Epic of Gilgamesh
First published 2100 BC, written in Akkadian
The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic from ancient Mesopotamia that is the world's oldest surviving example of narrative literature. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, some of which may date to the Third Dynasty of Ur. These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic in Akkadian. The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the "Old Babylonian" version, dates to the 18th century BCE and is titled after its incipit, Shūtur eli sharrī. Only a few tablets of it have survived. The later Standard Babylonian version compiled by Sîn-lēqi-unninni dates to somewhere between the 13th and 10th centuries BCE and bears the incipit Sha naqba īmuru. About two-thirds of this longer, 12-tablet version have been recovered. Some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BCE Assyrian King Ashurbanipal.
Your reading
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Which translation to read
Andrew George1999Our pick
A scholar's translation from the tablets themselves, gaps marked as gaps: the real poem, as far as we have it.
Stephen Mitchell2004
A free poetic version, smooth and moving, that fills in the gaps.
Where it is set
- Uruk
Iraq
After Enkidu becomes civilized through sexual initiation with Shamhat, he travels to Uruk, where he challenges Gilgamesh to a test of strength. Source: Wikipedia, reviewed
Its heirs
Later works that draw on Epic of Gilgamesh.
- Odyssey
Homer, 725 BC*
Long before Odysseus, Gilgamesh travels to the ends of the earth, crosses the waters of death, and is offered immortality and loses it. Scholars such as Martin West have traced how much the Odyssey shares with the older Mesopotamian epic.
Source: Wikipedia, Odyssey
“Martin West notes substantial parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey.” Read it there
