GILGAMESH

The ancient mesopotamian hero, Gilgamesh, is the earliest symbol in world literature of the search of immortality. Did this extraordinary man really live??


Gilgamesh, according to the Sumerian king list, was the fifth king of Uruk (Early Dynastic II, first dynasty of Uruk), the son of Lugalbanda, ruling circa 2650 BC. He is also the central character in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which says that his mother was Ninsun, (whom some call Rimat Ninsun), a goddess.


Gilgamesh is described as two-thirds divine and one-third human. According to another document, known as the "History of Tummal", Gilgamesh, and eventually his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil, located in Tummal, a block of the Nippur city. In Mesopotamian mythology, Gilgamesh is credited with having been a demigod of superhuman strength who built a great wall to defend his people from external threats.


The epic of Gilgamesh is much older than Homer's Iliad or the great Indian epic the Mahabharata.Gilgamesh is said to have ordered the creation of the legendary walls of Uruk. An alternative version has Gilgamesh, towards the end of the story, boasting to Urshanabi the ferryman that the city's walls were built by the Seven Sages. In historical times, Sargon of Akkad claimed to have destroyed these walls to prove his military power.

Gilgamesh is the hero of the epic but also a tyrannical ruler whose subjects groan under the cost of his many wars.In order to rid themselves of their king, his people try to get him to fight ENKINDU- a creature , half salvage and half man, whom the gods have created as his equal opponent.A single combat takes place which ends in a draw and the two men became inseparable friends.

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, where the Euphrates once flowed, the last resting place of its King Gilgamesh. Despite the lack of direct evidence, most scholars do not object to consideration of Gilgamesh as an 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 an historical king, he probably reigned in about the 26th century BC. Some of the earliest Sumerian texts spell his name as Bilgamesh. Initial difficulties in reading cuneiform resulted in Gilgamesh making his re-entrance into world culture in 1891 as "Izdubar". In most texts, Gilgamesh is written with the determinative for divine beings (DINGIR) - but there is no evidence for a contemporary cult, and the Sumerian Gilgamesh myths suggest the deification was a later development (unlike the case of the Akkadian god-kings).


Historical or not, Gilgamesh became a legendary protagonist in the Epic of Gilgamesh.