Gilgamesh

Assignment to have been completed: Students should have read pp. 7‑16 in The Epic of Gilgamesh and should also have done the assigned study guide questions found in the Gilgamesh packet.

Activities:

• A. Administer quiz over the reading. Allow about five minutes for students to complete the quiz. Exchange papers and grade in class. Collect quizzes.

• B. Go over study guide questions.

  • 1. What is the earliest probable date for the oral beginnings of the Gilgamesh?

    The oral beginnings date back to the third millennium BC (c. 2700 BC).

    When was it first written down?

    Evidence indicates that written versions existed as long ago as the early centuries of the second millennium BC.

    Who first put it into a library ‑ and where was that library?

    Assurbanipal, king of Assyria, first put tablets on which the epic was inscribed in his library at Nineveh in the seventh century BC (c. 650 BC).

    How was the epic lost?

    The Assyrian Empire was conquered (by the Persians), and the library was destroyed.

    What is the significance of its great age?

    Its great age suggests that the epic is the oldest story about a human hero so far recovered from our archaeological past.

  • 2. Who first excavated at Nineveh?

    Austen Henry Layard, a British archaeologist, was the first to excavate at what turned about to be the site of Nineveh and discovered the remains of the library there.

    Who deciphered the cuneiform mode of writing? What is cuneiform? (You should also refer to the article in this packet entitled “Cuneiform Tablets.”)

    Henry Rawlinson deciphered cuneiform ‑ the wedge‑shaped writing of ancient Babylonian (and Akkadian).

    Who had been responsible for getting the tablets that contained the Epic of Gilgamesh to the British Museum?

    An associate of Layard, the original excavator, uncovered a collection of tablets and sent them to the British Museum ‑ though he did not recognize their potential value.

    Who actually recognized the Gilgamesh tablets for what they were?

    George Smith, Rawlinson’s assistant, actually discovered the Gilgamesh tablets in the British Museum where Rassam had sent the tablets along with many others unearthed at the Nineveh dig site.

  • 3. What is a recension?

    ***A recension is a form of a story that incorporates the elements of the story found in various sources to produce a the most authentic and most probable version of the original.

    Our version as well as all other available versions are themselves recensions or based on recensions.***

  • 4. In what ways were the Sumerians themselves a first?

    The Sumerians were the first literate people to inhabit Mesopotamia [13].

    Explain what a ziggurat was and why it was built.

    A ziggurat was a temple built in the shape of a great step pyramid ‑ probably in imitation of the mountains on which the Sumerians had worshipped their god before they migrated to and conquered Mesopotamia [15].

• C. Point out that The Epic of Gilgamesh is a folk epic because it arose from an oral tradition contributed to by many unknown story tellers before it was written down by numerous scribes in numerous locations. (An art epic is one that has a single known author.)

  • 1. Gilgamesh is the earliest known human hero.
  • 2. Like most legends, the literary Gilgamesh may well be based on a real historical figure who lived around 2700 BC. Such a king probably led a successful timber expedition, was a great builder, and came to be known as a just judge.
  • 3. The epic presents three themes through its action and characterization.
    • a. the human concern with mortality
    • b. the search for knowledge
    • c. the desire to escape from the common lot of humanity
  • 4. The epic portrays an after‑life where the souls of the dead exist in a dark cavern, eat dust and clay, seem to have bat‑like wings, and dwell in silence. [In contrast the contemporaneous Egyptian view of the after‑life involved an ideal version of earthly existence, a paradise that lay far to the West, where animated statues did the work and human souls conversed with the gods.]

Assignment for next class meeting: Read pp. 61 ‑ 84 in The Epic of Gilgamesh. Do the corresponding study questions in the packet.