The Epic of Gilgamesh

1. The Epic of Gilgamesh Mesopotamian Culture

2. Mesopotamian Societies • Sumerian • first major civilization (3000 BCE) • non-Semitic people / language • Uruk (and other cities) • elaborate mythology and cult-based mythic poems • Babylonian / Akkadian • later (1200-600 BCE) • Semitic people / language • myths Sumerian in origin

3. Mesopotamian Societies • Both societies share: • socio-political hierarchy with kings as head of state • priestly class who also teach, write, preserve literature • high level of “civilization” (i.e. social structure and material wealth) • irrigation-based agriculture • tradition of sacred writings associated with rituals • cuneiform writing

4. Gods and Goddesses • Sin (the moon) was a god of wisdom, higher in the pantheon than his children: • Ishtar (the morning star), whose multifaceted nature includes goddess of sexual love, justice, warfare, and communal prosperity (cf. Venus) • Shamash(the sun), who becomes important as a deity of all-seeing justice

5. Gods and Goddesses • Anu , a son of the first pair of gods, Ansharand Kishar, is god of the sky and the father of the gods. • Ea, son of Anshar and Kishar, was the god of intellect, creation, wisdom, magic, medicine, and the freshwater subterranean ocean apsu. • Enlil was Anu’s son and the father of Sin. He is the god of earth, wind, and air, who often mistreats humankind (creates the flood).

6. Gods and Goddesses • Tammuz(Dumuzi) was Ishtar’s husband, a god who died and was reborn yearly. • Ereshkigalwas the goddess of the underworld (Kurnugi) and the sister of Ishtar.

7. Lamassu The lamassu is a celestial being from Mesopotamian mythology. Human above and a bull below the waist, it also has the horns and the ears of a bull and sometimes wings. The lamassuwas a household protective spirit of the common Babylonian people, becoming associated later as royal protectors, placed as sentinels at the entrances.

8. Lamassu

9. Lamassu

10. The Ziggurat

11. The Ziggurat

12. Inside the Temple

13. City-states in Mesopotamia Although all the cities shared the same culture, each city had its own government, rulers, warriors, its own patron god, and functioned as an independent country. Mesopotamian cities were Ur, Uruk, Kish, and Lagesh. At the center of each city was a ziggurat—a massive, tiered, pyramid-shaped temple.

14. The City-state of Uruk Gilgamesh was the king of the city-state of Uruk, the setting for many of the events in the poem.

15. Gilgamesh Gilgamesh was both one of Uruk’s earliest kings and a mythic hero. He features in several Sumerian myths and in the longer “Epic” of Gilgamesh. This poem, discovered in about 1920, was the most popular piece of literature in Mesopotamia, found in many different languages and versions across 2500 years. There are two major versions: We are reading the Nineveh version, compiled by a priest in about 800-700 BCE.

16. Gilgamesh Both the Babylonian and the AkkadianNinevah versions of Gilgamesh were written on clay tablets in cuneiform script:

17. About Cuneiform

18. More Cuneiform Tablets

19. Gilgamesh I shall tell the land of the one who learned all things, of the one who experienced everything, I shall teach the whole. He searched lands everywhere. He found out what was secret and uncovered what was hidden, he brought back a tale of times before the flood. He had journeyed far and wide, weary and at last resigned. He built the wall of Uruk. . . One square mile is the city, one square mile is its orchards, one square mile is its claypits, as well as the open ground of Ishtar’s temple.

20. Gilgamesh Gilgamesh, the son of Lugul-bandaand the goddess Ninsun, is 2/3 god and 1/3 human. But like all humans, he is destined to die. As the poem begins, he is king of Uruk, making his city ever greater. Though “perfect in splendor, perfect in strength,” he is causing problems. His excess energy (in building, exploration, and sex) is causing tension among his people, who pray to the gods for relief.

21. Gilgamesh and Enkidu The gods create Enkidu, a hairy wild man, and place him in the forest near Uruk. He lives like an animal, startling the locals, who ask Gilgamesh for help. He suggests that they tame him by sending him a woman to sleep with. The woman Shamhat(a cult name of Ishtar) sleeps with him, converting him to humanity. Enkidu decides to go to Uruk. Gilgamesh’s mother Ninsun interprets a dream about Enkidu. The two men meet at a celebration of Ishtar, fight, become fast friends. They decide to go on a quest to free the Cedar Forest of Humbaba.

22. Gilgamesh and Enkidu So the heroes represent culture in a battle against nature. Everyone advises against it. Ninsun prays to Shamash: Why did you single out my son Gilgamesh and impose a restless spirit on him? He faces an unknown struggle, he will ride along an unknown road. She adopts Enkidu as her son and entreats him to watch after Gilgamesh. The heroes depart. Ellil destined Humbaba to keep the pine forest safe, to be the terror of people.

23. Gilgamesh • What does Gilgamesh have in common with such heroes as Odysseus, Achilles, or Heracles? • How is his story (so far) different from theirs? • Although we are reading fragments of the original poem, how is this story told differently from Homer?

24. The Cedar Forest When Enkidu touches the gates of the Cedar forest, he feels a supernatural cold and can barely continue. Gilgamesh has terrible dreams of destruction, which Enkidu interprets in a favorable light. The heroes battle Humbaba, who asks for mercy. But Enkidu urges Gilgamesh to him, despite the gods’ possible displeasure. Humbaba cries: The heroes defeat Humbabaand return to Uruk in triumph. In Uruk, the goddess Ishtar wants Gilgamesh to become her lover. Neither one of them shall outlive his friend! Gilgamesh and Enkidu shall never become old men!

25. Gilgamesh & Ishtar Come to me, Gilgamesh, and be my lover! Bestow on me the gift of your fruit! You can be my husband, I can be your wife. I shall have a chariot of lapis lazuli and gold harnessed for you . . . kings, nobles and princes shall bow down beneath you. But Gilgamesh scornfully rejects her: You are a door that can’t keep out winds and gusts, a palace that rejects its own warriors, a waterskin which soaks its carrier . . . which of your lovers lasted forever? Which of your paramours went to heaven?

26. The Bull of Heaven Enraged, Ishtar sends the Bull of Heaven to ravage Uruk. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill it. When Ishtar reviles them, Enkidu insults her, even throwing the “thigh” of the bull in her face. Inanna calls together the women to mourn the bull, an act performed in fertility rituals. After all, the Bull of Heaven is the husband of Ereshkigal.)

27. The Bull of Heaven

28. The Bull of Heaven

29. The Bull of Heaven

30. Gilgamesh & Ishtar What reasons does Gilgamesh give for rejecting Ishtar? (cf. Aphrodite and Adonis) Why is Gilgamesh so hostile to her, given that he does reject her? How is Ishtar characterized in this exchange? Benevolent, cruel, as bad as Gilgamesh says? What do you expect at the conclusion of this episode, after both Enkiduand Gilgamesh have disrespected the goddess?

31. Enkidu’s death Enkidu gets sick and dies in twelve days. He curses the hunter and Shamat who found him and made him human, but Shamash persuades him not to curse Shamat. Enkidu has a terrible nightmare: The gods were in council last night. And Anu said to Ellil, “As they have slain the Bull of Heaven, so too have they slain Humbaba: One of them must die.” Enlil replied, “Let Enkidu die, but let Gilgamesh not die.” Then heavenly Shamash said, “Was it not according to your plans?” But Enlil turned in anger to Shamash: “You accompanied them daily, like on of their comrades.” Gilgamesh mourned bitterly for Enkidu his friend, and roved the open country. “Shall I die too? Am I not like Enkidu? Grief has entered my innermost being.”

32. Gilgamesh travels to the ends of the earth, through the dark mountain, the pathways of Shamash: He meets Siduri, a female innkeeper (another cult name of Ishtar), to whom he pours out his troubles. She directs him to Utnapishtim, and adds: When he had gone one double-hour, thick is the darkness, there is no light; he can see neither behind him nor ahead of him… When he had gone seven double hours, thick is the darkness, there is no light… At the nearing of eleven double-hours, light breaks out. At the nearing of twelve double-hours, the light is steady. As for you, Gilgamesh, let your belly be full, Make merry day and night. Of each day make a feast of rejoicing. Day and night dance and play!

33. Utnapishtim With the help of the boatman Urshanabi, Gilgamesh travels across the water to Dilmun, the land at the edge of time. He cuts sixty saplings for poles, and as each enters the waters, it is eaten away. He finally uses his tattered clothing for a sail and, exhausted, comes to Utnapishtim: • Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh: • how Eatold him to build an ark because a flood was coming • how he built the arc and his family alone of all mortals were saved • how Ishtar mourned the dead • how he and his wife came to Dilmun, living as immortals. I crossed uncrossable mountains. I travelled all the seas. No real sleep has calmed my face. I have worn myself out in sleeplessness; my flesh is filled with grief.

35. Utnapishtim offers Gilgamesh a way to become immortal: Gilgamesh says to him, to Utnapishtim the remote, "as soon as I was ready to fall asleep, right away you touched me and roused me." Test yourself! Don't sleep for six days and seven nights." But as soon as Gilgamesh sits down, he falls asleep. He sleeps for seven days and nights, and each day, Utnapishtim’s wife puts a loaf of bread beside him. The old loaf is rotting when the last one is fresh: a metaphor for the seven decades of human life. But Utnapishtim shows him the loaves, and Gilgamesh realizes that he has failed his quest. Utnapishtim gives Gilgamesh a “consolation prize”: a rejuvenating plant. But on the way home, a snake takes it from him.

36. Homecoming The story's quiet close belies the significance of Gilgamesh's return. He is back where he started but a changed man, his description of Uruk here suggesting in the context a new acceptance of the meaning of the city in his life, an embracing rather than a defiance of the limits it represents… the king has evolved from a hubristic, dominating male into a wiser man, accepting the limitations that his mortal side imposes…[and] his essential kinship with all creatures who must die . Thomas van Nortwick Urshanabi accompanies Gilgamesh home, and when they reach the city, Gilgamesh proudly points it out to him: Go up onto the wall of Uruk, and walk around! Inspect it . . . One square mile is the city, one square mile is its orchards, one square mile is its claypits, as well as the open ground of Ishtar’s temple.