Gilgamesh

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Uruk

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An ancient city in Sumer and Babylonia, in modern-day Iraq.

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Enkidu

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Companion and friend of Gilgamesh. Hairy-bodied and brawny, ****** was raised by animals. Even after he joins the civilized world, he retains many of his undomesticated characteristics. ****** looks much like Gilgamesh and is almost his physical equal. He aspires to be Gilgamesh’s rival but instead becomes his soul mate. The gods punish Gilgamesh and ****** by giving ****** a slow, painful, inglorious death for killing the demon Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven.

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Ninsun

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The mother of Gilgamesh, also called the Lady Wildcow ******. She is a minor goddess, noted for her wisdom. Her husband is Lugulbanda.

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Shamash

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The sun god, brother of Ishtar, patron of Gilgamesh. ******* is a wise judge and lawgiver.

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Ishtar

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The goddess of love and fertility, as well as the goddess of war. ****** is frequently called the Queen of Heaven. Capricious and mercurial, sometimes she is a nurturing mother figure, and other times she is spiteful and cruel. She is the patroness of Uruk, where she has a temple.

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Humbaba

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The fearsome demon who guards the Cedar Forest forbidden to mortals. *******’s seven garments produce an aura that paralyzes with fear anyone who would withstand him. He is the personification of awesome natural power and menace. His mouth is fire, he roars like a flood, and he breathes death, much like an erupting volcano. In his very last moments he acquires personality and pathos, when he pleads cunningly for his life.

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cedar

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The ***** Forest is the glorious realm of the gods of Mesopotamian mythology. It is guarded by the demigod Humbaba

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Anu

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The father of the gods and the god of the firmament (vault of the heavens; the sky).

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Siduri

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The goddess of wine-making and brewing. ****** is the veiled tavern keeper who comforts Gilgamesh and who, though she knows his quest is futile, helps him on his way to Utnapishtim.

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Urshanabi

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The guardian of the mysterious “stone things.” ********* pilots a small ferryboat across the Waters of Death to the Far Away place where Utnapishtim lives. He loses this privilege when he accepts Gilgamesh as a passenger, so he returns with him to Uruk.

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Utnapishtim

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A king and priest of Shurrupak, whose name translates as “He Who Saw Life.” By the god Ea’s connivance, *********** survived the great deluge that almost destroyed all life on Earth by building a great boat that carried him, his family, and one of every living creature to safety. The gods granted eternal life to him and his wife.

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ziggurat

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A massive monument built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels.

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cuneiform

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An ancient Mesopotamian writing system, adapted within several language families, originating as pictograms in Sumer around the 30th century BC, evolving into more abstract and characteristic wedge shapes formed by a blunt reed stylus on clay tablets.

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hieroglyphics

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A writing system of ancient civilizations, using pictorial symbols to represent individual sounds as a rebus.

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epic poem

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A lengthy narrative, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation.

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oral literature

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Stories that are or have been transmitted in spoken form, such as public recitation, rather than through writing or printing. Most pre-literate societies have had a tradition of oral literature, including short folk tales, legends, myths, proverbs, and riddles, as well as longer narrative works; and most of the ancient epics seem to have been composed and added to over many centuries before they were committed to writing.

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loaves of bread

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The device Utnapishtim uses to prove to Gilgamesh that he in fact spent a week sleeping, rather than just nodding off at the last moment. Utnapishtim's wife bakes loaves of bread, one per day. He places the loaves by Gilgamesh's head, and marks off each corresponding day. In the end, "the first loaf was hard, the second loaf was like leather, the third was soggy, the crust of the fourth had mould, the fifth had mildewed, the sixth was fresh, and the seventh was still on the embers."

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"The Old Men Are Young Again"

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The parable of the magical plant and the serpent foreshadows the biblical tale of Adam, Eve, and the serpent. Just as with the flood story, however, the biblical version has a different moral dimension. After the serpent steals the plant, Gilgamesh knows that death cannot be avoided, a lesson he has perhaps already learned unconsciously, since he thought to share the plant with his community. Since Enkidu died, he has been mired in grief, and his wanting to share the plant shows that he is starting to think about his responsibilities to other people again.