Between gods and animals: becoming human in the Gilgamesh epic

To remember

• The Epic of Gilgamesh = Babylonian poem composed in ancient Iraq, millennia before Homer = tells story of Gilgamesh, king of the city of Uruk.
• gods create a friend for him > Enkidu, wild man,
• woman Shamhat seduces Enkidu=> transforming Enkidu from beast to man => strength diminished + intellect expanded =>able to think + speak like a human being.
• Enkidu goes to Uruk to confront Gilgamesh’s abuse of power > wrestle with one another => form passionate friendship.
• Gilgamesh’s beginning number of different editions <= began as cycle of stories in  Sumerian language > collected + translated into single epic in Akkadian language. > earliest version of the epic written in dialect Old Babylonian > revised + updated in Standard Babylonian dialect
• Gilgamesh story comes to us as a tapestry of shards, pieced together by philologists to create a roughly coherent narrative
• newest discovery = tiny fragment lain overlooked in museum archive of Cornell University in New York, identified by Alexandra Kleinerman & Alhena Gadotti + published by Andrew George in 2018. => tablet seemed to preserve parts of both Old Babylonian + Standard Babylonian version, = two scenes not identical,
• Gods depicted as opposite of animals = omnipotent + immortal
• human placed somewhere in the middle = not omnipotent, but capable of

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Preceding

Stories of the beginnings, and one Main book composed of four major sections

Gilgamesh

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Additional reading

1. Genesis Among the Creation Myths
2. The flood, floods and mythic flood stories 2 Mythic theme 1 God or gods warning
3. The flood, floods and mythic flood stories 3 Mythic theme 2 Hebrew story of the flood
4. The flood, floods and mythic flood stories 6 European myths
5. The flood, floods and mythic flood stories 8 South America