The Epic of Gilgamesh

Anonymous
The Epic of Gilgamesh - $5.59
2150 - 2000 BCE

The Gilgamesh Epic dates back to the Bronze age! That is over 4000 years old. It was discovered in 1853 or 1849, depending on the source. This great work was lost for thousands of years. It dates back to the earliest civilizations in the fertile crescent, modern day Iraq and surrounding areas.

Epic n. - A long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation

The Epic survives in tablets. The standard versions of the epic consist of twelve tablets. They also found a few other versions in different languages and they used the different versions to fill in the missing or broken pieces.

The Akkadian versions is considered the standard version. They also have an older babylonian version and alternate poems of the different parts of the epic in Sumerian.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is split into two parts. The first part is the tale of Gilgamesh who was a demigod and a bad ruler to his people. The gods create a rival to Gilgamesh in Enkidu. Enkidu has many similarities to Adam in the bible. Gilgamesh and Enkidu battle and Gilgamesh is the superior fighter but they end up becoming friends. Gilgamesh was lonely as a demigod and now he has an equal. They go about doing heroic deeds until Enkidu is killed.

The second part of the epic is Gilgamesh quest for immortality. He is distraught over the death of Enkidu who he thought immortal like himself. Gilgamesh searches for the secret to eternal life and does not find it.

"The life that you are seeking you will never find. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping."

He does find a version of immortality in the form of epic poetry. The poem survives today and so does Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is now considered to have really lived, not as a demigod but as a king in ancient times.

When I first heard of the Gilgamesh epic I knew I had to read it. It is one of the oldest pieces of literature that humans have created. What surprised me about the story is how good it is. I don’t know why I didn't expect this epic to be as good as others. The Odyssey is one of my favorites works of literature and that is about 2500 years old. That is considered one of the best things ever written and I think that Gilgamesh is not up there yet because it has not been around as long because it was lost. It has not had enough time to be studied and become a part of our culture. Gilgamesh has only been studied for 150 years compared to The Odyssey that has influenced all literature for 2500 years.

Gilgamesh seems to be more interesting to historians than to literature professors. The epic just needs more people like us to read and spread the word.

Here are the different versions of the epic available in the Kindle store:

1 An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic - Free This is one of the versions I read. Compares the different versions of the tablets and has a lot of analysis as well as a history of the tablets.

2 The Epic of Gilgamesh (Classics) - $5.59 This is the Penguin Classics versions. Has a great introduction and is the standard versions of the epic.

3 Gilgamesh: The Oldest Epic Tale (Annotated) - $0.99 This versions compiles the tablets to produce a more complete text of the story. This is an almost direct translation with some annotations.

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