Download Gilgamesh Background

Gilgamesh Background
Geography and History
Mesopotamia
 One of world’s first civilizations
 Between Tigris and Euphrates—modern day Iraq
 Land was harsh and hard to farm
 Southern region (Sumeria) very hot and marshy
 City-states with kings developed by 4000 BCE
 King was intermediary between gods and people
 Sumerians were polytheistic
Sumerians
 Elite culture in Mesopotamia
 Conquered by Semitic tribes but language survived
 Gilgamesh—King of Uruk, known as a great builder.
Around 2700 BCE
 One theme of this epic is civilization versus the wilderness
Cuneiform
 Latin for “wedge-shaped”
 Stylus and clay tablets
 Originally used pictures representing animals
 Then pictographic signs
 Finally, around 700 BCE a phonetic system developed
Gilgamesh text
 Written between 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE
 Preserved in library of King Assurbanipal—an Assyrian king.
Translated into Akkadian Semitic
 Then lost and rediscovered on clay tablets in 1800’s by British
explorers. Translated into the early 20th century.
 Evidence suggests the story was widespread as numerous
copies have been discovered on tablets in various Middle
eastern languages
What it looks like