GILGAMESH BACKGROUND

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GILGAMESH BACKGROUND

• World Literature I
• Presentation by
• Ralph Monday

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Mesopotamia
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Mesopotamia
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The Descent of Inanna

• This journey into the underworld is a bit older
  than Gilgamesh.
• It is probably the oldest extant written story in
  the world.
• The story can actually be located in the urban
  culture of Sumer to 3500 B.C.E.

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• Both Sumer and Egypt developed a written language
  at about 3200 B.C.E.
• Mesopotamia and Egypt have the oldest written
  literature in the world.
• Urban civilization is thought to begin with Sumer.

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Ancient Sumer
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Gilgamesh

• The story came to us from 22,000 clay tablets of
  cuneiform writing from
• modern day Iraq.
• The Akkadian king, Ashurbanipal had it written
  down sometime during the eighth century B.C.E.

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Cuneiform Writing

• Genesis 1010 And the beginning of his kingdom
  was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh in the
  land of Shinar (Sumer) .....

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Language

• Sumerian is a linguistically isolated and extinct
  language. All attempts to connect Sumerian with
  any other tongue have so far failed. Sumerian is
  preserved only on clay tablets in a corpus of
  texts written in cuneiform. After 2000 B.C.E. the
  Semitic language Akkadian became dominant.

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Cuneiform Script

• The Sumerian civilization is thought to be the
  earliest culture to use written language, in
  about 3200 B.C.E.

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(No Transcript)
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Gilgamesh Continued

• The story of Gilgamesh was lost until 1839 when
  A.H. Layard found the tablets in Nineveh.
• In 1872 George Smith translated them into English.

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Present Day Uruk
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Gilgamesh Summary

• The epic begins with a list of Gilgameshs
  accomplishments.
• We learn that he is self-indulgent and that he
  sleeps with all the virgins before they sleep
  with their lovers.

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The Coming of Enkidu

• Enkidu is created to be a challenger to
  Gilgamesh.
• He is first civilized by a ritual orgy of six
  days and seven with a temple priestess.
• This symbolizes the loss of his animal nature.

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Seduction of Enkidu
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• Enkidu challenges Gilgamesh to a physical battle,
  stopping him from claiming first night.
• Gilgamesh wins, though not easily, and he and
  Enkidu become friends.
• Enkidu can be seen as a type of double or foil
  for Gilgamesh.

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Humbaba
Gilgamesh
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• Gilgamesh wants some of the lumber of Enlils
  forest, up the Euphrates River.
• He and Enkidu travel to the forest that is
  guarded by a giant, Humbaba.
• When Gilgamesh begins to cut down trees, Humbaba
  is enraged.
• Humbaba offers the entire forest if he can live,
  but Enkidu persuades Gilgamesh to kill him.

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Confronting Humbaba
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Ishtar

• The fertility goddess, Ishtar, proposes to
  Gilgamesh and wants to make love to him.
• He refuses and insults her about her poor record
  as a lover.
• Whining, Ishtar goes to her father and asks for
  the Bull of Heaven so that Gilgamesh will be
  destroyed.

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The Goddess Ishtar
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Phoenician Ivory Plaque of Ishtar
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Bull of Heaven
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• Anu grants the bull, but Enkidu and Gilgamesh
  kill it, dedicating its heart to Shamash.
• Ishtar is even more upset.
• Enkidu then dreams that either he or Gilgamesh
  must die for having killed the Bull and Humbaba.

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• Enkidu curses the gate made of the cedar he stole
  and the woman who brought him to civilization.
• Anu reminds Enkidu of how good the woman was and
  he retracts the curse.
• Enkidu can then only speak his terrifying dreams
  to Gilgamesh who watches him die.

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Gilgamesh Mourns the Death of Enkidu
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Gilgamesh Wanders the Earth

• Alone and terrified of death, Gilgamesh travels
  eastward toward the mountain of Mashu (perhaps in
  Iran or Kashmir?).
• He kills lions and wears their hides until he
  meets dangerous scorpion men who inquire about
  his quest.

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Persian impression of a cornelian cylinder seal
Scorpion men
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• Gilgamesh responds to the Scorpion men by telling
  them that he is looking
• For Utnapishtim, a mortal who became a god, so
  that he too, can discover the secret of eternal
  life.
• They let him pass and he goes into a tunnel
  beneath the mountain to emerge on the other side
  in the land of the gods.

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• There he meets Siduri, a veiled bar maid for the
  gods.
• She does not recognize Gilgamesh, for his long
  journey and mourning for Enkidu have made him
  haggard and emaciated.

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Siduri
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• Siduri reveals to Gilgamesh the paradox of
  divinity because men are mortal they can at
  least enjoy life,
• For it is rare and a mysterious gift.
• The gods, however, being immortal have no need to
  fear death life is nothing to them.
• Life is all the same, one enjoyment after the
  other, none spectacular.

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• Gilgamesh asks her for the way to Utnapishtim.
• She directs him to a forest, and beyond the
  forest is a mooring where
• The mysterious boatman, Urshnabi, stands waiting.

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Urshnabi
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• Gilgamesh smashes a box on the boat because he is
  angry and afraid of death.
• He must supply the ship with poles painted with
  tar in order to cross the sea of death.
• He does so and is taken to meet Utnapishtim, the
  Faraway.

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Utnapishtim
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• The conversation they have is similar to the one
  that Gilgamesh had with Siduri and Urshnabi.
• Utnapishtim tells him that there is no such thing
  as permanence, that nothing lasts forever.
• However, Gilgamesh wants to know how Utnapishtim,
  who once was a mortal, came to be among the gods.

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• Utnapishtim then tell Gilgamesh the story of the
  gods being upset and
• Destroying the world by sending a great flood.
• All humans were destroyed except Utnap and his
  family.
• The story is almost identical to the one in
  Genesis.

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• It is time for Gilgamesh to return to the land of
  the living.
• Utnapishtim offers him a test Stay awake for six
  days and seven nights,
• And he might just become immortal.
• Gilgamesh fails before he even begins.

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• He falls asleep and when he wakes up the baked
  loaves of bread beside
• His bed tell him that he has slept for seven
  days.
• Utnapishtims wife wants a going away present for
  Gilgamesh.

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• The old man tells Gilgamesh about a plant growing
  at the bottom of the sea that grants immortal
  life.
• However, a snake steals the plant away from him
  and he loses the gift of immortal life.

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Snake Stealing Plant of Life
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• Gilgamesh arrives as a hero in Uruk. He then
  engraves his lifes story on stones.
• Gilgamesh dies, granted immortality only through
  the monuments he has built and the poem that we
  read.
• The people praise his deeds and the greatness of
  their king.

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Gilgamesh, Immortality Through Art