The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest surviving work of narrative literature, originating in ancient Mesopotamia. Its literary history starts with five separate Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, some of which may have been composed as early as the Third Dynasty of Ur, around 2100 BCE. These individual poems were later combined into a single epic written in Akkadian. The earliest surviving version of this combined work is called the "Old Babylonian" version, dating to the 18th century BCE and titled *Shūtur eli sharrī* ("Surpassing All Other Kings") after its first line. Only a few tablets of this version remain. The later "Standard Babylonian" version, compiled by a scribe named Sîn-lēqi-unninni, was written sometime between the 13th and 10th centuries BCE and begins with the line *Sha naqba īmuru* ("He Who Saw the Deep(s)" or "He Who Sees the Unknown"). About two-thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have been recovered, with some of the best copies found in the ruins of the library of the 7th-century BCE Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.

The first part of the story focuses on Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, and Enkidu, a wild man created by the gods to stop Gilgamesh from oppressing his people. Enkidu becomes civilized after a sexual initiation with a temple prostitute named Shamhat, then travels to Uruk, where he challenges Gilgamesh to a contest of strength. Gilgamesh wins, but the two become friends. Together, they journey for six days to the legendary Cedar Forest, where they kill its guardian, Humbaba, and cut down the sacred cedar. The goddess Ishtar, angered when Gilgamesh rejects her advances, sends the Bull of Heaven to punish him. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the bull, insulting Ishtar further. In response, the gods decree that Enkidu must die from a fatal illness.

In the second part, Gilgamesh is overcome with grief over Enkidu’s death and sets out on a long and dangerous quest to find the secret of eternal life. Eventually, he meets Utnapishtim and his wife, the only humans who survived a great flood sent by the gods. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that he will never find the life he seeks, because when the gods created humanity, they kept life for themselves and gave death as humanity’s share.

The epic is considered a foundational work in religion and the tradition of heroic sagas. Gilgamesh served as a prototype for later heroes like Heracles (Hercules), and the epic itself influenced the Homeric epics. It has been translated into many languages and appears in several works of popular fiction.

**Discovery**

Around 15,000 fragments of Assyrian cuneiform tablets were discovered in the Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh in the early 1850s by Austen Henry Layard, his assistant Hormuzd Rassam, and W. K. Loftus. Later in the decade, the British Museum hired George Smith to study them. In 1872, Smith read translated fragments to the Society of Biblical Archaeology, and in 1875 and 1876 he published fuller translations, the latter titled *The Chaldaean Account of Genesis*. The central character was initially reintroduced to the world as "Izdubar" because the cuneiform logographs in his name could not yet be accurately pronounced. In 1891, Paul Haupt collected the cuneiform text, and nine years later, orientalist Peter Jensen provided a comprehensive edition. R. Campbell Thompson updated both works in 1930. Over the next two decades, Samuel Noah Kramer reassembled the Sumerian poems.

In 1998, American Assyriologist Theodore Kwasman discovered a piece believed to contain the first lines of the epic in a storeroom of the British Museum. The fragment, found in 1878 and dated to between 600 BCE and 100 BCE, had remained unexamined by experts for over a century. It read: "He who saw all, who was the foundation of the land, who knew (everything), was wise in all matters: Gilgamesh." The discovery of artifacts from around 2600 BCE associated with Enmebaragesi of Kish, mentioned in the legends as the father of one of Gilgamesh’s adversaries, has lent credibility to the historical existence of Gilgamesh.

In the early 2000s, the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet was illegally imported into the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the tablet was encrusted with dirt and unreadable when purchased by a U.S. antiquities dealer in 2003. It was sold by an unnamed antiques dealer in 2007 with a letter falsely claiming it had been inside a box of ancient bronze fragments bought at a 1981 auction. In 2014, Hobby Lobby privately purchased the tablet for display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. In 2019, U.S. officials seized the tablet, and it was returned to Iraq in September 2021.

Recent developments in artificial intelligence software have greatly accelerated the process of uncovering new fragments of the epic that are scattered, often unread, in museums around the world.

**Versions**

Distinct sources exist from a period spanning over 2,000 years. The earliest Sumerian poems are now generally considered separate stories rather than parts of a single epic. Some of these may date back to as early as the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2100 BCE). The Old Babylonian tablets (c. 1800 BCE) are the earliest surviving tablets for a single *Epic of Gilgamesh* narrative. Both the older Old Babylonian tablets and the later Akkadian version are important sources for modern translations, with the earlier texts mainly used to fill gaps in the later ones. Although several revised versions based on new discoveries have been published, the epic remains incomplete. Analysis of the Old Babylonian text has been used to reconstruct possible earlier forms of the epic. The most recent Akkadian version, also called the Standard Babylonian version, consists of twelve tablets and was edited by Sîn-lēqi-unninni, who is thought to have lived sometime between the 13th and 10th centuries BCE.