No contemporary information is known about Gilgamesh, who, if he was in fact an historical person, would have lived around 2700 B.C. Nor is there any preserved early third-millennium version of the poem. During the twenty-first century B.C., Shulgi, ruler of the Sumerian city of Ur, was a patron of the literary arts.
Gilgamesh's supposed historical reign is believed to have been approximately 2500 BC, 400 years before the earliest known written stories. The discovery of artifacts associated with Agga and Enmebaragesi of Kish, two other kings named in the stories, has lent credibility to the historical existence of Gilgamesh.
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.
Most historians generally agree that Gilgamesh was a historical king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk, who probably ruled sometime during the early part of the Early Dynastic Period ( c. 2900 – 2350 BC).
Gilgamesh is the semi-mythic King of Uruk in Mesopotamia best known from The Epic of Gilgamesh (written c. 2150 - 1400 BCE) the great Sumerian/Babylonian poetic work which pre-dates Homer's writing by 1500 years and, therefore, stands as the oldest piece of epic world literature.
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.
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.
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.
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.
According to these answers seems that The Epic of Gilgamesh doesn't mention that, however Wikipedia page mention something about Sumerian poem - The Death of Gilgamesh. If it was common for some to live to 900 years + during that time, 126 years may have seemed young.
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.
Lugalbanda, the shepherd, reigned 1,200 years. Dumuzi the fisherman, whose city was Kua, reigned 100 years. Gilgamesh, whose father was a nomad (?) reigned 126 years.
Epic of Gilgamesh, ancient Mesopotamian odyssey recorded in the Akkadian language about Gilgamesh, the king of the Mesopotamian city-state Uruk (Erech).
The Epic of Gilgamesh recounts the tale of the hero-king of ancient Mesopotamia. Gilgamesh has encounters with creatures, kings and gods and also provides a story of human relationships, feelings, loneliness, friendship, loss, love, revenge and the fear of death.
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.
The Epic of Gilgamesh (/ˈɡɪlɡəmɛʃ/) is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about Bilgamesh (Sumerian for "Gilgamesh"), king of Uruk, dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur ( c. 2100 BC).
Beowulf dates to somewhere between 975 to 1025 AD. The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, however, dates to 2150 to 1400 BC.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the most well known Mesopotamian myths, and is often regarded as the oldest known piece of literature in the world.
Diamond Sūtra. A Buddhist holy text, the Diamond Sūtra is considered to be the oldest surviving dated printed book in the world. Found in a walled up cave in China along with other printed materials, the book is made up of Chinese characters printed on a scroll of grey printed paper, wrapped along a wooden pole.
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.
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.
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.
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.
While Shuruppak's fatherly wisdom is one of the most ancient examples of written literature, history's oldest known fictional story is probably the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” a mythic poem that first appeared as early as the third millennium B.C. The adventure-filled tale centers on a Sumerian king named Gilgamesh who is ...
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.