Gilgamesh Origins
The Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest and most moving stories rooted in the ancient wisdom-tradition of mankind. Recited for nearly three millennia, it was virtually lost for another two with the advent of Christianity. Modern generations came to know about Gilgamesh only after the first cuneiform fragments of his story were excavated in 1853 at Nineveh from the library of the last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, who reigned in the 7th century BC. Almost twenty years elapsed, however, before the clay tablets were deciphered by George Smith at the British Museum.
On December 3, 1872, he announced to the newly-formed Society of Biblical Archaeology that he had “discovered among the Assyrian tablets . . . an account of the Flood” in one of the story’s later episodes. This stirred up considerable interest and, before long, more fragments of Gilgamesh were unearthed, both at Nineveh and in the ruins of other ancient cities.
After nearly one hundred fifty years of archaeology and patient scholarship, the general consensus is that the 7th-century tablets, written in the Semitic Akkadian language, are a copy of a 12-tablet “Standard Version” dating back to about 1200 BC, composed by a Babylonian priest named Sin-leqi-unninni. This version in turn is a conflation and revision of earlier Babylonian traditions, themselves rooted in a number of Sumerian stories written centuries earlier in the third millennium. Since neither the Sumerians nor Babylonians wrote history in the modern sense, exact dating is difficult, nor do we know with certainty when and where the epic version actually originated.
From the Sumerian King List, we do know there was an historical Gilgamesh — in Sumerian spelled gis-bil-ga-mes, conjectured to mean “the (divine) old one is youthful” - a name probably given at an initiation or coronation rite, symbolic of spiritual rebirth and divine kingship. He reigned sometime between 3000 and 2500 BC in the city-state of Uruk near the Euphrates in what is now southern Iraq.
According to the Babylonian epic, Gilgamesh himself inscribed his story on a stone tablet. It had widespread and long-lasting appeal, for versions have been found all over the Mesopotamian region, and as far north in Asia Minor as the Hittite capital of Hattusha (Bogazkoy). This is fortunate because modern translations of Gilgamesh have literally been pieced together from widely-scattered fragments. There is no single complete rendition of the Standard Version extant, and what we do have comprises variant Sumerian, Hittite, and Akkadian streams.
Gilgamesh was the son of Lugalbanda and the fifth king of Uruk (Early Dynastic II, first dynasty of Uruk). His mother was Ninsun (whom some call Rimat Ninsun), a goddess. Gilgamesh is described as two-thirds god and one-third human.
In Mesopotamian mythology, Gilgamesh is credited with having been a demigod of superhuman strength who built a great city wall to defend his people from external threats. In historical times, Sargon of Akkad claimed to have destroyed these walls to prove his military power.
Fragments of an epic text found in Me-Turan (modern Tell Haddad) relate that Gilgamesh was buried under the waters of a river at the end of his life. The people of Uruk diverted the flow of the Euphrates River crossing Uruk for the purpose of burying the dead king within the riverbed. In April 2003, a German expedition discovered what is thought to be the entire city of Uruk - including, the former bed of the Euphrates, the last resting place of its King Gilgamesh.
Despite the lack of direct evidence, most scholars do not object to consideration of Gilgamesh as a historical figure, particularly after inscriptions were found confirming the historical existence of other figures associated with him: kings Enmebaragesi and Aga of Kish. If Gilgamesh was a historical king, he probably reigned in about the 26th century BCE. Whether based on a historical prototype or not, Gilgamesh became a legendary protagonist in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh was “the one who saw the abyss. He was wise and knew everything; Gilgamesh, who saw secret things, opened the hidden place(s) and carried back a tale of the time before the Flood — he traveled the road, he was weary, worn out with labor, and, returning, engraved the story on stone.”
When the gods created Gilgamesh, the Great Goddess (Aruru) designed the image of his body; heavenly Shamash, god of the Sun, endowed him with beauty, while Adad, god of the Storm, granted him courage. His form was surpassing: eleven cubits his height, nine spans the breadth of his chest. “Two-thirds of him was divine, one-third human” — Gilgamesh is essentially spiritual, but not yet fully divinized.