The Epic of Gilgamesh Mesopotamian Culture

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 ( BCE) Semitic people / language myths Sumerian in origin

Mesopotamian Societies Both societies share: socio-political hierarchy with kings as head of state (gods above them all) 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 cunei- form writings associated with rituals

Gods and Goddesses Anu, a son of the first pair of gods, Anshar and 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).

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 prosperity (cf. Venus/Mars) Shamash (the sun), who becomes important as a deity of all-seeing justice

Gods and Goddesses Tammuz: Ishtar’s husband, a god who died and was reborn yearly (Persephone?). Ereshkigal: the goddess of the underworld married to Bull (Hades/Persephone?)

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 lamassu was a household protective spirit of the common Babylonian people, becoming associated later as royal protectors, placed as sentinels at the entrances.

Lamassu

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.

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.

The Ziggurat (p.61)

The Ziggurat

Inside the Temple (p.61)

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 that we are reading. 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. Our translation draws on Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hittite sources.

Gilgamesh Both the Sumerian and the Akkadian versions of Gilgamesh were written on clay tablets in cuneiform script:

About Cuneiform

More Cuneiform Tablets

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.

Gilgamesh Gilgamesh, the son of Lugul- banda and the goddess Ninsun, is 2/3 god and 1/3 human. But like all humans, he is destined to die. The epic often deals with the Jungian fear of death. As the poem begins, he is king of Uruk, making his city ever greater. Though “perfect” in many ways, he creates issues: His excess energy (in building, exploration, and sex) is causing tension among his people, who pray to the gods for relief.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu The gods create Enkidu, a hairy wild man, and place him in the forest near Uruk. He lives like an animal, annoying the locals, who ask Gilgamesh for help. He suggests that they tame him by sending him a woman to sleep with. A temple “harlot” Shamhat (cult name for Ishtar) has sex with him, imbuing him with wisdom (Jung’s anima/animus?). Enkidu, now civilized, decides to go to Uruk. He and Gilgamesh meet, fight, become best friends. Gilgamesh stops being a nuisance. They decide to go on a quest to free the Cedar Forest of Humbaba.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu Enlil destined H. to keep the pine forest safe, be the terror of people. (Shadow?) The heroes represent civilized culture battling nature/savagery. 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.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu MASCULINEFEMININE Gilgamesh Enkidu Conscious mind / ego / the known Unconscious mind / anima / the unknown Society (human) / structure and control / technology Nature (beast) / no structure or control / self-sufficient Gods / life / known Humbaba / death / unknown

The Cedar Forest When Enkidu touches the gates of the Cedar forest, he feels a supernatural fear and can barely continue. Gilgamesh has terrible dreams of destruction, which Enkidu interprets in a favorable light (UCM) The heroes battle Humbaba, who asks for mercy. But Enkidu urges G. to kill him, despite the gods’ possible displeasure. Humbaba threatens: The heroes murder Humbaba and 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!

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?

The Bull of Heaven Enraged, Ishtar sends the Bull of Heaven to ravage Uruk, but G. and E. kill it. When Ishtar reviles them, Enkidu insults her, even throwing the “thigh” of the bull in her face. Inanna gathers women to mourn the Bull, an act performed in fertility rituals, since the Bull is the husband of Ereshkigal.

The Bull of Heaven

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 Enkidu and Gilgamesh have disrespected the goddess?

Enkidu’s death 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 one of their comrades.” Enkidu gets sick and dies in twelve days. He curses Shamhat who sexed him and made him human, but Shamash persuades him not to curse Shamhat. 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.”

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. 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: 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!

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. 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 Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh: how Ea told 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.

Original Transcript (p. 107)English Translation (p. 107) 1 gilgameš ana šâšumma izakkara ana ū ta-napištim r ū qi 1 Gilgamesh spoke to him, to Ū ta-napišti the Far- Away: 2 ana ṭṭ alakkumma ū ta-napišti| 3 minât ū ka ul šanâ k ī yâtimma atta 4 u atta ul šanâta k ī yâtimma atta 2 "As I look at you, Ū ta-napišti, 3 Your form is no different, you are just like me, 4 You are not different at all, you are just like me. 5 gummurka libb ī ana ep ē š tuqunti 6 [x]x ah ī nadât elu ṣ ē r ī ka 7 [att]a k ī k ī tazziz ina puhur il ā ni bal ā ṭ a teš'u 5 I was fully intent on doing battle with you, 6 [but] in your presence my hand is stayed. 7 How was it that you attended the gods' assembly, and found eternal life?" 8 ū ta-napišti ana šâšumma izakkara ana gilgameš 9 lupteka gilgameš am ā t ni ṣ irti 8 Ū ta-napišti spoke to him, to Gilgamesh: 9 "I will disclose to you, Gilgamesh, a secret matter, 10 u pirišti ša il ā ni kâša luqbika 11 šurippak ā lu ša t ī dûšu atta 10 and I will tell you a mystery of the gods. 11 "The city of Shuruppak — a city you yourself know, 12 ā [lu ša ina kiš ā ]d puratti šaknu 13 [ ā l]u š ū labirma il ā ni qerbuššu 14 [an]a šak ā n ab ū bi ubla libbašunu il ā ni rabûti 12 the [city that] is situated on the [banks] of the Euphrates — 13 that city was old and the gods were inside it, 14 (when) the great gods decided to cause the Deluge.

Utnapishtim offers Gilgamesh a way to become immortal: 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. 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." But Utnapishtim shows him the loaves, and Gilgamesh realizes that he has failed in his quest. Utnapishtim gives Gilgamesh a consolation prize: a rejuvenating plant. But on the way home, a snake takes it from him.

Urshanabi accompanies Gilgamesh home, and when they reach the city, Gilgamesh proudly points it out to him: 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 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. Homecoming

Connections? What does Gilgamesh have in common with such heroes as Odysseus, Katniss Everdeen, or Luke Skywalker? Or with Jack, Ralph, Simon, or even Piggy?