The Epic of Gilgamesh

Absolute Ruler of the Kingdom of Uruk Kelly Todd Brewer

2/3 god, 1/3 human Hum 201
October 11. 2022
 The Queen reviews the Kings African Rifles

How does Shakespeare get to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania,

Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa?
 Oral transmission vs. institutional transmission of arts, culture, law
The Epic of Gilgamesh was largely unknown in Europe until the 19th century. We might argue that Gilgamesh was known in the
Middle East and northern Africa all along and largely spread orally in addition to being “written in stone” (or clay tablets). Consider
the fact that with the exception of Sumerian all other languages were Semitic. Check the maps below.
 “The sun never sets on the British Empire”

Gilgamesh makes his debut in Europe during the reign of

Queen Victoria 1819-1901 Queen Victoria, when British explorers sailors, archeologists,
colonial administrators and, of course, teachers, were all over
the globe
 Mesapotamia (Greek)—The Land between the
Rivers
َّ ‫ بِ اَلد‬Bilād ar-Rāfidayn
‫ٱلرافِ اديْن‬
The “River” Motif
• From the book of Genesis: 2:10-15 (The Book of the
Jews)

• A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and

there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name
of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed
around the whole land of iHavilah, where there is
gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium
and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second
river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the
whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river
is the jTigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the
fourth river is the Euphrates.
• 15 The Lord God took the man kand put him in the
garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
How should we read The Epic of Gilgamesh today
• Who was Gilgamesh?
• What does it mean to be 2/3 god, 1/3 human?
• What has changed regarding the art of governance?
• How can we see the transcendental theme of the civilizing mission?
• What does it mean to be fully human or to experience the gamut of
what is know as being human?
• Why is Gilgamesh still around today?
• What if the story of the flood in the good books is just a fabrication
 Sovereignty

What are the characteristics of a sovereign ruler?

Centered, decisive, rich but not greedy, has integrity, protects his/her
people, provides order, inspiring to others, God fearing, brave, wise,
leaves a legacy, good judge of character
Like the colonial power, like, say, France, Germany, or England,
the canonical work acts as a center—the center of the perceptual
field, the center of values, the center of interest, the center, in
short, of a web of meaningful interrelations. The noncanonical
works act as colonies or as countries that are unknown and out
of sight and mind.

George P. Landow, https://victorianweb.org/gender/canon/litcan.html

 GEORGE
SMITH
1840-1876
1872 translates 11th table of
Gilgamesh, the Chaldean account of
the Great Flood to the Society of
Biblical Archaeology.
 Layard while going to Ceylon,
he stalled in Mosul and was
fascinated by these clay tablets
he began to find around the
ancient city of Nineveh (close to
what is today the city of Mosul).

Trivia: What is Ceylon

called today?
Austin Henry Layard (1817-1894)
The Flood Tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh

British Museum
The Ziggurat of Ur
Cuneiform
The remains of the Ziggurat of Uruk
 The Royal Library of Ashurbanipal of
Nineveh/Mosul

For information on the Library of Ashurbanipal see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfNCc5kPX5o

Italian Special Forces unit take a
picture at the Ziggurat in what was
the city of Ur in what is now Iraq
during the ousting of Sadam
Hussein, whom Americans
supported during the Iraq/Iran
war.

Imagine the history, the rise and

fall of many civilizations the
Ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia
witnessed.
 The Babyonian Map of the circa 500 BCE

Gilgamesh goes to the ends of the earth in search of immortality

 • Myths are created to explain natural or social phenomenon
and the actions of gods.

• Myths are usually interwoven with the religion of a particular

society.

• Myths explain why things are the way they are.

WHAT ARE MYTHS? • They are usually centered around the origins of people and
creation myths.
(MYTHOS means story)
• Myths tell the stories of gods, demigods and supernatural
humans

• Taken as literal accounts or historical accounts turned into

mythical proportions.

• A form of misguided science or attempt to explain the

natural world
 • A long narrative poem from the past that involves a
journey, a sense of transformation and a return home.

• An epic story starts in the middle so to speak-- there is a

history that precedes the epic which is untold: in medias
res

What is an epic • It involves the extraordinary accomplishments and feats

poem? of bravery and triumphs

• It deals with divine intervention into human affairs

• The narrative voice of the poem is omniscient

• The heroes embody the virtues of the culture from

which they spring. • The gods of the culture take
interest and play a part.
 WHAT IS AN EPIC POEM?
• A long narrative poem from the past that involves 1) a journey, 2) a quest for something valuable 3) a
sense of transformation and 4) a return home 5) reconstitution of the sacred
• An epic story starts in the middle—there is a history that precedes the epic which is untold: in medias
res
• It involves the extraordinary accomplishments and feats of bravery and triumphs
• It deals with divine intervention into human affairs
• The narrative voice of the poem is omniscient
• The heroes embody the virtues and ideals of the culture from which they spring. Gilgamesh,
Achilles, Odysseus, David (and Goliath), The Sundiata of old Mali, The Rumayana of India.
• The gods of the culture take interest and play a part—although they may be impulsive, impetuous,
capricious, jealous, vengeful…
• Epics are usually conservative in that they legitimize the rule of the powers that be at that time.
 Themes
• Love and friendship
• Courage
• Acceptance of death

• Humanizing mission: mortality

• Civilizing mission and becoming social: clothing, table manners and
sexual affairs
• The will of the hero
 Anu/Ea-Father Earth Ki=Mother Earth

The Anunnaki of Ancient Mesapotamia

Enki: the Southern Sky Ki: Consort to Enki Enlil: the Norther Sky Ninsun-goddess
 The Prologue
• I WILL proclaim to the world the deeds of Gilgamesh. This was the man to whom all things were
known; this was the king who knew the countries of the world. He was wise, he saw mysteries and
knew secret things, he brought us a tale of the days before the flood. He went on a long journey,
was weary, worn-out with labour, returning he rested, he engraved on a stone the whole story.
• When the gods created Gilgamesh they gave him a perfect body. Shamash the glorious sun
endowed him with beauty, Adad the god of the storm endowed him with courage, the great gods
made his beauty perfect, surpassing all others, terrifying like a great wild bull. Two thirds they
made him god and one third man.
• In Uruk he built walls, a great rampart, and the temple of blessed Eanna for the god of the
firmament Anu, and for Ishtar the goddess of love. Look at it still today: the outer wall where the
cornice runs, it shines with the brilliance of copper; and the inner wall, it has no equal. Touch the
threshold, it is ancient. Approach Eanna the dwelling of Ishtar, our lady of love and war, the like of
which no latter-day king, no man alive can equal. Climb upon the wall of Uruk; walk along it, I say;
regard the foundation terrace and examine the. masonry: is it not burnt brick and good? The
seven sages laid the foundations.
 The priestest, or harlot, Shamat is given the task to be an egreti gelin in order
to take Enkidu from the world of beasts to the world of civilized humans.
Enkidu is civilized through the introduction to “proper” sexuality.

What does this say about Gilgamesh’s sexual practices in comparison? How
are they similar? How are they different?

From there Enkidu is civilized in the ways of eating and drinking. The goes to
meet Gilgamesh. They wrestle with no winner and become the best of friends,
Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
Enkidu is
humanized Gilgamesh and Enkidu become bossom buddies and most likely lovers, as
Gilgamesh’s dream says that he will treat Enkidu as a bride.

What does this tell us about the notion of gender and sexuality in ancient
Mesopotamia?

Friendship! Lovership! What kind of “situationship” woud one call that? What
kind of arka-daşes are they?
 • Part god part human
• a bully—more like hes is king of the city/jungle/hills: a lion.
• Practices the jus primae noctis– the right of the king or lord
to have the virgin bride before she is married to another.
• He brutalizes boys and girls.
From the • His power knows no limits.
Prologue and • Yet, he knows very little but brute force.
First Tablets • The people cry for the assistance of the gods to relieve them
of this king, Gilgamesh, who has an animalisti brutal survival
nature.

The poetic voice of the prologue paints him as strong—but not

necessarily heroic. Instead, he is arrogant, hubristic, kibir and
will be punished, which, means, in his case, to become fully
human.
Allegory: Humaba and the Cedar Forest

Who is Humbaba (really)? Was he really an ogre put in the forest to

protect trees? Were there not people there already?

Why would Gilgamesh want to go and cut down the trees of the Cedar
Forest? What was the importance of wood?

Allegory: A story that stands in for another story. It could also be

considered as an extended metaphor in prose, poetry or picture that
reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.
 Andrew George’s note on the Humbaba
Episode
After admiring the mountain dense-grown with cedar, the heroes draw
their weapons and creep into the forest. Humbaba confronts them, and
accuses Enkidu of treachery. Enkidu urges swift action. Gilgamesh and
Humbaba fight, and Shamash sends the thirteen winds to blind
Humbaba and win victory for his protege. Humbaba pleads for his life.
Enkidu again urges haste, telling Gilgamesh to kill Humbaba before the
gods find out. Humbaba curses the heroes, who promptly kill him and
begin felling cedar in the sacred groves. From one especially magnificent
cedar Enkidu vows to make a great door to adorn the temple of the god
Enlil. p. 39
 The Coming of Enkidu
• GILGAMESH went abroad in the world, but he met with none who could
withstand his arms till be came to Uruk. But the men of Uruk muttered in their
houses, ‘Gilgamesh sounds the tocsin for his amusement, his arrogance has no
bounds by day or night. No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them
all, even the children; yet the king should be a shepherd to his people. His lust
leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior's daughter nor the wife of the
noble; yet this is the shepherd of the city, wise, comely, and resolute.'
• The gods heard their lament, the gods of heaven cried to the Lord of Uruk, to
Anu the god of Uruk: ‘A goddess made him, strong as a savage bull, none can
withstand his arms. No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them all;
and is this the king, the shepherd of his people? His lust leaves no virgin to her
lover, neither the warrior's daughter nor the wife of the noble. When Anu had
heard their lamentation the gods cried to Aruru, the goddess of creation, ‘You
made him, O Aruru; now create his equal; let it be as like him as his own
reflection, his second self; stormy heart for stormy heart. Let them contend
together and leave Uruk in quiet.
• His father opened his mouth and said to the trapper, ‘My son, in Uruk lives
Gilgamesh; no one has ever pre- vailed against him, he is strong as a star from
heaven. Go to Uruk, find Gilgamesh, extol the strength of this wild man. Ask
him to give you a harlot, a wanton from the temple of love; return with her, and
let her woman's power overpower this man. When next he comes down to
drink at the wells she will be there, stripped naked; and when he sees her
beckoning he will embrace her, and then the wild beasts will reject him.'
 The first recorded bullfight

When Anu heard what Ishtar had said he gave her the Bull of Heaven to lead
by the halter down to Uruk: When they reached the gates of Uruk the Bull
went to the river; with his first snort cracks opened in the earth and, a hundred
young men fell down to death. With his second snort cracks opened and two
hundred fell down to death. With his third snort cracks opened, Enkidu
doubled over but instantly recovered, he dodged aside and leapt on the Bull
and seized it by the horns. The Bull of Heaven foamed in his face, it brushed
him with the thick of its tail. Enkidu cried to Gilgamesh, 'my friend, we boasted
that we would leave enduring names behind us. Now thrust in your sword
between the nape and the horns.' So Gilgamesh followed the Bull, he seized
the thick of its tail, he thrust the sword between the nape and the horns and
slew the Bull. When they had killed the Bull of Heaven they cut out its heart
and gave it to Shamash, and the brothers rested.
Ishtar—“Hell hath no fury like a woman
scorned”

Attributed to William Congreve (17th

century playwright and poet

• The trope of the scorned woman

• A trope is a cliché writ large or an

image that becomes ossified in time.
It is also a recurring theme.

• The “raging bull” that sees red for

instance.
Isthar, Gilgamesh and the death of Enkidu
• When Ishtar heard this she fell into a bitter rage, she went up to high heaven. Her
tears poured down in front of her father Anu, and Antum her mother. She said,
‘My father, Gilgamesh has heaped insults on me, he has told over all my
abominable behaviour, my foul and hideous acts.' Anu opened his mouth and
said, ‘Are you a father of gods? Did not you quarrel with Gilgamesh the king, so
now he has related your abominable behaviour, your foul and hideous acts.'
• Ishtar opened her mouth and said again, ‘My father, give me the Bull of Heaven
to destroy Gilgamesh. Fill Gilgamesh, I say, with arrogance to his destruction; but
if you refuse to give me the Bull of Heaven I will break in the doors of hell and
smash the bolts; there will be confusion of people, those above with those from
the lower depths. I shall bring up the dead to eat food like the living; and the hosts
of dead will outnumber the living.' Anusa d to great Ishtar, ‘If I do what you desire
there will be seven years of drought throughout Uruk when corn will be seedless
husks. Have you saved grain enough for the people and grass for the cattle? Ishtar
replied. ‘I have saved grain for the people, grass for the cattle; for seven years o£
seedless husks, there is grain and there is grass enough
Enkidu dies—Gilgamesh weeps, wails and
wanders
'Hear me, 0 young men, hear [me!] Hear me, 0 elders
[of teeming Uruk,] hear me! I shall weep for Enkidu,
my friend, like a hired mourner-woman I shall bitterly
wail.

VIII 15

May [boxwood,] cypress and cedar mourn you,

through whose midst we crept in our fury!
May the bear mourn you, the hyena, the panther,
the cheetah, the stag and the jackal, the lion, the
wild bull,
the deer, the ibex, all the beasts of the wild!
Untnapistim: Survivor of the Great Flood (or Noah and his crew
 The search for everlasting life
BITTERLY Gilgamesh wept for his friend Enkidu; he wandered over
the wilderness as a hunter, he roamed over the plains; in his bitterness
he cried, ‘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.' So Gilgamesh travelled over the wilderness, he wandered over
the grasslands, a long journey, in search of Utnapishtim, whom the
gods took after the deluge; and they set him to live in the land of
Dilmun, in the garden of the sun; and to him alone of men they gave
everlasting life.
 The first couplet of the last
verse of the epic
”0 Ur-shanabi, climb Uruk's wall and walk back and forth!
Survey its foundations, examine the brickwork!’’
 • Sumerian is (known to be) a language isolate--a language
without a geneological relationship to any other language
such as Basque, Sumerian and Elamite
Sumerian and
• Akkadian is a semitic language. Semitic languages include
Akkadian as Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya, Hebrew, Aramaic.
Language
• Why is this language in this sense important? Because
language is the vessel for the transmission of knowlegdge
culture and civilization.
• Semitic Languages have been classified or named as
Afroasiatic languages.
Where are Semitic Languages?
Mesapotamia
2000-1600 BC
 A prototype of a thing or a person or even an idea: the so-called
original or a recognized model from which something comes.

An Archetype generally would be accepted or known (even

Archetypes unconsciously as common sense) and settled into cultural
language. Examples: the hero, the villain, the saint, the wicked
woman, the wise old man, the good and the bad.
and ancient
patterns Archetypes are generally copied and become models for or
against such behavior.

Archetypes may become models for regulating social behavior

and have a certain social function.
 Allegory for the civilization of humanity: Gilgamesh
the tyrant and Enkidu the beast.

The Irony of He fails in his quests for eternal life

Gilgamesh:
He Fails as a He doesn’t really know anything other than he is
strong and powerful
Hero but he
becomes fully He doesn’t trust wisdom as stated in the prologue
human
He cannot accept his mortal status but is punished
and hence experiences the full gamut of human
emotions: sorry and grief
 Enkidu is a wild beast of the forest created by the goddess, Aruru, to “pacify”
tryranical Gilgamesh.

“The goddess Aruru, she washed her hands,

Enkidu took a pinch of clay, threw it down in the wild.

in In the wild she created Enkidu, the hero,

Parallel
offspring of silence, knit strong by Ninurta.”

According to scripture, the God of Abraham created Adam out of clay, too. What’s
up with clay?

'Spread your clothing so he may lie on you, do for the man the work of a woman! Let
his passion caress and embrace you, his herd will spurn him, though he grew up
amongst it.'
 • 2/3 god, 1/3 human
• a bully—more like hes is king of the city/jungle/hills: a lion
• Practices the jus primae noctis– the right of the king or lord
to have the virgin bride before she is married to another,
• He brutalizes boys and girls
• His power knows no limits
From the • Yet, he knows very little but brute force.
Prologue and • The people cry for the assistance of the gods to relieve them
of this king, Gilgamesh, who has an animalistic brutal survival
First Tablets nature.

The poetic voice of the prologue paints him as strong—but not

necessarily heroic. Instead, he is arrogant, hubristic (kibir) and
will be punished, which means, in his case, become fully
human.