GILGAMESH , a Sumerian hero, god, and ruler of the city-state Uruk, is the subject of a classic epic poem that Mesopotamian tradition attributes to the priest-exorcist and scribe Sin-leqi-unnini. The poem was the product of a lengthy compilation effort, which resulted in the composition of the national poem of Babylon. Until the 1990s there were five known Sumerian works that described the deeds of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. The Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer identified them as: "Gilgamesh and Agga," "Gilgamesh and Hubaba," "Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven," "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Underworld," and "The Death of Gilgamesh." The environment in which they were conceived and composed has been generally regarded as the court of the third dynasty of Ur (c. 2100–2000 bce), whose sovereigns sought to trace a direct link between the figure of Gilgamesh and the royalty of Uruk. Giovanni Pettinato has suggested that a 107-line text found in 1975 at Tell Mardikh-Ebla is related to the Gilgamesh saga. This text, and the entire library from which it comes, can be dated to 2500 to 2400 bce. The events described in this text concern relations between the king of Uruk and the city of Aratta. The narrative fits well with the tradition of epic wars between the royal dynasty of Uruk and the colony founded in an indeterminate location in Iran: both King Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, the supposed divine father of Gilgamesh, waged war against Aratta according to the four epics that concern these figures.
A new version of "The Death of Gilgamesh," rediscovered at Me-Turan in 1979, serves to confirm the narrative translated by Kramer, while also, because it is more complete, opening up new avenues of understanding concerning the complex nature of Sumerian civilization. This version verifies for the first time the Sumerian custom of collective burial, something for which there is archaeological evidence at Ur and Kish, but which had not been previously confirmed by epigraphic sources. This text also includes confirmation of the legend of Urlugal, the son of Gilgamesh, specifically named in the Sumerian King List as Gilgamesh's son and successor to the throne of Uruk. Similarly, a new version of "Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven" was found there in 1979.
Unfortunately the authors of Sumerian narratives featuring Gilgamesh are unknown to us, and scholars are not certain whether it is pure chance that the series of Gilgamesh poems is attributed to a single author. According to a catalog of authors and texts from the neo-Assyrian period, rediscovered in the library of Assurbanipal and published by W. G. Lambert (1962), the series of Gilgamesh was conceived by Sin-leqi-unnini, who according to Lambert lived between the thirteenth and twelfth centuries bce, at the end of Kassite power in Babylon, and more precisely at the moment when Babylon, under Nebuchadrezzar I, managed to obtain its independence from foreign rule.
Contents of the Epic
The classic epic, while consisting of a reconstruction of a literary work conceived and composed in the Old Babylonian period, should be considered as a single unified composition. Sin-leqi-unnini was not simply responsible for a brief summary in twelve tablets of the story from earlier times; it can be said with some certainty that he, in a sense, reconsidered and re-created the entire story from scratch.
An important piece of evidence for the unity of the classical epic is the presence of a prologue, as well as an epilogue found at the end of Tablet XI, where part of the prologue is repeated. Tablet XII is generally considered by scholars to be an appendix to the epic. Its contents consist of a literal translation of part of the Sumerian story known as "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Underworld."
The epic may be divided as follows:
- Prologue: The hero Gilgamesh (Tab. I.1–51).
- Enkidu, the alter ego of Gilgamesh (Tab. I.52–II.155ff.).
- Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the monster Hubaba (Tab. II.184–V.266).
- Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Bull of Heaven (Tab. VI.1–182).
- Death of Enkidu and despair of Gilgamesh (Tab. VI.183–VIII.207ff.).
- Gilgamesh in the quest for immortality (Tab. IX.1–X.325).
- Only the gods have the gift of life (Tab. XI.1–302).
- Epilogue (Tab. XI.302–308).
- Fate of humankind in the afterlife (Tab. XII.1–154).
Interpretation of the Epic
No interpretation of the epic should be separated from an analysis of the work of Sin-leqi-unnini. Closely connected to this is another investigation concerning the identity of the two main characters as divine or human. Thus far, we have spoken of the "epic" or "saga," putting into this category both the Sumerian stories and the various poetic versions that have Gilgamesh as their main hero, regarding them as res gestae, whether of a historical or legendary figure. A review of various scholarly interpretations indicates that the second problem cannot be decisively resolved. Although the majority of scholars are convinced that the king of Uruk is a historical figure, Pettinato and others think that Gilgamesh did not exist in a historical sense, but is instead a god who has been made into a historical figure.
The first interpreters of the work of Sin-leqi-unnini, which was discovered in 1872 by George Smith among the thousands of fragments of the library of Assurbanipal at Nineveh, were concerned with defining its nature. Apart from its real or supposed parallels with stories told in the Bible—the example of the universal flood on Tablet XI marks the beginning of an argument so heated that it has been called "the war between the Bible and Babel"—scholars have sought to explain the deeper meaning of the work centered upon Gilgamesh.
Hugo Winckler and Heinrich Zimmern came to the conclusion that the Gilgamesh poem was a myth concerning the sun god and in particular was constructed like the myth of the Dioscuri. Otto Weber confirmed this view, and pointed out that the twelve tablets contain clear reference to the signs of the zodiac. For Weber, the poem's basic theme is the journey of the sun through its twelve phases over the course of the year, with the figure of Gilgamesh functioning as an allusion to the sun god and Enkidu representing the moon. For these scholars, there are clear antecedents of the adventures of Odysseus in the Epic of Gilgamesh, as well as of the labors of Herakles and the later voyages of Alexander the Great.
Heinrich Schneider claimed that all the characters in the epic were either powerful gods or second-rate divine beings who, like Gilgamesh, had been made into human figures. Schneider also argues that the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu corresponds to the medieval ideal of chivalry, and he defines the Old Babylonian story as heroic and the Ninevite story as chivalrous.
Meanwhile Peter Jensen's lengthy Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur (The Epic of Gilgamesh in world literature, 1906) attempted to show the astral and mythological nature of the work. For Jensen, the epic was a description of the events that took place in the heavens during the course of the year, especially the heliacal rising of the stars. Notwithstanding Jensen's passion and deep convictions, important biblical scholars, such as Hermann Gunkel and Hugh Gressmann, not only categorically refuted alleged biblical parallels, but denied the mythical nature of the Epic of Gilgamesh, considering it rather as pure saga, clearly parallel to the romance of Alexander.
In 1923 the German scholar Arthur Ungnad, completely abandoning any mythical interpretation, argued that the epic was an ethical work and the forerunner of Homer's Odyssey. Although Ungnad does not propose that the Greek author copied the work of Sin-leqi-unnini, he has no doubts that the Greeks adapted and retold sagas from the East to suit their own temperament. A year later Hermann Häfker argued that the Gilgamesh epic was an entirely historical work, with its guiding theme being the problem of life and death. In 1937 there appeared an important contribution by the Swedish scholar Sigmund Mowinckel, in which he defends the divine nature of Gilgamesh and interprets the entire work as the description of a god who dies and rises again, a commonplace in the context of history of religions.
A completely different view was proposed by Benno Landsberger. For him the work is the national epic of the Babylonians and Gilgamesh is the personification of the ideal human being for the Babylonians. The predominant theme in the epic then is the problem of the eternal life, discussed using the familiar example of Faust.
Mythological interpretations were not completely abandoned however. Beginning in 1958 scholars such as Franz Marius Theodor Bohl and Igor M. Diakonov continued to hold this position, with Bohl stating that what lay behind the epic was a religious war between the followers of the cults of Ishtar and those of Shamash and Marduk, while for Diakonov the figures of Gilgamesh and Enkidu are personifications of the sun god and moon god.
Geoffrey S. Kirk argued that the Epic of Gilgamesh has as its theme the contrast between nature, represented by Enkidu, and culture, represented by Gilgamesh. For Thorkild Jacobsen, on the other hand, the poem contains a description of the process by which human beings become mature, moving from innocent and reckless adolescence to the awareness of values that are more real, though less apparent. This leads to a psychoanalytical interpretation: the love of Gilgamesh for Enkidu is the love of an adolescent boy for one of his peers, before discovering love for women.
Giorgio Buccellati interprets Gilgamesh in terms of wisdom. After analyzing the epic's various themes, such as impurity, fear, the wanderer's life as opposed to family life, and the uncertainty between dreams and reality, Buccellati concludes:
The emphasis is shifted from the object of the search, life, to the actual effort of the search as such, to the assumptions upon which it is based, and to the consequences for the person who carries it out: these consequences are not external, as in the pursuit of a particular benefit, perhaps even physical life itself, but rather they are internal, deeply psychological and are concentrated upon the spiritual change of the person who is undertaking the search. (Buccellati, 1972, p. 34)
One of the first scholars to stress the central nature of the theme of friendship in the Epic of Gilgamesh was Landsberger, who wrote that one of the fundamental motifs of Sin-leqi-unnini's work is the ideal of a noble friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, which not even death can erase. Indeed, from their first meeting after their battle in the streets of Uruk and then later in the dreams Gilgamesh has, the deep bond between these two characters is emphasized, to the extent that it has been compared to love for a woman. The troubled quest for eternal life also shows how much Enkidu means to Gilgamesh. However, the rejection of the love offered by Ishtar is not to be read as the repudiation of love for women, as Landsberger has it, but rather in a much more profound manner, as concerning the future destiny of the king of Uruk.
Other scholars have considered friendship to be the central theme of the epic, including Lubor Matouš, but in particular Giuseppe Furlani, who in an article titled "L'Epopea di Gilgameš come inno all'amicizia" (The Epic of Gilgamesh as a hymn to friendship) and then in the introduction to his 1946 translation of the epic, asserts that he is obliged to "revise the fundamental, central theme of the epic" in that "the epic of Gilgamesh is truly a hymn to friendship, a long-lasting friendship enduring even beyond the grave, between Gilgamesh of Uruk and Enkidu, shining, eternal examples of faithful friends" (Furlani, 1946, p. 587). Furlani further states that "the central and underlying idea of our poem has been thought of as a discussion of the problem of life and death…it seems to me instead that this idea should now be abandoned and we should recognize that the epic is in reality a hymn to friendship" (Furlani, 1946, p. 589).
Following Landsberger, who sets the problem of human existence at the heart of the epic, Alexander Heidel considered its central theme to be a meditation on death in the form of a tragedy. Heidel argues that the epic confronts the bitter truth that death is inevitable: all human beings must die. Matouš and A. Leo Oppenheim also stressed that the underlying theme of the work is the search for eternal life.
Readers of the epic of Sin-leqi-unnini should first take full account of the prologue: in the first eight lines, the author repeatedly identifies knowledge with wisdom. For him the adventures of Gilgamesh consist of a series of important staging points, necessary to reach a final end, which the author correctly identifies as the wisdom of his hero. The author advises the reader that this is the key to the text. As Buccellati emphasizes, seeing other motives or themes means considering the staging points and methods of approach to this ideal as ends in themselves. Therefore, an accurate reading of the poem cannot ignore the fundamental motifs proposed by its author. The fact that the author then mentions the troubled quest for eternal life as an essential part of the hero's personal journey, and that Gilgamesh, in attaining wisdom, has experienced all kinds of suffering, only serves to confirm the critical nature of wisdom in interpreting the work.
Scholars are in general agreement that the epic may be divided into two parts: the first narrates the marvelous adventures of the two heroes and their epic deeds, the killing of the monster Hubaba and the Bull of Heaven; the second part describes how Gilgamesh, who is two-thirds god and one-third human, is forced to deal with the eternal human problem of death. Gilgamesh tries to overcome death, and he hopes that he will receive a conclusive answer from the hero of the flood, but as we learn from Tablet XI, even this semidivine being does not succeed, and it is perhaps in this failure that Sin-leqi-unnini sees the logical ending of his work. This would be surprising however, since the author opens his work by praising the wisdom of Gilgamesh, so this must mean that he does not consider these events to be a failure as such. The treatment of the figure of Gilgamesh throughout the epic could not allow for such a dismal ending: the king of Uruk, besides being two-thirds god, is the paradigm of a true king. If the interpretation proposed below regarding the "plant of life" is correct, Gilgamesh is showing himself to be a true king at the very moment of his failure.
The real answer to all the problems of Gilgamesh has been seen in the final gift of Utanapishtim to the king, when he reveals to Gilgamesh the existence of a special plant. This interpretation is based upon an insertion accepted by the majority of scholars at line 270 in Tablet XI, which says: "You will obtain life." But nothing in the text justifies an insertion of this kind. The gift of Utanapishtim is defined as "a plant of restlessness," and Gilgamesh explains the nature of the plant: "It is reputed to turn an old man back into a man in his prime. So I want to eat the plant and become young again." This leads to the conclusion that Gilgamesh, by eating the plant, would be returned to a youthful state, with all its anxiety and restlessness. Hence the interpretation of the plant as an elixir of youth: by eating the plant, Gilgamesh would have been returned to the position he was in during the first part of the epic. The fact that he lost the plant is a further sign of the greatness of this king. Gilgamesh had not forgotten that a king is responsible for the fate of his subjects and he loses the plant precisely because he wanted to share it with his fellow citizens. His first thought when he is given the plant is to take it back to Uruk and feed it to the old.
However, the gift of Utanapishtim was not available for the whole of humanity, but reserved for Gilgamesh alone, perhaps as a reward for all his travels and his tenacious quest in pursuit of the unattainable ideal of eternal life. When Gilgamesh wanted to share this with other people, the serpent became its sole beneficiary: "Gilgamesh on that day sat down and wept / and the tears rolled down his cheeks." In these two lines the scribe expresses the diverse emotions of the hero, the first being his inability to fulfill his royal duty. Yet this admission itself marks the attainment of complete wisdom, of a maturity that is the legacy of a true king of Mesopotamia.
See Also
Death; Heroes.
Bibliography
Abusch, Tsvi. "Ishtar's Proposal and Gilgamesh's Refusal: An Interpretation of the Gilgamesh Epic, Tablet VI, Lines 1–79." History of Religions 26 (1986): 143–187.
Buccellati, Giorgio. "Gilgamesh in chiave sapienziale." Oriens Antiquus 11 (1972): 2–36.
Cavigneaux, Antoine, and Farouk N. H. Al-Rawi. "Gilgamesh et Taureau de ciel (shul-mè-kam ) (Textes de Tell Haddad IV)." Revue d'Assyriologie 87 (1993): 97–129.
Cavigneaux, Antoine, and Farouk N. H. Al-Rawi. "New Sumerian Literary Texts from Tell Haddad (Ancient Meturan): A First Survey." Iraq 55 (1993): 91–105.
Cavigneaux, Antoine, and Farouk N. H. Al-Rawi. Gilgamesh et la mort: Textes de Tell Haddad VI. Groningen, Netherlands, 2000.
Cavigneaux, Antoine, and Farouk N. H. Al-Rawi. "La fin de Gilgamesh: Enkidu et les enfers d'après les manuscrits d'Ur et de Metura (Textes de Tell Haddad VIII)." Iraq 52 (2000): 1–19.
Furlani, Giuseppe. "L'epopea di Gilgamesh come inno all'amicizia." Belfa*gor 1 (1946): 577–589.
Furlani, Giuseppe. Miti babilonesi e assiri. Florence, 1958.
George, Andrew, trans. and ed. The Epic of Gilgamesh. London, 1999.
Heidel, Alexander, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels, Chicago, 1967.
Kirk, Geoffrey Stephen. Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures. Berkeley, 1970. See pages 132–152.
Matouš, Lubor. "Die Entstehung des Gilgamesh-Epos." Altertum 4 (1958): 195–221.
Oberhuber, Karl. Das Gilgamesch-Epos. Darmstadt, Germany, 1977.
Oppenheim, A. Leo. Ancient Mesopotamia. Portrait of a Dead Civilization. Chicago, 1964.
Pettinato, Giovanni. La saga di Gilgamesh (in collaboration with S. M. Chiodi and G. Del Monte). Milan, 1992.
Thompson, R. Campbell, trans. and ed. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Oxford, 1930.
Tigay, Jeffrey H. The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. Philadelphia, 1982.
Giovanni Pettinato (2005)
Translated from Italian by Paul Ellis
 Ads - Going Social)