Is Gilgamesh A Good King?

By the social, cultural, and economic standards of Ancient Mesopotamia, Gilgamesh displays these qualities by the end of the book. In Ancient Mesopotamia, a king is the person who provides thru whatever means for his people. A king economically, in order to do well must give his people enough necessities in order to survive. A king was the one who had to provide the food and the water for his people. The only way back then to gain supplies was the fight, as food was in scarcity. A good king was one who was strong enough to take enough for his people to thrive. Gilgamesh, as a king economically, is an amazing king. Throughout the book, he gives his people what they want, gives them more and continues to do this by the end of the book. Throughout …show more content…
This includes respecting the idea of family, private ownership, and the law. But in the beginning of the book, Gilgamesh is not a good king in this part as he breaks all three of these social norms. In the start, Gilgamesh was said to take children away from their parents. The boy was taken away and had to fight to show his strength, and the girl was married to Gilgamesh. Also, before a person was married, Gilgamesh had to sleep with the bride first before the husband could. Besides that, Gilgamesh was described as a wild bull. He would just go thru the marketplace, whatever he wanted. He got so bad that the people asked the gods for someone to match Gilgamesh in power, so he could be taught a lesson. but by the end of the book, Gilgamesh has become a better king of following the social norms. In the text, he states “ Go up Urshanabi, onto the wall of Uruk, and walk around. Examine its foundation, inspect its brickwork thoroughly, is not the brick structure of kiln fired brick, and did not the seven sages themselves lay out its plan.” We can tell a lot of how Gilgamesh has changed. In this quote, he talks prideful of his city, and respecting how good it looks. He talks about the bricks, and of all the planning that went into making the city. This shows a respect to the city socially that Gilgamesh never had, as a he just went thru causing chaos. Now he is admiring the city in peace to his friend. Also, from his journey, he has understood how precious life is to him. From the way he is acting, we can see that before, socially Gilgamesh thought that he was superior to his people. Now that he knows that they will all die, he respects them, and their possessions because of the common ground that they will all eventually