50 Fun Facts About Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh was king of which ancient Mesopotamian city?

He is listed among its kings on the Sumerian King List and credited with building its walls.

According to the epic, what fraction of Gilgamesh was divine?

His mother was a goddess; his people still cried out to the gods about his oppression.

Where does the wild man created as Gilgamesh's equal live before he is tamed?

He is covered in hair and almost invincibly strong; the trapper whose snares he wrecks reports him to the sun god.

Who is Shamhat, the woman who tames the wild man in Tablet one?

After six days and seven nights with her his herd flees, and she consoles him that he now has knowledge like the gods.

Whose livelihood does the wild man ruin, prompting the first report of him to the sun god?

He kept destroying the man's traps; the trapper later gets cursed and then blessed by the dying wild man.

What form did Gilgamesh's oppression of the young women of his city take?

The wild man, hearing of it from a stranger, marches to the city to intervene at a wedding, and the two wrestle.

Who is Gilgamesh's mother, the goddess who interprets his dreams?

She adopts Enkidu as her son before the two heroes set out for the Cedar Forest.

Which monstrous demigod guards the Cedar Forest?

He offers to serve Gilgamesh as a slave and cut the trees for him, and Gilgamesh pities him before Enkidu urges the kill.

How many winds does the sun god Shamash send to bind the forest guardian?

The heroes float home down the Euphrates on a raft with the giant tree.

Which goddess does Gilgamesh reject, citing her mistreatment of past lovers such as Dumuzi?

She goes straight to her father Anu and demands the Bull of Heaven.

What does the spurned goddess threaten to do if her father Anu refuses her the Bull of Heaven?

Anu warns the bull will bring seven years of famine, so she stocks seven years of provisions.

After the Bull of Heaven is killed, what does Enkidu hurl at the goddess?

That insult, on top of the killings, is why the gods sentence him to die.

How do the gods sentence Enkidu to death?

He dreams of the Netherworld, a house of dust whose inhabitants eat clay and wear feathers.

Whom does Gilgamesh set out to find after Enkidu's death, hoping to learn the secret of eternal life?

He is called the Faraway; he and his wife survived the great flood and were made immortal.

What kind of creatures guard the tunnel of the sun at the twin peaks of Mount Mashu?

They appear to be a married couple, and no man had ever entered the tunnel before.

What is the occupation of Siduri, who urges Gilgamesh to be content with life's simple pleasures?

Several scholars think the author of Ecclesiastes borrowed her advice directly.

What does Gilgamesh smash in a rage when he meets the ferryman Urshanabi?

He then has to cut 120 trees into punting poles because the waters are deadly to touch.

How many trees does the ferryman tell Gilgamesh to cut into punting poles?

In the Old Babylonian version the ferryman asks for 300 oars instead.

What test does the flood survivor set Gilgamesh to show he cannot conquer even sleep, let alone death?

He fails at once, and a loaf is baked each day he sleeps so he cannot deny it.

Which three birds does the flood survivor release from his boat as the waters recede?

When the raven fails to return he opens the ark; his boat had lodged on Mount Nimush.

How does Gilgamesh reach the rejuvenating plant at the bottom of the sea?

He plans to test it on an old man back home before eating it himself.

What steals the plant of youth while Gilgamesh bathes?

It sheds its skin as it slithers away, which was the ancient explanation of why snakes renew themselves.

What sight, on his return home, prompts Gilgamesh to praise an enduring work to the ferryman?

The lines that open Tablet one are repeated at the end of Tablet eleven, giving the epic circularity.

How many tablets make up the Standard Babylonian version of the epic?

The last is really a translation of an older Sumerian poem and has been called an inorganic appendage.

Which scribe is credited with editing the Standard Babylonian version between roughly 1300 and 1000 BCE?

He is credited with pushing mortality to the foreground, turning an adventurer into a wise man.

What are the opening words, or incipit, of the Standard Babylonian version?

The older Old Babylonian version opens instead with Surpassing all other kings.

In which language was the combined epic written?

Five earlier Sumerian poems, with slightly different names for the hero, supplied the raw material.

In the earlier Sumerian poems, what is Enkidu's relationship to Gilgamesh?

Only in the later epic do the two become companions of equal standing.

How is Gilgamesh's name written in the earliest Sumerian poems?

Victorian scholars first called him Izdubar before the cuneiform signs of his name could be read properly.

In which royal library at Nineveh were the best copies of the epic found?

About 15,000 tablet fragments came out of it, dug up by Layard, his assistant and W. K. Loftus.

Who discovered the Standard Babylonian version tablets in that library in 1853?

He was Layard's assistant, and the tablets sat unread in the British Museum for nearly two decades.

Which British Museum scholar read translated flood fragments to biblical archaeologists in 1872?

A London newspaper then paid to send him to Nineveh to hunt for the missing pieces of the flood story.

Which newspaper funded the 1873 expedition to Nineveh to find the missing flood fragments?

Its editor Edwin Arnold arranged the trip the January after Smith's famous lecture.

Which biblical narrative does Andrew George say follows the Gilgamesh flood tale 'point by point'?

Few scholars doubt the Genesis account derives from a Mesopotamian original.

Which company bought the illegally imported Gilgamesh Dream Tablet in 2014 for the Museum of the Bible?

US officials seized it in 2019 and it went back to its country of origin in September 2021.

To which country was the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet returned in September 2021?

It had been imported illegally into the United States in the early 2000s.

Roughly when do most historians think a real King Gilgamesh ruled?

Artifacts linked to Enmebaragesi, father of one of his legendary foes, support a real man behind the myth.

In the Sumerian poem Gilgamesh and Aga, Gilgamesh revolts against his overlord from which city?

He defeats the besieging king and then forgives him.

Which king of Ur declared himself the son of Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh's divine mother?

The Third Dynasty of Ur called Gilgamesh their divine brother and friend.

What role do prayers on clay tablets assign to Gilgamesh after his death?

The poem The Death of Gilgamesh describes his state funeral and consecration as a demigod.

Which Greek hero is Gilgamesh often described as the prototype for?

The epic itself is regarded as an influence on the Homeric poems.

According to the Roman writer Aelian, why did Gilgamesh's grandfather keep his mother under guard?

Aelian calls the king Seuechoros and the grandson Gilgamos.

The Old Babylonian version of the epic, from the 18th century BCE, is titled after which incipit?

Only a few tablets of that early Akkadian version survive; the later Standard version was compiled by Sin-leqi-unninni.

How many separate Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh's exploits survive?

The earliest is probably 'Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld', which was later reworked as tablet XII of the epic.

In the earliest Sumerian poem, Gilgamesh drives creatures out of which goddess's huluppu tree?

She rewards him with two mysterious objects, a mikku and a pikku, which he promptly loses.

In Enkidu's dying dream, how are the inhabitants of the Netherworld's 'house of dust' clothed?

They eat clay and are watched over by terrifying beings; Enkidu declines for twelve days before dying.

Which king of Uruk adopted Gilgamesh as his patron deity in the 21st century BC?

The later kings of Ur's Third Dynasty went further, calling Gilgamesh their 'divine brother' and 'friend'.

According to fragments found at Mê-Turan, how did the workmen of Uruk entomb Gilgamesh?

The Sumerian poem The Death of Gilgamesh describes the same riverbed burial.

In Aelian's account, how was the infant Gilgamesh saved after guards threw him from a tower?

The bird set him down in an orchard, where the gardener raised him.

In 1998, which Assyriologist found what may be the epic's opening lines in a British Museum storeroom?

The fragment had sat unnoticed since 1878; it reads 'He who saw all, who was the foundation of the land'.