Ishtar is the Akkadian counterpart of the West Semitic goddess Astarte. The power attributed to her in war may have arisen from her connection with storms. At the end of his story, Utnapishtim offers Gilgamesh a chance at immortality.
If Gilgamesh can stay awake for six days and seven nights, he, too, will become immortal. The Epic of Gilgamesh , which dates back to 18th century B. The core of the ziggurat is made of mud brick covered with baked bricks laid with bitumen, a naturally occurring tar. Each of the baked bricks measured about Gilgamesh : The 4, year-old giant who speaks to our times. Four thousand years ago, in a country known as Babylon, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in the part of the world we today consider to be the cradle of civilisation, there was a city called Uruk.
Archaic cuneiform The direction of writing remained to be from top-to-bottom and right -to- left , until the mid-2nd millennium BC. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh a secret story that begins in the old city of Shuruppak on the banks of the Euphrates River. The "great gods " Anu, Enlil, Ninurta, Ennugi, and Ea were sworn to secrecy about their plan to cause the flood. It first appeared in archaeological records around B. It was mostly replaced by Akkadian around B.
According to the tale, Gilgamesh is a handsome, athletic young king of Uruk city. His mother was the goddess Ninsun and his father the priest-king Lugalbanda, making Gilgamesh semi-divine. Gilgamesh is rambunctious and energetic, but also cruel and arrogant. He challenges all other young men to physical contests and combat.
He also proclaims his right to have sexual intercourse with all new brides. The gods send a wild man, Enkidu, to challenge Gilgamesh. I was not taught the poem in school, nor was anyone I know.
There is no real tradition for reading it. Modern translators are pretty much on their own. And they have a special challenge. On the contrary, something like a new poem begins, in a different key. Before, the two young men were killing monsters and having sex—not such a different plot line from that of a modern action movie.
Now, with the death of Enkidu, everything changes. That appalling detail is recorded again and again. The poets knew its power. Seeing it—and understanding, accordingly, that his friend has truly been turned into matter, into dead meat—Gilgamesh is assailed by a new grief: he, too, must die.
This frightens him to his very core, and it becomes the subject of the remainder of the poem. Can he find a way to avoid death? He flees Uruk and clothes himself in animal skins. First he goes to the mountain where the sun rises and sets. It is guarded by two scorpions. Gilgamesh explains to them that he is seeking Uta-napishti, the one man, he has heard, who became immortal.
The scorpions grant him entry to a tunnel that the sun passes through each night. But if he wants to get through it he must outpace the sun. He starts out and, in utter, enfolding darkness, he runs. He can see nothing behind him or ahead of him. This goes on for hours and hours. In the end, he beats the sun narrowly, emerging into a garden where the fruits on the trees are jewels:.
A carnelian tree was in fruit, hung with bunches of grapes, lovely to look on. A lapis lazuli tree bore foliage, in full fruit and gorgeous to gaze on.
To me, this is the most dazzling passage in the poem: the engulfing darkness, in which Gilgamesh can see nothing for hours—he is just an organism, in a hole—and then, suddenly, light, color, beautiful globes of purple and red hanging from the trees. Gilgamesh does not linger in the garden.
He at last finds Uta-napishti, the man who gazed on death and survived. Gilgamesh wants to know, How did you do this? Unhelpfully, Uta-napishti explains:. Ever the river has risen and brought us the flood, the mayfly floating on the water. On the face of the sun its countenance gazes, then all of a sudden nothing is there!
Uta-napishti now tells Gilgamesh the story that made George Smith take off his clothes. Like Noah, Uta-napishti was warned of the coming catastrophe, and he ordered an ark to be built.
The bottom of the hull was one acre in area, with six decks raised on it. And the vessel seems to have been cube-shaped! Once the ark was finished, Uta-napishti and his family and all the animals he could lay his hands on, and whatever craftsmen he could summon, boarded the ark. Before he sailed, he gave his palace and all its goods to the shipwright—an ironic gift, since the palace and its goods, and presumably the shipwright, too, would be destroyed the next day.
Uta-napishti continues:. The gods Shullat and Hanish were going before him, bearing his throne over mountain and land. The Anunnaki gods carried torches of fire, scorching the country with brilliant flashes. The goddess cried out like a woman in childbirth. These last lines are what everyone quotes.
How thrilling they are, with the gods bent over, howling, in the skies and the storm shattering the earth like a clay pot. He and his fellow-survivors disembark, and re-people the earth. For suffering this ordeal, Uta-napishti and his wife were granted immortality, but, he suggests, no one but they can live forever. Then he relents and gives Gilgamesh some tests whereby he might cheat death. Gilgamesh fails.
They are silly tests, and he fails in silly ways. The poem is not perfect. Exchanging his kingly garments for animal skins as a way of mourning Enkidu, he sets off into the wilderness, determined to find Utnapishtim, the Mesopotamian Noah.
After the flood, the gods had granted Utnapishtim eternal life, and Gilgamesh hopes that Utnapishtim can tell him how he might avoid death too. Utnapishtim lives beyond the mountain, but the two scorpion monsters that guard its entrance refuse to allow Gilgamesh into the tunnel that passes through it. Gilgamesh pleads with them, and they relent. After a harrowing passage through total darkness, Gilgamesh emerges into a beautiful garden by the sea.
There he meets Siduri, a veiled tavern keeper, and tells her about his quest. She warns him that seeking immortality is futile and that he should be satisfied with the pleasures of this world.
Urshanabi takes Gilgamesh on the boat journey across the sea and through the Waters of Death to Utnapishtim. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh the story of the flood—how the gods met in council and decided to destroy humankind. Utnapishtim was rewarded with eternal life. Men would die, but humankind would continue. When Gilgamesh insists that he be allowed to live forever, Utnapishtim gives him a test.
If you think you can stay alive for eternity, he says, surely you can stay awake for a week. Gilgamesh tries and immediately fails.
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