/lit/ - Literature

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/10/05/lost-epic-gilgamesh-verse-depicts-cacophonous-abode-gods/?intcmp=hpbt2

I always thought if Gilgamesh was missing anything it was monkeys. just angry that all this time we've been reading the monkey-less version.

>just bought a copy of Gilgamesh the other day

SON OF A BITCH

>>7197543
>implying /lit/ reads

>>7197657
heh

How do these ancient fucking faggots constantly misplace their shit so badly?

>>7197546
>Fox News

>>7197607

Everything's better with monkeys.

>>7197543
>tfw random shitty verses from ancient sumeria get found but none of homer's other works ever get discovered.

why live

In the traditional story, Enkidu and Gilgamesh slew the giant Humbaba and cut down the forest of which he was guardian. This is commonly accepted to have occurred somewhere in southeast Anatolia and likely for the purpose of facilitating a public works project in Uruk.

The new tablet, from what I understand, depicts Humbaba as a foreign king and Gilgamesh and Enkidu as guests in his court. It also implies that Enkidu has some previous familiarity with the (likely) Anatolian ruler. To me, this indicates that Enkidu was actually originally from this region (or an adjacent one) instead of being some wild man sent down by the gods before he came into Uruk.

It now seems much more likely that the destruction of this great forest could have happened.

>Gil and Enkidu kill Humbaba
>aided by knowledge Enkidu possessed from previous time in Humbaba's court
>conquer this far off domain
>force the exportation of its lumber

>>7197786
Damn, I always liked the idea of Enkidu being a god-created Tarzanian animal. If he has connections with an Anatolian ruler then that means he's part of civilized society and was probably a wealthy warlord of his time. Fuck up my shit, fam.

>>7197786
>>7197808

I also forgot to mention that the surviving epic of Enmerkar of Uruk (if it can be called an epic) mostly details the acquisition of Arrata and the tribute offered to the ancient ruler in the form of grain.

Taking this and the scholarly consensus that cuneiform was created for the purpose of cataloging economic transactions into account, it does not seem at all unlikely that this part of the epic details the acquisition of some kingdom of southeast Anatolia and the subsequent appropriation of its resources.

>>7197786
It's just where the alien cloning facility was located m8

On a serious note, it's great that there are some positive events linked with the ancient middle-east these days, amidst ISIS blowing up ancient sites and unknown amounts of cultural treasures being lost ever since the American invasion of Iraq.

>>7197786
how would this make any sense? The poem literally starts with him living with wild deer and shit. Also humbaba is explicitly referred to as the "guardian of the forest"

>>7197841
>ISIS blowing up ancient sites

This gets me so fucking mad. A region can be made stable again(e.g. Civil war spain,Northern Ireland) but ancient sites and knowledge will never,ever come back or be discovered. fucking savages, should get bombed into the ground along with their faggot civilian supporters.

>>7197851
I'm not sure why it wouldn't make sense. "Guardian of the forest" and "foreign ruler of a forested area" are not mutually exclusive.

As for Enkidu, if he were originally from or spent time in Humbaba's court before he met Gilgamesh, it is not unreasonable to suggest that he would have been identified with the famous forest when he came to Uruk. I'd say the passages referring to him "living with wild deer and shit" are either a romanticization or the result of poor translation. Don't forget that this story passed through a few different languages and wasn't entirely compiled until Assurbanipal commissioned it in the seventh century BC.

>>7197873
>A region can be made stable again

Looks like you've never heard of Islam mate.

>>7197786
>>7197897

Though you are right that the focus of the epic is on the way in which a mere despot, who rules his people tyrannical and uses them as his chattels, is converted into a great king, who serves and defends them by the establishment of public works, the notion that the epic is secretly a telling of some actual historical expedition to wherever is is merely speculation having no real basis in the text. It is on a level with what >>7197841 jokes about, claiming that Enkidu was secretly a space alien. What is explicit in the text is that Enkidu is representative of barbarous hunter-gatherer lifestyle which allows him to know and do things that civilized people have forgotten. He is in that sense like Humbaba, he is apart from (Mesopotamian) civilization, a forest dweller; there is no basis to suggest their "relationship" goes any further than that, let alone that this is symbolic of some actual historical political arrangement being discussed. Looking at the actual paper containing the translation (http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/18512/1/jcunestud.66.0069_w-footer.pdf)) I am totally unconvinced that the passage supposed to inform us of Humbaba and Enkidu's past (61-72) has anything coherent to say, it is the most fragmentary part of the entire reconstruction.

I am inclined to suspect that the epic can be understood broadly to connote that with the aid of a barbarous person/people such as Enkidu, the civilized king of Uruk was successful in evicting some barbarous people from the cedar-forest so that he could cut it down and use the wood, but I think you're overstating your case.

>>7197543
HOLY
FUCK
I was literally just thinking about the lost fragments of the Gilgamesh story yesterday.

>>7197996

In case it's unclear, what I'm saying in this post is that I don't think we can really make a serious attempt to read some kind of 4500-year-old political context into the implications of:

>61Humbaba [talked with himself, speaking a word:]
>62“Did not a ... go [. . . . . . ?]
>63Did not [. . . go . . . . . . ?]
>64Why are [...] perturbed [and ... ?]
>65Why are my own [. . . . . . ?]
>66In terror(?) for ... [. . . . . .]
>67How indeed ... [. . . . . . ?]
>68In my very bed [. . . . . .]
>69For sure Enkidu(?) [. . . . . .]
>70In goodwill he [. . . . . .]
>71If a word to [. . . . . .]
>72May Enlil curse [him . . . . . . !]”

>>7197808
The guy didn't know how to eat human food, he didn't drink alcohol, and he'd never had sex. How can you call that civilized?

>>7197996

I never meant to say there was a definite political arrangement between the two. I was speculating as to how such a relation could have come into play with what should have been more intentioned vagueness to the degree that it could have. While fragmentary, it is not altogether insignificant that the two have some relation.

I do agree with you, but I did intend my words to be speculative.

>>7197755
Ancient scholars commented that The Iliad and The Odyssey were far and away both the longest and the greatest of the Trojan Epics. Obviously I'd love if we could find some more, but honestly I'd rather we find more of the lost ancient Greek Tragedies.

>>7197721
I want to be that monkeys friend so bad :(

Since no one has directly posted the paper:
http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/18512/1/jcunestud.66.0069_w-footer.pdf
TL on 9, 11, 13, 15.