Gilgamesh | El rey del poema que se adelantó a la Biblia

Welcome, curious minds! Do you know the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest epic literary work in the world? Did you know that it already tells the story of Noah and the Great Flood even though it was written at least a thousand years before the Bible?

Until the middle of the 19th century, in the West it was believed that the Bible was the oldest literary work of humanity, and that it was made up of original stories. . .

However, one of the greatest archaeological finds in history showed that this was not the case. thus: some of the Old Testament stories were based on Sumerian myths thousands of years older. Like Gilgamesh's.

To tell this story well, it is better that we start at the beginning. Long before the rise of the Greek civilization, with its rich mythology, the Sumerians already existed. They lived in the southern part of Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, more than 5,000 years ago, and their fantastic stories have nothing to envy to those of later civilizations.

In fact, I'm sure many of the things you'll hear in this video will remind you of Greek mythology or the Bible. From the end of the fourth millennium BC, the Sumerians developed the cuneiform writing system, one of the oldest known. It is believed that it was invented for the need to keep accounts of business transactions, but later it evolved and was used to collect all kinds of messages.

At first it was written on wet clay tablets with a calamus, a beveled vegetable stem. When the clay dried, the message was engraved on the tablet. Later, cuneiform writing was also used on metal and stone surfaces.

The fact is that, for centuries and centuries, the Sumerians –like other towns in the region– used the cuneiform system to leave a written record of a wide variety of literary works: hymns, lamentations, proverbs, omens, poems. . .

And short stories that tried to outline the personality of the different Mesopotamian gods, that is, myths. Throughout the millennia, in Mesopotamia the dominant peoples followed one another: Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians. .

. Let's stop at the Assyrians. One of its most important monarchs was Ashurbanipal, who reigned in the seventh century BC, reputed to be one of the few kings of antiquity who knew how to read and write.

And not only that: he loved culture. He expanded the library of the city of Nineveh, which had been founded half a century before by King Sargon II, and which was located inside a palace built by Sennacherib, son and successor of Sargon II. It is believed that a copy of all the literature in cuneiform writing that existed at that time was collected in it : texts on grammar, science, art, history, religion.

. . , magic books, lists of cities, dictionaries and , of course, also literary works.

An enormous cultural treasure. . .

which, of course, was devastated by human beings. Specifically, it was burned by a coalition of Babylonians, Scythians and Medes commanded by the Babylonian king Nabopolassar, in 612 BC. C.

Now let's take a big jump in time. Until the year 1849 of our era. At that time, the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard was investigating the ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh when, under a burial mound, he discovered the ruins of Sennacherib's palace.

Shortly after the find, Layard returned to England to launch a political career, leaving behind a protégé of his, the Iraqi-born archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam, on the ground. It was Rassam who, by continuing his field work, discovered in 1853 the enormous library of Ashurbanipal. There were more than 22,000 fragments of clay tablets, written in fine handwriting on both sides.

Although many other works, written on leather scrolls, papyri, and wax tablets, succumbed to the flames when the library was set on fire by Nabopolassar, paradoxically, the heat from the flames caused the clay tablets to bake and harden, helping to preserve them for posterity. Among all those tablets were the twelve that made up the Epic of Gilgamesh, also known as the Epic of Gilgamesh, although some fragments were missing. Rassam sent them to the British Museum, along with a large number of other pieces, and there they remained stored without special attention for two decades.

In parallel, in 1851, another British soldier and diplomat Henry Rawlinson published a memoir about a great find he had made: the so-called Behistun inscription, a monumental inscription on the stone wall of a cliff in northwest Iran. That inscription, in cuneiform writing, had been made by order of the Persian Emperor Darius I, around the year 500 BC. C.

It presented the same text written in three different languages: old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian and, thanks to that, it was possible to decipher the cuneiform writing. In other words, the Behistun inscription meant the same for understanding cuneiform writing as the Rosetta stone did for Egyptian hieroglyphics. In 1872, at the British Museum in London, Assyriologist George Smith put new discoveries about cuneiform into practice and began translating the Epic of Gilgamesh tablets, which were written in a dialect of the Akkadian language that was used only in literary works.

On December 3 of that year, when Smith read his translation of the eleventh tablet of the poem at the Society for Biblical Archaeology. . .

he managed to make himself famous throughout the world. Because? Because that tablet spoke of the Universal Flood.

In a work written at least a thousand years before the Bible! On the cover of the edition of the newspaper 'The New York Times' of December 22, 1872, one could read: “This discovery is destined to arouse a lively controversy. For the moment, orthodox minds are delighted by the corroboration it provides for the Biblical account.

However, it is possible that the inscription, if genuine, can be seen as confirmation that there are various traditions about the flood other than the Biblical one, which is perhaps as legendary as the rest. " Of course, this caused a lot of debate – a debate that continues to this day – and aroused great public interest, so that the editor of the British newspaper 'The Daily Telegraph' financed an expedition for Smith to travel to Nineveh. with the aim of finding new fragments of the tablets of the Gilgamesh poem, since everyone wanted to know more about the Deluge and the tablets, as we have mentioned, were incomplete.

Smith managed to find a few more fragments of the poem and went on a second expedition, this time financed by the British Museum, but soon after, in 1876, during a third trip to the area, he fell ill with dysentery and died. He was 36 years old. But back to the Poem.

Why is it such an important work? Beyond proving that the Bible was neither the oldest nor the most original book, the Epic of Gilgamesh is considered the oldest known epic work. And it is that, although the version of the Poem that was found in the ruins of Ashurbanipal's library – dating from the first half of the second millennium BC – is the most complete, it was not the only one or the original one.

The literary history of this work dates back to 2100 BC , with five independent Sumerian poems that would later serve as the basis for a first combined version of the epic written in Akkadian in the 18th century BC. Now that we know the context, let's go with the story that the work tells, according to the version of Ashurbanipal's library. The poem tells the story of the ruler of Uruk, Gilgamesh, the highest and most powerful king of all, with two thirds divinity and only one third human, builder of the enormous walls of his city, loved by his soldiers and hated by the people.

, who overwhelms and runs over like a capricious bull. He orders that he be idolized and monuments built in his honor, he sleeps with all the women he wants, no matter who they are; every time there is a wedding, he lies down with the wife before the husband, and if anyone dares to stand up to him, he crushes him with his force. A tyrant, in short.

Though not immortal, his partly divine origin gives him great longevity, and his people desperately pray to the gods to save them from Gilgamesh. The heavenly god, Anu, king of the gods, takes pity on them and commands the goddess of earth and fertility, Ninhursag, who creates a new hero, someone capable of rivaling Gilgamesh in strength and courage, to counter his power. Ninhursag then creates, from the mud, a half-wild man named Enkidu, who with his presence in the lands near Uruk harms the trappers, since he lives with wild animals and frees them from the traps and destroys them.

No one dares to come near him, given his great size and strength, so one of the trappers, seeing that he is going to starve if he doesn't do something, goes to Gilgamesh for help. He advises him to bring a sacred prostitute named Shamhat before Enkidu, so that Enkidu, by having sexual relations with her, becomes more human than animal and the wild creatures shun his presence. For seven days in a row, Enkidu lies with Shamhat and, just as Gilgamesh had foreseen, becomes civilized and no longer dwells with animals.

Enkidu decides to leave nature and, guided by Shamhat, he travels to the city of Uruk, where he witnesses a great wedding. . The moment Gilgamesh appears at the feast, Enkidu confronts him and the two fight in a way that makes buildings shake.

After a long and exhausting fight, Enkidu admits that Gilgamesh's strength is superior and the two embrace, kiss and become friends forever . According to some current interpretations, more than a friendship, what unites both characters is a romance. Gilgamesh proposes to Enkidu that he accompany him to the cedar forest on his quest for glory.

How do you intend to get it? Defeating the monster Humbaba, a terrible giant that breathes fire from its mouth and guards the forest. Although Enkidu objects, reminding Gilgamesh that they are mortal and that Humbaba could kill them, Gilgamesh ultimately manages to convince him.

Before starting the journey, Gilgamesh introduces Enkidu to his mother, the goddess Ninsun, who adopts Enkidu as her son and asks the sun god, Shamash, to protect them both. Gilgamesh and Enkidu prepare for the adventure by ordering huge axes and armor from a blacksmith, incapable of being used by any human. When they reach the forest, the monster Humbaba begins insulting them and threatening them, such as that he will disembowel Gilgamesh and feed his meat to the birds.

For the first time, Gilgamesh feels fear, but Enkidu encourages him and they begin to fight with his rival. The sky turns black from the fierceness of the combat and the mountains shake, but Shamash, the sun god, intervenes on behalf of the two friends and sends thirteen winds to hold Humbaba and immobilize him. The monster begs for his life and Gilgamesh takes pity on him, but Enkidu reminds the king that if he wants to achieve glory and be remembered by people forever, he should kill Humbaba.

Hearing this, Humbaba curses them both, and Gilgamesh slits his throat. And by the way he kills the seven children of Humbaba. Gilgamesh and Enkidu cut down many cedars, including a giant one with which Enkidu wants to make a gate for the temple of Enlil, the god of heaven and earth.

They build a large raft for themselves and, mounted on it, with the great tree and the head of Humbaba, they return to Uruk by sailing down the Euphrates River. Shortly after, the goddess of love and war, Ishtar, enters the scene, whom many centuries later the Greeks would transform into Aphrodite by incorporating her into their mythology. Ishtar becomes infatuated with Gilgamesh, but he rejects her, knowing that all his previous lovers have ended badly.

Furious at the insult, Ishtar asks her father, Anu, king of the gods, to send the Bull of Heaven as revenge. At first Anu refuses, but Ishtar threatens to raise the dead from their graves, who will outnumber the living and devour them. Faced with such a threat, Anu ends up giving in.

The Bull of Heaven makes its appearance in Uruk, led by Ishtar, and causes great devastation: it causes the level of the Euphrates River to fall and dries up the swamps, as well as opening huge pits that swallow 300 men. Gilgamesh and Enkidu confront the terrible creature and once again emerge victorious, this time without the need for divine help. they kill the bull and offer his heart as an offering to Shamash, the god who had helped them defeat Humbaba.

Ishtar screams in rage, and Enkidu makes the mistake of throwing one of the bull's hindquarters into her face. So far, this whole story is what is told in the first six tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a first part in which the main theme is the search for glory. The second part, as you will see, focuses on another of the eternal desires of the human being: the search for immortality.

Let's continue. . .

After defeating the Bull of Heaven and making the mistake of seriously offending Ishtar, Enkidu had a dream in which the gods decided that one of the two heroes should die for having ended the lives of Humbaba and the Bull. And they decide that it will be Enkidu. In a second dream, Enkidu sees himself led as a prisoner by a terrifying Angel of Death to the Underworld, which is a house of dust and darkness where those who dwell there eat only clay and are dressed in bird feathers, watched over by demons.

After that dream, Enkidu's state of health begins to worsen and, after twelve days of agony, he dies, but not before lamenting that he could not have died heroically, in battle. Gilgamesh embraces Enkidu's body and refuses to accept that his companion has died. .

. He cries for him for seven days and nights, not wanting to bury him, until he sees a worm fall from the corpse's nose. Gilgamesh orders all of Uruk, the mountains, the fields, the rivers, the forests and all the animals to mourn the death of Enkidu.

He, desperate for pain –according to some interpretations because he has lost his inseparable friend and is also aware that death will also end up taking him; and, according to other versions, because he has lost his great love–, he pulls out locks of hair and tears his clothes. He orders a funerary statue erected in Enkidu's honor and prepares lavish offerings to ensure that he is welcomed into the realm of the dead. A fragment of the tablet describing this part, number eight, is missing here, but just before that it seems to mention that a river is being dammed, which could perhaps mean that Enkidu was planned to be buried in a riverbed.

The poem continues with Gilgamesh, clad only in animal skins, wandering through nature, utterly dejected by the loss of his dear friend and fearful of his own death, more aware than ever of the transience of life. Drven by that fear, he decides to look for Utnapishtim, one of the few survivors of the Great Flood, since he and his wife are the only ones to whom the gods have granted the gift of immortality. In his search, he kills a pack of lions, enters a tunnel located at the end of the Earth that is guarded by two scorpion monsters that form a marriage and reaches the Garden of the Gods, a paradise full of trees loaded with jewels.

. In a tavern located on the shore of an ocean, he meets Siduri, the innkeeper, a woman who hides her face behind a veil. This, at first, is scared to see him arrive, since she thinks he is a hunter and, due to his fierce appearance, possibly troublesome.

So he bolts the door so the stranger can't get in and hides on the roof of the tavern. But after chatting a bit, when Gilgamesh explains who he is and begs him to tell him how to get to Utnapisthim, Siduri tries to dissuade him, warning him of the dangerous journey he will have to make. Finally, unable to convince him, he tells him to seek the help of Urshanabi, the boatman from Utnapishtim, whose boat takes Gilgamesh to his destination.

When he finally manages to find Utnaphistim, the survivor of the Great Flood, and asks him to reveal the secret of his immortality, he berates him, telling him that fighting against the fate of all human beings is futile and diminishes the joys of life. However, Utnapishtim agrees to tell him his story. .

. Long ago, the gods, prompted by Enlil, the lord of heaven and earth, had decided to send a great flood to humans. Enki, the god of water, wisdom and creation, warned Utnapishtim in advance to build a boat so that he could be saved.

He told him the precise dimensions it should have and advised him to seal it with pitch and bitumen. His entire family came aboard, along with his craftsmen and "all the animals of the field. " When the ship was ready, a storm was unleashed so violent that even the gods, frightened, withdrew to the heavens and, from there, they cried for the destruction of humanity.

For six days and seven nights it rained without ceasing, and after them all human beings had turned to mud. Utnapishtim 's ship ran aground on a mountain and released into the air a dove, a swallow and a raven. When he saw that the raven did not return, he opened the boat and released its inhabitants.

Next, Utnapishtim offered a sacrifice to the gods, and they gathered around him, including Enlil, whom the other gods reproached for being the instigator of that Great Flood. Enlil, to repay Utnapishtim, granted him and his wife eternal life. With that story, Utnapishtim wants Gilgamesh to understand that immortality was a unique gift, bestowed in an extraordinary situation.

And, to prove it, he challenges the monarch of Uruk to stay awake for six days and seven nights in a row. Gilgamesh does not succeed and falls asleep, involuntarily agreeing with Utnapishtim: how can someone hope to defeat mortality who is not even capable of defeating sleep? Defeated and despondent, Gilgamesh is about to return to Uruk in the company of Urshanabi, the ferryman, when Utnapishtim's wife, taking pity on Gilgamesh, asks her husband to offer her at least one parting gift, in recognition of his long journey.

. The immortal agrees and reveals to Gilgamesh that, at the bottom of the ocean, there is a plant that will make him rejuvenate again. Determined to get it, Gilgamesh ties stones to his feet so that he can walk on the seabed and thus manages to obtain the plant.

However, suspicious of its possible effect, he decides not to eat it at that moment, but to keep it until he returns to Uruk to try it on an old man first. On the way to the city, he stops to bathe in a lake and leaves the plant on the shore, where it is stolen by a snake, which, before leaving, sheds its old skin, as a symbol that it has rejuvenated. Gilgamesh cries for his new failure, since he has lost all possibility of extending his life.

But when he finally returns to Uruk, and contemplates the colossal walls built by himself, he understands the importance of lasting work, something that, in a way, is another way to achieve immortality or, at least, prolong the memory of a human being in time. In tablet number twelve, the last one, some facts are narrated that break the narrative structure, since it seems to be a translation of a previous Sumerian poem, known as 'Gilgamesh and the Underworld', so it is more of an appendix to the poem than such a closure . On that last tablet, Enkidu is still alive, and Gilgamesh laments to him that several of his possessions – on the tablet it is not clear which ones – have fallen into the underworld.

Enkidu valiantly offers to go to the underworld to retrieve Gilgamesh's items, and Gilgamesh, overjoyed, tells his friend what he should and should not do in the underworld if he wants to return. Enkidu, however, does the complete opposite of what Gilgamesh had advised and is therefore imprisoned in the underworld. Gilgamesh asks the gods for help and two of them, Enki and Shamash, decide to help him out.

Shamash creates a crack in the earth through which Enkidu's ghost emerges from the underworld, and the tablet concludes with Gilgamesh questioning his companion about what he has seen in the realm of the dead. "I won't tell you, my friend, I won't tell you," Enkidu replies. “If I tell you the rules of Hell that I have seen, you will sit down and cry,” he assures her.

And Gilgamesh replies: "I will sit down, then, to cry. " Then his friend explains to him: “My body, which your heart was pleased to caress, like an old dress, is eaten by worms. My body, which your heart was pleased to caress, is full of dust like cracks in the earth.

This translation is from the Mexican Jorge Silva Castillo, an expert in the translation of archaic literary texts. I suppose you have noticed the words of Enkidu saying "My body, that your heart, was pleased to caress". The interpretations that both friends were actually lovers are based on conversations like this, of which, by the way, you will find different versions.

And here the myth. Now, the question that everyone is asking: did Gilgamesh exist? Many historians seem to agree that there was a king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk named Gilgamesh and that, although his reign has not been precisely dated so far , he probably ruled sometime between 2800 and 2500 before .

of Christ. To believe in his existence, they rely on some very old historiographical inscriptions in which, for example, the construction of the walls of Uruk is attributed to him. In addition, it is also included in the 'List of Sumerian Kings', a writing from five thousand years ago that lists the Sumerian cities and the kings who ruled in them, although it is true that there is a debate about the validity of that list.

as a historical source. In any case, the later influence of the Epic of Gilgamesh on Western culture is undeniable. We see it in the Iliad and the Odyssey, we find it in the Bible.

. . What we are now wondering – I don't know if you are too – is: “Isn't it possible that the myth of Gilgamesh wasn't the original source of all those stories either ?

stories told in the poem, such as the Great Flood? What sources were the Sumerians inspired by? Will we ever get to know the ultimate origin of all these myths?

Time will tell. . .

And you? What do you think of the myth of Gilgamesh? What about the similarities between the story of the Great Flood of Utnapishtim and that of Noah's ark?

I would like you to tell us below, in the comments. And if you want to know more interesting stories, subscribe to our channel. Thank you very much for being there, curious minds!

See you in the next video!