He is the King of Uruk, a splendid, high-walled city in southern Mesopotamia. His mother was a goddess and his father a mortal. Accordingly, he is a fine specimen of a man, eleven cubits (seventeen feet) tall and four cubits from nipple to nipple. He is not an exemplary ruler, however.
Our first report on Gilgamesh is that he is "lordly in appearance" (1. 28) and that his body was modeled by Aruru to be "beautiful, handsomest of men, perfect" (1. 49-50). That description, though, isn't just about his outward appearance.
The tale revolves around a legendary hero named Gilgamesh (Bilgames in Sumerian), who was said to be the king of the Sumerian city of Uruk. His father is identified as Lugalbanda, king of Uruk, and his mother is the wise cow goddess Ninsun.
It is also a source of much conjecture, for the hero king on whom the story is based, Gilgamesh is quoted as being two-thirds god and one-third human.
Historical & Legendary King
Accordingly, Gilgamesh was a demigod who was said to have lived an exceptionally long life (the Sumerian King List records his reign as 126 years) and to be possessed of super-human strength.
We meet Gilgamesh in the first line. He is the King of Uruk, a splendid, high-walled city in southern Mesopotamia. His mother was a goddess and his father a mortal. Accordingly, he is a fine specimen of a man, eleven cubits (seventeen feet) tall and four cubits from nipple to nipple.
What we get in The Epic of Gilgamesh is a story older than the Iliad or Odyssey and older still than the earliest surviving texts for the Old Testament. The Epic of Gilgamesh, not Homer nor the Hebrew bible, is the starting-point of 'great' recorded literature.
He is the King of Uruk, a splendid, high-walled city in southern Mesopotamia. His mother was a goddess and his father a mortal. Accordingly, he is a fine specimen of a man, eleven cubits (seventeen feet) tall and four cubits from nipple to nipple.
In The Book of Giants, Gilgamesh is named as one of the Giants killed by the biblical Flood, an event which is detailed in another apocryphal work, The Book of Watchers. The Book of Giants contains a narrative involving the exploits of the giants and describes visions they receive and their reactions to them.
Gilgamesh fails to do this and falls asleep for seven days without waking. Next, Utnapishtim tells him that, even if he cannot obtain immortality, he can restore his youth using a plant with the power of rejuvenation.
According to the story, Gilgamesh was part god and part man. His mother was Ninsun, a goddess, and his father, Lugalbanda, was the half-god king of Uruk.
Gilgamesh is a dignified man with golden hair standing up like a blazing flame. His face is described as handsome, and his eyes, crimson like blood, are visibly not those of a human and give off a mysterious radiance that makes people wither.
Deities. Mesopotamian religion was polytheistic, thereby accepting the existence of many different deities, both male and female, though it was also henotheistic, with certain gods being viewed as superior to others by their specific devotees.
It all gets started when Ishtar develops a mammoth crush on Gilgamesh after he and Enkidu return from killing Humbaba. Ishtar isn't shy about making her feelings known: she marches right up to Gilgamesh and asks him to marry her.
Interesting Facts About the Epic of Gilgamesh
The story was first translated by archeologist George Smith in 1872. Many tablets telling the story of Gilgamesh have been recovered from the famous Assyrian library in the ancient city of Nineveh. Gilgamesh's mother was the goddess Ninsun.
He died of old age. After returning from his herb of immortality search and losing it to a snake, he reformed and was a great King.
After a fierce battle, Enkidu acknowledges Gilgamesh's superior strength and they become friends. Gilgamesh proposes a journey to the Cedar Forest to slay the monstrous demi-god Humbaba in order to gain fame and renown.
The story of Noah may be part of the Abrahamic canon, but the legend of the Great Flood almost certainly has prebiblical origins, rooted in the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia. The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh dates back nearly 5,000 years and is thought to be perhaps the oldest written tale on the planet.
When the gods created Gilgamesh they gave him a perfect body. Shamash the glorious sun endowed him with beauty, Adad the god of the storm endowed him with courage, the great gods made his beauty perfect, surpassing all others, terrifying like a great wild bull. Two thirds they made him god and one third man.
The oldest surviving literary work is The Epic of Gilgamesh. It was composed nearly 4,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia (roughly equivalent to where Iraq and eastern Syria are now). No one knows who wrote it, or why, or what readership or audience it was intended for.
An epic poem concerning or (very) loosely based on the historical King Gilgamesh, who ruled Sumerian Uruk (modern day Iraq) in 2700 BC. This is the oldest written story, period, anywhere, known to exist. The oldest existing versions of this poem date to c 2000 BC, in Sumerian cuneiform.
Gilgamesh was the brave king of Uruk. He was part-god and part- human. Q: Who did the gods create to be Gilgamesh's euqal? The gods created Enkidu, who was part-human and part-animal, as Gilgamesh's equal.
Beowulf dates to somewhere between 975 to 1025 AD. The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, however, dates to 2150 to 1400 BC.
He fails in his quest for physical immortality, but the gods take mercy on him and allow him to visit his friend Enkidu in the underworld. In the end, like other heroes of ancient mythology, Gilgamesh did achieve immortality through legend and the written word.
While Cú Chulainn has the Gáe Bolg that became famous, Gilgamesh possesses a weapon that later became the Gáe Bolg, but was not famous at the time Gilgamesh owned it. The only item contained in the vault that was not passed on to another user than Gilgamesh is Ea, a sword unique to only Gilgamesh.