The epic of Gilgamesh, the king who tried to conquer death - Soraya Field Fiorio
In 1849, in the ancient city
of Nineveh in northern Iraq,
archaeologists sifted
through dusty remains,
hoping to find records to prove
that Bible stories were true.
What they found instead was
one of the oldest libraries in the world.
Inscribed on crumbling clay tablets
was a 4,000-year-old story
so riveting the first person to translate
it started stripping from excitement.
Called the epic of Gilgamesh,
the story starts with Gilgamesh,
king of the city of Uruk,
crashing every wedding
and sleeping with the bride
before she has a chance
to sleep with her husband.
To tame Gilgamesh, the goddess Aruru
created a rival called Enkidu.
Enkidu lived beyond the walls of the city,
where chaos reigned and wild animals,
invaders, and evil spirits prowled.
After a priestess of the goddess Ishtar
seduced Enkidu,
the wild animals beyond the wall rejected
him and he ventured into the city.
There, he encountered Gilgamesh
up to his usual tricks.
Enkidu stepped in to stop him.
Almost perfectly matched, the two men
wrestled all through the city streets
until Gilgamesh won the fight by a hair.
Afterwards, they were inseparable.
With his new friend, Gilgamesh turned
his attention from the brides of Uruk
to proving his strength in combat.
They set out to slay Humbaba,
a creature with a thousand faces who
guarded the trees of the Forest of Cedar.
They tracked Humbaba and ambushed him.
Cornered, he begged for his life,
then cursed them
as Gilgamesh dealt the final blow.
Back home in Uruk, the goddess Ishtar
took a romantic interest in Gilgamesh.
Knowing she tended to lose interest
and curse her former flames,
Gilgamesh refused her advances.
So Ishtar unleashed the Bull of Heaven
on Uruk to destroy crops and kill people.
When Gilgamesh and Enkidu slayed
the creature defending the city,
the gods killed Enkidu.
He entered the House of Dust,
the shadowy Mesopotamian underworld
where the spirits of the dead
knelt eternally on the ground,
eating dirt and drinking stone.
Grieving for Enkidu and terrified
of meeting this fate himself,
Gilgamesh set off beyond the cosmic
mountains to seek immortality.
He passed scorpion people
and groves of gemstone trees,
travelled beneath the mountains
and outran the rising sun,
until he finally came
to the end of the world,
where he found a bar.
The bartender was a goddess named Shiduri,
who urged Gilgamesh to give up his quest.
She told him all mortals must die,
but until death comes,
he should enjoy his life.
But Gilgamesh refused to give up.
Reluctantly, Shiduri gave him directions
to cross the Waters of Death
and meet the immortal man Utanapishti.
The gods had granted Utanapishti
immortality following a great flood,
during which he built a boat,
loaded two of every animal onto it,
and landed on a mountain peak.
Utanapishti also encouraged Gilgamesh
to accept that death comes for everyone.
But Gilgamesh still would not budge.
So Utanapishti told him
that if he could conquer sleep,
the gods might grant him immortality.
Gilgamesh intended to stay
awake for seven days,
but fell asleep immediately.
Utanapishti then told him about a magical
plant that grew at the bottom of the ocean
and granted eternal youth.
Though Gilgamesh successfully
retrieved the plant,
a snake stole it on his way home.
But when Gilgamesh laid eyes
on his beautiful city again,
he made peace with his mortality and vowed
to spend his lifetime doing great deeds.
He wrote his story
on a lapis lazuli tablet
and buried it under the city walls for
future generations to find and learn from.
The tablets uncovered in Nineveh
were part of the library
of the Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal.
Though the story is mythical, Gilgamesh
was probably a real king of Uruk.
Versions of his tale date to 2000 BCE
and perhaps even longer ago,
and still echo through literature today.
