The use of the ‘epic’ genre by ancient civilizations allows us living in the modern day to gain a valuable insight into what values these cultures viewed as good and evil. Often these stories revolve around the struggle between an unquestionable good and evil; a hero, who embodies the civilizations idea of the perfect man, struggling against an evil which threatens everything he, and society, represents. In the epic ‘Gilgamesh’, however, the values of Sumerian society do not fall into the archetype of being unquestionably good or evil, in fact, the values put forth by the Sumerians are that of being unquestionably ‘human’ in nature.
