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Transcript
GILGAMESH BACKGROUND
• World Literature I
• Presentation by:
• Ralph Monday
1
Mesopotamia
2
Mesopotamia
3
The Descent of Inanna
• This journey into the underworld is a
bit older than Gilgamesh.
• It is probably the oldest extant written
story in the world.
• The story can actually be located in
the urban culture of Sumer to 3500
B.C.E.
4
• Both Sumer and Egypt developed a
written language at about 3200
B.C.E.
• Mesopotamia and Egypt have the
oldest written literature in the world.
• Urban civilization is thought to begin
with Sumer.
5
Ancient Sumer
6
Gilgamesh
• The story came to us from 22,000
clay tablets of cuneiform writing from
• modern day Iraq.
• The Akkadian king, Ashurbanipal had
it written down sometime during the
eighth century B.C.E.
7
Cuneiform Writing
• Genesis 10:10 And
the beginning of
his kingdom was
Babel and
Erech and Accad
and Calneh in the
land of Shinar
(Sumer) .....
8
Language
• Sumerian is a linguistically isolated
and extinct language. All attempts to
connect Sumerian with any other
tongue have so far failed. Sumerian is
preserved only on clay tablets in a
corpus of texts written in cuneiform.
After 2000 B.C.E. the Semitic
language Akkadian became
dominant.
9
Cuneiform Script
• The Sumerian
civilization is
thought to be the
earliest culture to
use written
language, in
about 3200
B.C.E.
10
11
Gilgamesh Continued
• The story of Gilgamesh was lost until
1839 when A.H. Layard found the
tablets in Nineveh.
• In 1872 George Smith translated
them into English.
12
Present Day Uruk
13
Gilgamesh Summary
• The epic begins with a list of
Gilgamesh’s accomplishments.
• We learn that he is self-indulgent and
that he sleeps with all the virgins
before they sleep with their lovers.
14
The Coming of Enkidu
• Enkidu is created to be a challenger
to Gilgamesh.
• He is first civilized by a ritual orgy of
six days and seven with a temple
priestess.
• This symbolizes the loss of his animal
nature.
15
Seduction of Enkidu
16
• Enkidu challenges
Gilgamesh to a
physical battle,
stopping him from
claiming “first night.”
• Gilgamesh wins,
though not easily, and
he and Enkidu
become friends.
• Enkidu can be seen
as a type of double or
foil for Gilgamesh.
17
Humbaba
Gilgamesh
18
• Gilgamesh wants some of the lumber
of Enlil’s forest, up the Euphrates
River.
• He and Enkidu travel to the forest that
is guarded by a giant, Humbaba.
• When Gilgamesh begins to cut down
trees, Humbaba is enraged.
• Humbaba offers the entire forest if he
can live, but Enkidu persuades
Gilgamesh to kill him.
19
Confronting Humbaba
20
Ishtar
• The fertility goddess, Ishtar, proposes
to Gilgamesh and wants to make love
to him.
• He refuses and insults her about her
poor record as a lover.
• Whining, Ishtar goes to her father and
asks for the Bull of Heaven so that
Gilgamesh will be destroyed.
21
The Goddess Ishtar
22
Phoenician Ivory Plaque of Ishtar
23
Bull of Heaven
24
• Anu grants the bull, but Enkidu and
Gilgamesh kill it, dedicating its heart
to Shamash.
• Ishtar is even more upset.
• Enkidu then dreams that either he or
Gilgamesh must die for having killed
the Bull and Humbaba.
25
• Enkidu curses the gate made of the
cedar he stole and the woman who
brought him to civilization.
• Anu reminds Enkidu of how good the
woman was and he retracts the
curse.
• Enkidu can then only speak his
terrifying dreams to Gilgamesh who
watches him die.
26
Gilgamesh Mourns the Death of
Enkidu
27
Gilgamesh Wanders the Earth
• Alone and terrified of death, Gilgamesh
travels eastward toward the mountain of
Mashu (perhaps in Iran or Kashmir?).
• He kills lions and wears their hides until he
meets dangerous scorpion men who
inquire about his quest.
28
Persian impression of a cornelian
cylinder seal
Scorpion men
29
• Gilgamesh responds to the Scorpion
men by telling them that he is looking
• For Utnapishtim, a mortal who
became a god, so that he too, can
discover the secret of eternal life.
• They let him pass and he goes into a
tunnel beneath the mountain to
emerge on the other side in the land
of the gods.
30
• There he meets Siduri, a veiled bar
maid for the gods.
• She does not recognize Gilgamesh,
for his long journey and mourning for
Enkidu have made him haggard and
emaciated.
31
Siduri
32
• Siduri reveals to Gilgamesh the
paradox of divinity: because men are
mortal they can at least enjoy life,
• For it is rare and a mysterious gift.
• The gods, however, being immortal
have no need to fear death; life is
nothing to them.
• Life is all the same, one enjoyment
after the other, none spectacular.
33
• Gilgamesh asks her for the way to
Utnapishtim.
• She directs him to a forest, and
beyond the forest is a mooring where
• The mysterious boatman, Urshnabi,
stands waiting.
34
Urshnabi
35
• Gilgamesh smashes a box on the
boat because he is angry and afraid
of death.
• He must supply the ship with poles
painted with tar in order to cross the
sea of death.
• He does so and is taken to meet
Utnapishtim, the Faraway.
36
Utnapishtim
37
• The conversation they have is similar
to the one that Gilgamesh had with
Siduri and Urshnabi.
• Utnapishtim tells him that there is no
such thing as “permanence,” that
nothing lasts forever.
• However, Gilgamesh wants to know
how Utnapishtim, who once was a
mortal, came to be among the gods.
38
• Utnapishtim then tell Gilgamesh the
story of the gods being upset and
• Destroying the world by sending a
great flood.
• All humans were destroyed except
Utnap and his family.
• The story is almost identical to the
one in Genesis.
39
• It is time for Gilgamesh to return to
the land of the living.
• Utnapishtim offers him a test: Stay
awake for six days and seven nights,
• And he might just become immortal.
• Gilgamesh fails before he even
begins.
40
• He falls asleep and when he wakes
up the baked loaves of bread beside
• His bed tell him that he has slept for
seven days.
• Utnapishtim’s wife wants a going
away present for Gilgamesh.
41
• The old man tells Gilgamesh about a
plant growing at the bottom of the sea
that grants immortal life.
• However, a snake steals the plant
away from him and he loses the gift of
immortal life.
42
Snake Stealing Plant of Life
43
• Gilgamesh arrives as a hero in Uruk.
He then engraves his life’s story on
stones.
• Gilgamesh dies, granted immortality
only through the monuments he has
built and the poem that we read.
• The people praise his deeds and the
greatness of their king.
44
Gilgamesh, Immortality Through Art
45