Gilgamesh Babylonian Myth Unug city in which Bilgames rules over Akkadian the culture of Gilgamesh Uruk city Gilgamesh is king of Bilgames king of Unug Ninsun wild cow associated with wisdom Gilgamesh s mother Lugalbanda Gilgamesh s father Sumerian king Epic of Gilgamesh standard version 12 tablets long flood myth Utnapishtim part of tablet 11 Belit ili forms Gilgamesh s body Enkidu wild man hairy uncivilized thwarts hunters second self Enkidu Gilgamesh s second self the reverse image counterpart of Gilgamesh Shamhat prostitute who has sex with Enkidu for 6 days and 7 nights to tame him tells Enkidu to go to Uruk and challenge Gilgamesh Ishtar goddess of love fertility and war Shamhat worships her culture Humbaba giant who guards the pine forest Ellil Mesopotamian storm sky god Gilgamesh and Enkidu don t want him to see them kill Humbaba Shamash Akadian sun god divine council myth Ninsun and Shamash Ninsun worried Gilgamesh will not be able to defeat Humbaba Ishtar and Anu Ishtar mad Gilgamesh rejected her wants to use the bull of heaven to get back at him Bull of Heaven unleashed in Uruk earthquakes landslides killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu horns dedicated to Lugalbanda Utnapishtim the only man to become immortal Gilgamesh journey s to find him Scorpion man guards Mashu with his wife gives Gilgamesh advice for becoming immortal Mashu entrance to the underworld where Shamash rises Ur Sumerian city where Scorpion man on Great Lyre lies a cemetery Great Lyre where Scorpion man s cemetery rests Siduri the alewife gives Gilgamesh directions to find Utnapishtim Urshanabi the ferryman to the underworld apsu the underworld river ring composition Gilgamesh begins and ends at the walls of Uruk Gilgamesh Summary Starts with Enkidu He was amongst the animals until a hunter came and saw this wild man Enkidu and he sends a prostitute to come tame him The prostitute has sex with him and the animals ignore him since he is now part of the human world He hears about Gilgamesh and is outraged about his excesses so he goes to Uruk the city Gilgamesh rules over and he challenges Gilgamesh They wrestle for a good while and Gilgamesh prevails They later become good friends looking for an adventure to follow Gilgamesh and Enkidu decide to cut down steal forbidden trees but a terrifying demon is guarding it Humbaba who was the devoted servant of the god Enlil the god of earth wind and air The two heroes fight side by side with the help of Shamash the sun god and kill Humbaba cut down the trees make the tallest trees into a gate make the rest into a raft and then floated back on it back to Uruk When they get back the beautiful goddess Ishtar falls in love with Gilgamesh and Gilgamesh cheats on her Enraged Ishtar asks her father Anu god of the sky to send the Bull of Heaven to punish Gilgamesh with 7 years of famine The two heroes fight the Bull of Heaven and kill it The gods have a council divine council myth and decide to punish one of the two heroes They decide on Enkidu and Enkidu is now going to die They put illness in him and before he dies he shares his visions about the underworld to Gilgamesh When Enkidu dies Gilgamesh is heart broken because he just list his best friend Gilgamesh grieving Enkidu s death trades his garments for animal skin He then sets out to find Utnapishtim Mesopotamian Noah because he wants Utnapishtim to tell him how to become immortal since he is the only immortal mortal man His journey takes him to a two peaked mountain where the sun sets and rises on different sides of the mountain every day Utnapishtim lives beyond the mountain and the passageway to get there is guarded by two scorpion monsters who eventually allow Gilgamesh to go through the passage After the long dark passage he encounters a beautiful garden by the sea He meets Siduri who tells him that seeking immortality is futile She realizes that he is set on talking to Utnapishtim and she sends him to the ferryman Urshanabi Urshanabi takes Gilgamesh across the sea through the Waters of Death and finally reaches Utnapishtim Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh his story of the flood and how the gods decided to make him immortal while keeping mankind alive forever although men would die Gilgamesh says that he needs to be immortal and Utnapishtim tests him He says if you can be immortal then you have to stay awake for a week with no sleep Gilgamesh tries and fails Utnapishtim sends him back to Uruk but his wife urges Utnapishtim to tell Gilgamesh of the magical plant that grants youth Gilgamesh journeys for the plant finds it and a snake steals it The snake s skin peels and becomes young Gilgamesh realizes he cannot be immortal and live forever but human kind will This allows him to realize that his city of grief and terror is actually a magnificent enduring achievement and that is the closest thing to immortality any mortal can aspire Background Reading 8 Gilgamesh Sumerian Old Babylonian Standard Version Buluqiya Arabic Islam Sassanid Sassanian Sultan vizier Sultan s advisor Tale of Buluqiya one of the 300 stories in The Thousand and One Nights The Thousand and One Nights Shariar marries virgins and kills them for 1001 nights Arabian Nights 1001 nights written in Arabic Arabic language the Tale of Buluqiya was written in frame narrative Scheherazade tells story of Buluqiya to keep Shariar from killing her Shahriar Sassanid Sultan marries virgins and kills them after his wife committed adultery Scheherazade volunteers to marry Shariar to stop his killings tells stories of interest and leaves him without the ending so that he can t kill her Shahrazad Sulaiman Solomon prophet who has a ring taken from Adam by Gabriel which will make the wearer immortal Isle of First Sea full of gemstones flowers and fruit and surrounded by predators and sea monsters Isle of Seven Seas Isle of Seventh Sea each island contains something different on the 7th island is where Sulaiman s ring is Yamlika has an underground kingdom with a plant that will allow you to walk on water Affan sage who guides Buluqiya Hasib Yamlika tells the 1001 nights to Hasib imbedded narrative story within a story Allah islamic god made a giant to guard the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil The Tale of Buluqiya Summary The hero Bul qiy becomes king of the Sons of Israel at the death of his father and finds in the palace a gold box in an ebony casket on a white marble column containing parchment written in Greek The text gives instructions how to obtain the magic ring
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