The Epic of Gilgamesh

Vast collections of clay tablets have been found in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), inscribed with texts recording everything from the simplest counting of sheep to the most arcane divination ritual. Many signs refer to everyday and administrative matters (eg product records, religious-divination rituals, etc.), but there are also several that are characterized as literary, i.e. they refer to stories, myths and legends that were texts very widespread in antiquity. Texts similar to the Homeric epics, but older.

In the mid-19th century, the Akkadian language, the language in which most of the tablets were written, was deciphered. Since then, the reading of these texts and their various translations began.

The largest literary text discovered so far is the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem inscribed on clay tablets in cuneiform in the Akkadian language. Most of the twelve chapters (tablets) of the Epic were found in the royal library of Assurbanipal ¹ and in the ruins of the temple of the god Nabu ², both at Nineveh, Assyria (present-day N. Iraq).

We know today for certain that Gilgamesh was a historical figure and that in ancient times he was considered a historical character and not a mythical one. This results from the inscriptions with the "Sumerian King lists" found in archaeological excavations, dated to the period 2500 - 2800 BC. According to the above inscriptions Gilgamesh was king of the city of Uruk (note: it has been identified as modern Warka in central Iraq) during the first dynasty (around 2600 BC).

His most important achievement was the building of the walls around Uruk, mentioned in the Epic and confirmed by a younger ruler of the city, Anam, who recorded his own reconstruction of the walls which he referred to as "the ancient work of Gilgamesh".

In the "Sumerian king list" Gilgamesh is listed as the fifth king in a row to reign at Uruk after the great flood.

Excavations in the city of Warka (formerly Uruk) carried out by German archaeologists in 1928-29 showed a magnificent temple architecture that existed even before the inhabitants of these parts learned writing.

Of the approximately 3000 verses of the Akkadian version of the epic, I present below the texts in tablets 9 (IX), 10 (X) and 11 (XI). The first two are related to the journey of the hero Gilgamesh (and king of Uruk) in search of eternal life (immortality), a search that leads him to the hero Ut-napishtim who has survived a great flood, lives with his wife in a heavenly island of the ocean (a country called Dilmun) and had already acquired immortality. Tablet XI relates to Ut-napishtim's description of the flood.

I HAVE removed all the repeats in the dialogs that are exclusive to the signs.

[1]  About the library of the Assyrian king Assurbanipal

[2] A leading Semitic god of writing and wisdom worshiped in the Assyrians and Babylonians. In the Bible it is referred to as Nebo