• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 280 0

note by E. O. Edzard; also M. Rowton, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 19, 1960, 2, 156-62. The divergences, though important, are not very great, and whichever date is followed, Gilgamesh’s lifetime will not be far from the date of the Royal Tombs of Ur with their refined wealth and barbaric ritual; thus the fragmentary Sumerian text of the ‘Death of Gilgamesh’ can be used as a semi-historical document to throw light on the funeral rites of the royal house of Ur in the third millennium, as in fact was done by Prof. Kramer in an article in Iraq, 22, 1960, 58. Prof. Mallowan has written on the subject of a flood or floods (Iraq, 26, 1964, 62-82) and it is also discussed inThe Babylonian Story of the Flood by W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard (1969), with M. Civil on the Sumerian tradition of the flood. The possible indebtedness of Greek mythology to the Orient has been treated in several recent books since T. B. L. Webster’s From Mycenae to Homer (London, 1958) : by P. Walcott, in Hesiod andthe Near East (Cardiff, 1966), G. S. Kirk, Myth, its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures (Cambridge, 1970), and M. L. West, Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient (Oxford, 1971).

The question of who the Sumerians were is still unsolved and may remain so. If they were new arrivals they may not have been very numerous, and the extent of their influence on language and literature may never be really known.

May 1972 N. K. s.

The matter relating to Gilgamesh still grows. New texts come to light which add to our knowledge of the Epic and of the historical Gilgamesh, while work on the existing texts increases our understanding of difficult passages. Two outstanding works have appeared within recent years. Thorkild Jacobsen’s The Treasures of Darkness (Newhaven and London, 1976), contains a fresh analysis of the whole Epic in the light of the author’s general view of Mesopotamian religion; and J. H. Tigay in The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic (Philadelphia, 1982), by comparing versions and distinguishing different sources, both chronological and geographical, has shown how theological and political changes shaped the poem, and how the various strands came together in the final compilation. Interesting new light on the poem comes from W. G. Lambert in The Theology of Death (ed. B. Alster, XXVI Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, 1980), and a new fragment from the fifth tablet is published by E. von Weiher in Baghdader Mittheilungen (1980, II, 90-105). R. A. Veenker has enlarged on the significance of the Magic Plant of Youth Restored as a separate myth in Biblical Archaeologist 1981, 44/45, 199-205), and so it continues. I am grateful to Mrs Stephanie Dalley for her help with the references.

September 1987 N. K. S.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To name all the authorities to whom I am indebted would entail compiling a lengthy bibliography, but special mention must be made of a few. I have received most valuable help from Professor D. J. Wiseman, which has saved me from numerous pitfalls; all the errors which remain are therefore my own. I owe a large debt of gratitude to many friends who have criticized, made suggestions, and given encouragement at different stages, of the work; amongst these I thank particularly Ruth Harris, Katherine Watson, and my sister; and above all I am grateful to Dr E. V. Rieu for his patience, understanding, and encouragement. I am only too aware of the many inperfections which remain in this book, but without the help which has been given so generously there would have been many more.

I gratefully acknowledge my debt to the following for permission to use copyright material: Princeton University Press (Publishers) for quotations from Ancient New Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament edited by James B. Pritchard, 1950, 1955, 1969. Passages in my introduction are based on excerpts from the following translations: The Fields of Paradise and The Good Fortune of the Dead translated by John A. Wilson; Gudea: Ensi of Lagash translated by A. Leo Oppenheim ; Enki and Ninhursag: A Paradise Myth translated