The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gilgamesh \Gilgamesh\, Gilgamish \Gilgamish\prop. n.
(Sumerian mythology) A legendary king of Sumeria and the hero of famous Sumerian and Babylonian epics.
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The Epic of Gilgamesh, a long Babylonian epic written in cuneiform in the Sumerian language on clay tablets. Early versions of the written story date from 2000 B. C.; it is probably the first written story still in existence. A longer version was written in the Akkadian language, on 12 clay tablets found at Nineveh in the ruins of the library of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria from 669 to 633 B. C. The story depicted the life and heroic deeds of the legendary Gilgamesh, apparently derived from stories about a real king of ancient Mesopotamia who lived around 2700 B. C. The story includes a tale of a great flood, which has some parallels to the biblical story of the flood survived by Noah. The Nineveh tablets name the author of that version of the story, a Shin-eqi-unninni.
Note: The entire text may be found in: The Epic of Gilgamesh Translated by Maureen Gallery Kovacs (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990) and Gilgamesh Translated by John Maier and John Gardner (New York: Vintage Press, 1981)
Wikipedia
The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia. Dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur (circa 2100 BC), it is often regarded as the earliest surviving great work of literature. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about 'Bilgamesh' (Sumerian for 'Gilgamesh'), king of Uruk. These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic. The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the "Old Babylonian" version, dates to the 18th century BC and is titled after its incipit, Shūtur eli sharrī ("Surpassing All Other Kings"). Only a few tablets of it have survived. The later "Standard" version dates from the 13th to the 10th centuries BC and bears the incipit Sha naqba īmuru ("He who Saw the Deep", in modern terms: "He who Sees the Unknown"). Approximately two thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have been recovered. Some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BC Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.
The first half of the story discusses Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and Enkidu, a wild man created by the gods to stop Gilgamesh from oppressing the people of Uruk. After an initial fight, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become close friends. Together, they journey to the Cedar Mountain and defeat Humbaba, its monstrous guardian. Later they kill the Bull of Heaven, which the goddess Ishtar sends to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. As a punishment for these actions, the gods sentence Enkidu to death.
In the second half of the epic, distress about Enkidu's death causes Gilgamesh to undertake a long and perilous journey to discover the secret of eternal life. He eventually learns that "Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands". However, because of his great building projects, his account of Siduri's advice, and what the immortal man Utnapishtim told him about the Great Flood, Gilgamesh's fame survived his death. His story has been translated into many languages, and in recent years has featured in works of popular fiction.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia.
Epic of Gilgamesh may also refer to:
- The Epic of Gilgamesh (Martinů), 1955 oratorio by Bohuslav Martinů
- The Epic of Gilgamesh, or This Unnameable Little Broom, 1985 stop motion short film
Usage examples of "epic of gilgamesh".
Or does the whole account in Exodus come from the Epic of Gilgamesh?
The poem may have an historical basis, as we have seen to be the case with the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The Epic of Gilgamesh says that Enkidu must be 'estranged from the animals'.
Two of his fantasies, The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey, are now scattered like seeds across centuries and continents, sown into the cultural loam of lands and languages that to him are totally alien.
Enthusiastic sf scholars have made remarkable plunges down into world literature and returned with the most astounding discoveries, from the Sumer epic of Gilgamesh to the old Norse Eddas, the Arabian Nights and so forth, not to mention the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.
On April 28, while Dillinger loaded his gun and the kachinas of Orabi began the drum-beating, the Acapulco Gold-Diggers arrived, followed by the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Dracula and His Brides, the Iron Curtain, the Noisy Minority, the International Debt, Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, the Cloud of Unknowing, the Birth of a Nation, the Zombies, Attila and His Huns, Nihilism, the Catatonics.
It is clear that Akkadian redactors went through the Sumerian myths, edited out the (to us) bizarre and incomprehensible parts, and strung them together into longer works, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh.