Gilgamesh_historicalbackground_eng250

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Scholars believe that stories of the adventures of Gilgamesh that existed in the oral tradition of Sumer were first written down in approximately B.C.

As such, he would have lived more than a millennia before the epic would have been transcribed onto the tablets that survive today. By the time his life was recorded in the Sumerian poems, Gilgamesh had become a deity and was worshiped in the region; in some places, he was viewed as a god of the underworld. These early tales were oral narratives sung at the royal court of the Third Dynasty of Ur at a time of literary revival in the Sumerian city of Ur.

By the Old Babylonian Period BCE , a new Babylonian culture had emerged and thrived in the region, along with a return to teaching, transcribing, and preserving literary works. In this later—now classic—transcription, the scribe gave Enkidu the role of companion rather than servant and addressed more contemporary themes for the time including the role of the king and good governance, the purpose of a hero, and the elusive nature of mortality.

Rather than being depicted as a god, in these later tales Gilgamesh is only one-third deity, allowing the hero to struggle with his fruitless search for immortality.

Notice the strong walls of our city of Uruk!

Beyond the contemporary influence "The Epic of Gilgamesh" had on Babylonian oral histories and texts, the tale has had an enormous influence on the literary heritage of Western civilization. When the text was rediscovered in the modern era by English archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, it was first considered by some as the original source material for the story of the flood in the biblical Book of Genesis.

German, American, and English scholars provided interpretations of the text, with early psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung interpreting the tale within their respective approaches to the unconscious and sexuality. By the 20th century, authors and composers engaged with the myth following World War II to grapple with some of the existential problems of loss and death.

Modern authors such as Philip Roth and Joan London have drawn from the myth in their novels. Books that Feature the Theme of View Collection.