babylon and so forth and then I got hold of the epic, which I had studied at uni and promptly forgotten.

It’s the story of Gilgamesh, the king if Uruk, two thirds god and one third man, and out of control really. While he is lord and protector, he is also fighting and killing people, sleeping with all the virgins and generally behaving like a bit of a naughty lad. The gods create a friend and companion for him, Enkindu, a wild man who has to be tamed from his life with the animals. He is tamed by a harlot who tempts him and seduces him, and he becomes conscious of his role as man. He and Gilgamesh journey to the mountains to kill the giant Humbaba (what a great name) and bring back cedar for their city. The gods decree that Enkindu must die and Gilgamesh is left bereft. He travels to the ends of the earth to meet Utnapishtim, the equivalent of Noah, who tells him he will never find the life he is seeking ie immortality. He does in fact get to grasp a plant that offers immortality but it is stolen away from him by a serpent. He accepts his fate and returns home, eventually to die the beloved king.

The biblical parallels are really interesting, especially the story of the flood that Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh. The gods are also fascinating, so quixotic, so similar to the Greek and Roman gods that followed them.

It’s a very short thing, a collection of writings that survived from a great library on twelve clay tablets, so there is stuff missing and I believe no real guarantee of how it all goes together. But it really is the beginning of literature, one of the earliest of works still existing I think: the story dates back to about 3000BC and the tablets to the 7th century BC