Gilgamesh and Enuma Elish Empires, Adaptation and Remaking Creation

The two raised areas indicate temples dedicated to Inana, patron diety of Uruk and the Sumerian goddess of love and war. Uruk: ancient southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) first city in human history first major center of writing Gilgamesh: King of Uruk, c BCE

Cuneiform: Hundreds of wedge-shaped marks organized in clusters.

The 11th tablet of Gilgamesh

Miniature from Hafiz-i Abru’s Majma al-tawarikh. “Noah’s Ark,” Iran (Afghanistan), Herat; c “He was wise, he saw mysteries and knew secret things, he brought us a tale of the days before the flood” (Gilgamesh, 61).

Antiquities and Empires: Ancient and Modern King Ashurbanipal (ca BCE), ruler of the Assyrian Empire He sent subjects on “library raids” all over the empire. The vast and varied holdings of his library confirmed Nineveh’s status as an imperial capital. 18 th -20 th centuries: European powers extend their influence in the near and middle east. Archaeologists claim antiquities for distant collections. Pieces of the Gilgamesh epic wind up in England, Germany and the United States.

Hormuzd Rassam in Mosul, circa 1854 Portrait of Hormuzd Rassam by Arthur Ackland Hunt, 1860

Transport of one of A. H. Layard’s Bulls, from Nineveh and its Remains.

Museum-goers in Victorian England

Assyrian Lamassu in the British Museum.

Berlin Paris New York Chicago “Touch the threshold, it is ancient” (Prologue, Epic of Gilgamesh)

“Look at it still today: the outer wall where the cornice runs, it shines with the brilliance of copper; and the inner wall, it has no equal. Touch the threshold, it is ancient. Approach Eanna the dwelling of Ishtar…Climb up on the wall of Uruk; walk along it, I say; regard the foundation terrace and examine the masonry: is it not burnt brick and good?” (Prologue, Epic of Gilgamesh)

Gilgamesh and the Flood Story At stake: Biblical chronology; anthropocentric conceptions of the past The age of the Earth Biblical scholars: creation began approx BCE Geologists (of the time): Earth is millions of years old Geological vs. Biblical Time One True Account vs. Many Versions of a Myth At stake: The idea of one, authoritative Truth The Biblical Flood story “demoted” to the status of myth

“Noah,” Chapel of the Exodus, Al- Bagawat, Egypt, 5 th –6 th century CE Sumerian cylinder seal, 3 rd millennium BCE What distinguishes the Biblical version (as history) from older versions (understood as myth)?

The Imperial Cuneiform “Scriptworld” Cuneiform was a crucial element of imperial expansion: it united people across a wide region into a single “scriptworld” (David Damrosch, The Buried Book). As cuneiform spread, some cultures resisted by continuing to use their local scripts (Hebrew writers preferred paleo-Hebrew to cuneiform). Some Hebrew writers also mistranslated Babylonian words to obscure overlaps of culture and language between themselves and the Babylonians.

Paleo-Hebrew scriptAkkadian cuneiform script

Purposeful Misnaming and Mistranslating in Genesis Example 1 The Hebrew creation story avoids using proper names that would point to Babylonian religious traditions. Sun: ma’or gadol (big light) NOT shemesh Moon: ma’or katin (little light) yareah -which resemble the names for Babylonian sun god Shamash and moon god irihu (cognate of the Hebrew word yareah). Example 2 Genesis claims that “Babylon” comes from “balal” (Hebrew for “to mix up”) rather than “bab-ili” (Akkadian for “gate of god”), the term for Babylon’s supreme deity Marduk.

Genesis: History as Genealogy (the past linked to the present through a chain of descent)

Adaptation as Historical Revision in Enuma Elish Etiological: referring to causes or origins Enuma Elish talks back to older creation myths It uses adaptation as a way to rewrite history Context: The rise of the Babylonian empire as the dominant power in the region.

(Seri, 2014, 100) Enuma Elish Older gods Anu, Enlil and Ea replaced by Marduk Enuma Elish rewrites history in order to make the Babylonian deity Marduk supreme among the gods.

Saddm Hussein’s Zabibah wal-Malik (Baghdad, 2000)

German translation of Saddam Hussein’s Zabibah wal-Malik

Gilgamesh battling a lion, BCE Who or what is the Gilgamesh of the 2 nd journey? “when you have gone to the earth I will let my hair grow long for your sake, I will wander through the wilderness in the skin of a lion” (96). Gilgamesh follows Enkidu’s journey backwards, rejecting human culture, becoming part human, part animal. The epic depends on Gilgamesh’s failure. Everlasting life = no return (no story). The epic is an answer to death because it makes Gilgamesh’s mortality a precondition of his return.