Gilgamesh (Akkadian cuneiform Akkadian (also Accadian, Assyro-Babylonian) is an extinct Semitic language (part of the greater Afroasiatic language family) that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate. The name of the language is: 𒄑𒂆𒈦 [𒂆], Gilgameš, also known as Bilgames in the earliest text[1]) was the fifth king of Uruk Uruk was an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates river, on the ancient dry former channel of the Euphrates River, some 30 km east of modern As-Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq (Early Dynastic II, first dynasty of Uruk), ruling circa 2700 BC, according to the Sumerian king list The Sumerian King List is an ancient manuscript, originally recorded in the Sumerian language, listing kings of Sumer from Sumerian and foreign dynasties. It records the location of "official" kingship, along with the rulers and their supposed reign lengths. Kingship was believed to have been handed down by the gods, and could be. According to the Tummal Inscription,[2] Gilgamesh, and his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil In Sumerian mythology, Ninlil , first called Sud, in Assyrian called Mullitu, is the consort goddess of Enlil. Her parentage is variously described. Most commonly she is called the daughter of Haia (god of stores) and Nunbarsegunu (or Ninshebargunnu (a goddess of barley) or Nisaba). Other sources call her a daughter of An and Nammu, in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of Nippur Nippur , from the Sumerian for 'lord wind' (Enlil), is modern Nuffar in Afak Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq. Nippur was one of the most ancient of all the Sumerian cities. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god, Enlil, ruler of the cosmos subject to An alone. Gilgamesh is the central character in the Epic of Gilgamesh The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literary writing. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the mythological hero-king Gilgamesh, which were gathered into a longer Akkadian epic much later. The most complete version existing today is preserved, the greatest surviving work of early Mesopotamian literature. In the epic his father was Lugalbanda According to the Sumerian king list, Lugalbanda was the third king of Uruk and father of Gilgamesh, the legendary king of that ancient city. Legend has it that his wife was Ninsun, a goddess and his mother was Ninsun In Sumerian mythology, Ninsun or Ninsuna is a goddess, best known as the mother of the legendary hero Gilgamesh, and as the tutelary goddess of Gudea of Lagash (whom some call Rimat Ninsun), a goddess. Gilgamesh is described as two parts god and one part man. In Mesopotamian mythology Mesopotamian mythology is the collective name given to Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian mythologies from parts of the fertile crescent, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq, Gilgamesh is credited with having been a demigod The term "demigod", meaning "man-god", is usually used to describe mythological figures whose one parent was a god and whose other parent was human. In some mythologies it also describes humans who became gods, or simply extremely powerful figures whose powers approach those of the gods even though they aren't gods themselves of superhuman strength who built a great city wall to defend his people from external threats and travelled to meet Utnapishtim The Gilgamesh flood myth is a deluge story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It was added as Tablet XI to the ten original tablets of the Gilgamesh Epic by an editor who copied or altered parts of the flood story from the Epic of Atrahasis, the sage who had survived the Great Deluge.
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Cuneiform references
In the Epic of Gilgamesh The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literary writing. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the mythological hero-king Gilgamesh, which were gathered into a longer Akkadian epic much later. The most complete version existing today is preserved, Gilgamesh is credited with the building of the legendary walls of Uruk Uruk was an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates river, on the ancient dry former channel of the Euphrates River, some 30 km east of modern As-Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq. An alternative version has Gilgamesh telling Urshanabi, the ferryman, that the city's walls were built by the Seven Sages. In historical times, Sargon of Akkad Sargon of Akkad, also known as Sargon the Great "The Great King" , was an Akkadian emperor famous for his conquest of the Sumerian city-states in the 24th and 23rd centuries BC. The founder of the Dynasty of Akkad, Sargon reigned from 2334 to 2279 BC (short chronology). He became a prominent member of the royal court of Kish, ultimately claimed to have destroyed these walls to prove his military power.
Fragments of an epic text found in Me-Turan (modern Tell Haddad) relate that at the end of his life Gilgamesh was buried under the waters of a river. The people of Uruk diverted the flow of the Euphrates The Euphrates ( juːˈfreɪtiːz ) is the longest and historically one of the most important rivers of Southwest Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia. The river – originating in the Taurus Mountains – flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris in the Shatt al-Arab, which flows into the passing Uruk for the purpose of burying the dead king within the river bed. In April 2003, a German A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, has been known and documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806. During the 16th century, northern Germany became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. As a modern nation-state, expedition claimed to have discovered his last resting place.[3]
It is generally accepted that Gilgamesh was a historical figure, since inscriptions have been found which confirm the historical existence of other figures associated with him: such as the kings Enmebaragesi Enmebaragesi was a king of Kish, according to the Sumerian king list. The list states that he subdued Elam, reigned 900 years, and was captured single-handedly by Dumuzid "the fisherman" of Kuara, predecessor of Gilgamesh and Aga of Kish Kish is modern Tell al-Uhaymir, Babil Governorate, Iraq), and was an ancient city of Sumer. Kish is located some 12 km east of Babylon, and 80 km south of Baghdad. If Gilgamesh was a historical king, he probably reigned in about the 26th century BC. Some of the earliest Sumerian texts spell his name as Bilgames. Initial difficulties in reading cuneiform resulted in Gilgamesh making his re-entrance into world culture in 1891 as "Izdubar".[4]
In most texts, Gilgamesh is written with the determinative for divine beings (DINGIR Dingir is a cuneiform sign, most commonly the determinative for "deity" although it has related meanings as well. As a determinative, it is not pronounced, and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript "D" as in e.g. DInanna. Generically, dingir can be translated as "god" or "goddess") - but there is no evidence for a contemporary cult, and the Sumerian Gilgamesh myths suggest that deification was a later development (unlike the case of the Akkadian The Akkadian Empire was an empire centered in the city of Akkad and its surrounding region (Akkadian URU Akkad KI) in Ancient Iraq, (Mesopotamia). The Akkadian state was the predecessor of the ethnic Akkadian states of Babylonia and Assyria; formed following centuries of Akkadian cultural synergy with Sumerians, it reached the height of its power god kings). Over the centuries there was a gradual accretion of stories about him, some probably derived from the real lives of other historical figures, in particular Gudea Gudea was a ruler of the city of Lagash in Southern Mesopotamia who ruled ca. 2144 - 2124 BC. He probably did not come from the city, but had married Ninalla, daughter of the ruler Urbaba (2164 - 2144 BC) of Lagash, thus gaining entrance to the royal house of Lagash. He was succeeded by his son Ur-Ningirsu, the Second Dynasty ruler of Lagash Lagash (Sumerian: Lagaš; transliteration: Lagaški; cuneiform logogram: 𒉢𒁓𒆷𒆠 ; Akkadian: nakamtu; modern Tell al-Hiba, Iraq) is located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk, Lagash was one of the oldest cities of Sumer and later Babylonia. Nearby Ngirsu (modern Telloh) was the religious center (2144–2124 BC).[5]
Later (non-cuneiform) references
In the Qumran Qumran is located on a dry plateau about a mile inland from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank, just next to the Israeli kibbutz of Kalia, an Israeli settlement. The Hellenistic period settlement was constructed likely sometime during the reign of John Hyrcanus, 134-104 BCE or in decades later, and was occupied for most of the scroll known as Book of Giants (ca. 100 BC) the names of Gilgamesh and Humbaba appear as two of the antediluvian giants (in consonantal form), rendered as glgmš and ḩwbbyš. This same text was later used in the Middle East by the Manichaean sects, and the Arabic form Jiljamish survives as the name of a demon according to the Egyptian cleric Al-Suyuti (ca. 1500).[6]
The name Gilgamesh appears once in Greek, as "Gilgamos" (Γίλγαμος), in Aelian Claudius Aelianus , often seen as just Aelian, born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222. He spoke Greek so perfectly that he was called "honey-tongued" (meliglossos); Roman-born, he preferred Greek authors, and wrote in a, De Natura Animalium (On animals) 12.21 (ca. AD 200).[7] Aelian's story, which has no obvious connection to the Gilgamesh of king-lists or Akkadian literature, is a variant of the Oedipus Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family. This legend has been retold in many versions, and was used by Sigmund Freud to name the Oedipus complex, sometimes called the Oedipesian Paradox myth: The King of Babylon, Seuechorus, determines by oracle In Classical Antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic opinion, predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the gods. As such it is a form of divination that his grandson Gilgamos will kill him, and so he throws him out of a high tower. An eagle breaks his fall, and the infant is found, raised by a gardener, and eventually becomes king.
Theodore Bar Konai (ca. AD 600), writing in Syriac, also mentions a king Gligmos, Gmigmos or Gamigos as last of a line of 12 kings who were contemporaneous with the patriarchs from Peleg to Abraham; this occurrence is also considered a vestige of Gilgamesh's former memory.[8][9]
Notes
- ^ The Epic of Gilgamesh, translated by Andrew George 1999, Penguin books Ltd, Harmondsworth, p. 141 ISBN 13579108642
- ^ The Tummal Inscription, an expanded king-list, was one of the standard Old Babylonian copy-texts; it exists in numerous examples, from Ur Ur was a city in ancient Sumer, located at the site of modern Tell el-Mukayyar in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate. Once a coastal city near the mouth of the then Euphrates river on the Persian Gulf, Ur is now well inland, south of the Euphrates on its right bank, 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) from Nasiriyah, Iraq. It is close to the site of ancient Eridu. Ur and Nippur.
- ^ "Gilgamesh tomb believed found", BBC News, 29 April 2003
- ^ In Alfred Jeremias, Izdubar-Nimrod, eine altbabylonische Heldensage (1891).
- ^ N.K. Sandars, introduction to The Epic of Gilgamesh (Penguin, 1972:16).
- ^ A. R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh epic p 60.
- ^ Walter Burkert Walter Burkert , a scholar of Greek mythology and cult, is an emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and also has taught in the United Kingdom and the United States. He has influenced generations of students of religion since the 1960s, combining in the modern way the findings of archaeology and epigraphy with the: The Orientalizing Revolution; 1992, p 33 note 32.
- ^ George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh epic p. 61
- ^ Tigay, The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic p. 252.
References
- Damrosch, David (2007). The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh. Henry Holt and Co.. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 0-805-08029-5.
- George, Andrew [1999], The Epic of Gilgamesh: the Babylonian Epic Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian, Harmondsworth: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1999 (published in Penguin Classics 2000, reprinted with minor revisions, 2003. ISBN 0-14-044919-1
- George, Andrew, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic - Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2 volumes, 2003.
- Foster, Benjamin R., trans. & edit. (2001). The Epic of Gilgamesh. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 0-393-97516-9.
- Hammond, D. & Jablow, A. [1987], "Gilgamesh and the Sundance Kid: the Myth of Male Friendship", in Brod, H. (ed.), The Making of Masculinities: The New Men's Studies, Boston, 1987, pp. 241–258.
- Kovacs, Maureen Gallery, transl. with intro. (1985,1989). The Epic of Gilgamesh. Stanford University Press: Stanford, California. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 0-8047-1711-7. Glossary, Appendices, Appendix (Chapter XII=Tablet XII). A line-by-line translation (Chapters I-XI).
- Jackson, Danny (1997). The Epic of Gilgamesh. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 0-86516-352-9.
- Mitchell, Stephen (2004). Gilgamesh: A New English Version. New York: Free Press. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 0-7432-6164-X.
- Oberhuber, K., ed. (1977). Das Gilgamesch-Epos. Darmstadt: Wege der Forschung.
- Parpola, Simo, with Mikko Luuko, and Kalle Fabritius (1997). The Standard Babylonian, Epic of Gilgamesh. The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 951-45-7760-4 (Volume 1).
- Pettinato, Giovanni (1992). La saga di Gilgamesh. Milan, Italy: Rusconi Libri. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 9788818880281.
External links
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gilgamesh |
Original cuneiform text
- Original cuneiform text of the XI tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh (standard Babylonian version)
Text translations
- Sumerian texts: ETCSL
- Gilgamesh and Humbaba, version A (the adventure of the cedar forest)
- Gilgamesh and Humbaba, version B
- Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven
- Gilgamesh and Aga
- Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the nether world
- The death of Gilgamesh
- The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/), Oxford 1998-.
- http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/GILG.HTM
- The Epic of Gilgamesh: A Spiritual Biography
- Comparison of The Epic of Gilgamesh to the Genesis flood
Translations for several legends of Gilgamesh in the Sumerian language Sumerian was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) since at least the 4th millennium BCE. During the third millennium BCE, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) have been written by:
- Black, J.A.,
- Cunningham, G.,
- Fluckiger-Hawker, E,
- Stephen Mitchell
- Stripped Books: Stephen Mitchell on Gilgamesh - a comic-book adaptation of a talk by Stephen Mitchell about the epic poem.
- Mitchell's translation was also adapted as a radio play for Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera music, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation Artists scheme promotes young musicians of all by Jeremy Howe, first broadcast on Sunday 11 June 2006 from 19:30-21:30 [1]
- Robson, E.,
- Zólyomi, G.,
Readings
- Recordings of modern scholars reading extracts from the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh in the original language (http://www.speechisfire.com).
Categories: History of Iraq | Sumerian rulers | Sumerian epic heroes | Epic of Gilgamesh | Fertile Crescent | Iraqi people | Monomyths
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een lange geschiedenis van heroische mythologie waarin veel van de religieuze mythen van Mesopotamie zijn vervat Het is het vroegste overlevende en nagenoeg complete literaire werk Veel van de verhalen uit dit epos werden later ingevoegd in het boek Genesis Uit het Epos van Gilgamesh werd het verhaal over de schepping van de mens in een wonderbaarlijke tuin ontleend
jdlynch11
ue, 23 Feb 2010 18:31:00 GM
The men like Illiad and . Gilgamesh. wanted to prove something to themselves or their people. Many of the video games todya are just for entertainment to destroy or kill things for no reason. Thats kind of why I dont play video games too ...
Q. I have to write an essay on this topic. Hopefully I can get some good idea's Enkidu, and Gilgamesh can be seen as heroes, but each one, arguably, undermines his heroism in different ways. Compare and contrast the heroism of these characters.
Asked by Jersey82 - Mon Dec 7 21:25:55 2009 - - 1 Answers - 0 Comments
A. Enkidu assists Gilgamesh in his fight against Humbaba, the guardian monster of the Cedar Forest. Contrary to Enkidu's conscience, he cooperates in killing the defeated Humbaba. Afterwards, he again assists Gilgamesh in slaying the Bull of Heaven, which the gods have sent to kill Gilgamesh as a reprisal for spurning the goddess Ishtar's affections. Ishtar demands that the pair should pay for the bull's destruction. Shamash argues to the other gods to spare both of them, but could only save Gilgamesh. The gods pass judgment that Enkidu had no justification for fighting the Bull of Heaven and was interfering with their will. Enkidu then is overcome by a severe illness. Near death, he has visions of a gloomy afterlife, and curses the trapper… [cont.]
Answered by Alice - Mon Dec 7 21:38:47 2009
