Epic of Gilgamesh

In Our Time: History

BBC

History

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 November 2016

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

"He who saw the Deep" are the first words of the standard version of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the subject of this discussion between Melvyn Bragg and his guests. Gilgamesh is often said to be the oldest surviving great work of literature, with origins in the third millennium BC, and it passed through thousands of years on cuneiform tablets. Unlike epics of Greece and Rome, the intact story of Gilgamesh became lost to later generations until tablets were discovered by Hormuzd Rassam in 1853 near Mosul and later translated. Since then, many more tablets have been found and much of the text has been reassembled to convey the story of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk the sheepfold, and Enkidu who the gods created to stop Gilgamesh oppressing his people. Together they fight Humbaba, monstrous guardian of the Cedar Forest, and kill the Bull of Heaven, for which the gods make Enkidu mortally ill. Gilgamesh goes on a long journey as he tries unsuccessfully to learn how to live forever, learning about the Great Deluge on the way, but his remarkable building works guarantee that his fame will last long after his death. With Andrew George Professor of Babylonian at SOAS, University of London Frances Reynolds Shillito Fellow in Assyriology at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford and Fellow of St Benet's Hall and Martin Worthington Lecturer in Assyriology at the University of Cambridge Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time, for news about In Our Time, and
0:04.8	for recommendations about our archive, please follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time.
0:10.1	I hope you enjoy the programs.
0:11.7	Hello, he who saw the deep, that's a quotation, the first words of the epic of Gilgamesh,
0:19.8	said to be the first great masterpiece of literature, a perm with roots more than 4,000
0:25.1	years old in Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, and rediscovered in the 19th century.
0:30.6	It tells of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, who, with his best friend, his friend In Kidu, fights
0:35.8	a giant and kills the bull of heaven, and alone travels across the waters of death to meet
0:40.0	the one man who survived the great flood, in the vain hope of learning from him how to live
0:44.5	forever.
0:45.5	In his adventure, Gilgamesh becomes a wiser man and a better king, and learns to accept his
0:49.8	mortality.
0:51.2	We much, but not all, of the ancient texts from clay tablets gathered near Mosul, and
0:55.2	its hope more discoveries will continue to fill the gaps.
0:58.1	With me to discuss the epic of Gilgamesh, Andrew George, Professor of Babylonian at Sir
1:03.6	as the University of London, Frances Reynolds, Hugo Fellow in Aceriology at the Oriental Institute,
1:08.9	the University of Oxford, and fellow of St. Benets Hall, and Martin Worlington, lecturer
1:13.3	in Aceriology at the University of Cambridge.
1:16.0	Andrew George, where do we look for the origins of the Gilgamesh?
1:21.2	Well, we don't know much about the origins of the poem, but the first thing we know about
1:25.8	the poem is that it was written down on clay tablets in the Kidu form script in the very
1:32.0	first centuries of the Second millennium BC, that's nearly 4,000 years ago.
	...

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