#gilgamesh — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #gilgamesh, aggregated by home.social.
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“Sex and death are the only things that can interest a serious mind”*…
As Greg Woolf observed, “The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest examples of what is sometimes termed a “Mirror of Princes,” a book that illustrates the conduct of both bad and good rulers, and makes clear the difference between them.”
Nicolas Liney reviews a new verse translation of the 4,000-year-old text by Simon Armitage and considers its remarkable power, its extraordinary history, and its profound relevance to our moment…
There are two stories of Gilgamesh, the ancient Mesopotamian epic written in the second millennium BCE. First, there’s the story of Gilgamesh himself, the semidivine king of Uruk. He is 11 cubits tall and four cubits from nipple to nipple (roughly 16 by six feet). He is hyperactive and priapic. He is not a good ruler. The gods create the wild Enkidu out of clay to keep him in check. The pair clash mightily, and then become inseparable. Restless and hungry for glory, they journey to the Forest of Cedar to defeat the monster Humbaba. Then they slay the Bull of Heaven sent by Ishtar, the god of sex and war whose advances Gilgamesh rejects. The gods deem that Enkidu must die, and so he does, slowly and unheroically. Gilgamesh watches over Enkidu’s body until a maggot falls from his nostril, a fantastically intense image that drives home death’s finality.
At this point, the register of the poem shifts, and Gilgamesh’s triumphs are replaced by sorrow and an overwhelming awareness of his own mortality. Alone and anguished, he journeys to the underworld to visit Uta-napishti, the immortalized survivor of a cataclysmic flood, intent on unlocking the secret to eternal life. Inevitably, he is disappointed and returns to Uruk. Gilgamesh is an epic about power, about self-knowledge, about passionate companionship and the unquenchable pain of its loss. Fundamentally, it is an epic about death. Rilke labeled it “das Epos der Todesfurcht”—the epic of the fear of death—and this is what gave it its vital appeal: “It concerns me,” he confessed. “Thousands of years later death is no less bewildering to humankind,” the poet Simon Armitage says in the introduction to his new translation of the epic; “there is no more relatable subject.”
The second story of Gilgamesh is about the text itself, one of the world’s oldest surviving long-form poems. Like Homeric epic, its roots are most likely oral, and questions of authorship are futile. The earliest version was a Sumerian cycle of five poems from around 2100 BCE, probably part of a larger group of stories about the heroic dynasty of Uruk. Sumerian eventually died out, and the five episodes were replaced by one unified version in Akkadian. This was recorded in cuneiform script, often carved in clay tablets, and spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Levant. Sometime between 1300 and 1000 CE, a man called Sin-leqi-unninni created a heavily revised edition organized into 11 “tablets”—referred to now as the Standard Version—which was copied widely and included in the great library of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian king, built in Nineveh in the seventh century.
And then … silence. By the new millennium, Akkadian was a defunct language, and Uruk and Nineveh were in ruins. As far as we know, Gilgamesh was not translated into other writing systems, so when cuneiform fell out of use, the epic seemed to go with it. For centuries it slept, until the Library of Ashurbanipal was discovered by Austen Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam in 1850, and what documents could be recovered were transported to the British Museum. Cuneiform was eventually deciphered, and in 1872, George Smith, an assistant curator working on the archive, came across a fragment of the epic describing a great flood—similar to the one in the Book of Genesis,but in a work significantly older than the Bible. This was too much for Smith, who began stripping his clothes off in excitement: “I am the first man to read that after more than two thousand years of oblivion.”
Critics like to say that Gilgamesh is both incredibly old and refreshingly young. Its sheer age staggers—for comparison, just try to imagine a current novel being rediscovered in the year 5120 CE. As a quasi-historical figure, Gilgamesh was considered by Babylonians to be even older: the Sumerian King List,a chronographic record,hyperbolically places his reign in 7800 BCE. Within the world of the epic itself, time reaches back further still: when Gilgamesh meets Uta-napishti, the Noah-type figure who survived the flood long before Gilgamesh, even he can speak of an “ancient city,” Shuruppak, on the banks of the Euphrates. The epic constantly forces us into these dizzying loops of deep time, forces us both to drastically exceed the limits of our brief lifespan and to be persistently reminded of them.
But Gilgamesh’s comparatively recent reentry into the modern imagination makes it feel fresh, not overburdened by centuries of interpretation and adaptation, like Homer or Virgil, and firmly outside Western literary traditions. There is no first looking into Chapman’s Gilgamesh.This can be dangerous for translators and adapters: there’s an urge to treat the epic like a blank canvas, to make it say something relevant to contemporary concerns, which can strip it of its strangeness and also cut it loose from its Iraqi heritage. But the subject matter of Gilgamesh also seems undeniably contemporary: how could a story about ecological destruction, poor leaders, and misogynist alphas not concern us here and now?…
Eminently worth reading in full. A classic which has survived, against all odds, and what it offers us today: “The Epic of the Fear of Death” from @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social.
* William Butler Yeats
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As we reach back, we might recall that it was on this date in 2004 that the discovery of what was (and is) believed to be the world’s oldest seat of learning (dating from 295 BCE), the Library of Alexandria, was announced by Zahi Hawass, president of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities during a conference at the University of California. A Polish-Egyptian team had uncovered 13 lecture halls featuring an elevated podium for the lecturer. Such a complex of lecture halls had never before been found on any Mediterranean Greco-Roman site. Alexandria may be regarded as the birthplace of western science, where Euclid discovered the rules of geometry, Eratosthenes measured the diameter of the Earth and Ptolemy wrote the Almagest, the most influential scientific book about the nature of the Universe for 1,500 years.
See also: “Oldest University Unearthed in Egypt“
#Alexandria #ancientHistory #culture #Death #EpicOfGilgamesh #Euclid #Gilgamesh #history #LibraryOfAlexandria #literature #poetry #politics #Ptolomy #SimonArmitage -
“Sex and death are the only things that can interest a serious mind”*…
As Greg Woolf observed, “The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest examples of what is sometimes termed a “Mirror of Princes,” a book that illustrates the conduct of both bad and good rulers, and makes clear the difference between them.”
Nicolas Liney reviews a new verse translation of the 4,000-year-old text by Simon Armitage and considers its remarkable power, its extraordinary history, and its profound relevance to our moment…
There are two stories of Gilgamesh, the ancient Mesopotamian epic written in the second millennium BCE. First, there’s the story of Gilgamesh himself, the semidivine king of Uruk. He is 11 cubits tall and four cubits from nipple to nipple (roughly 16 by six feet). He is hyperactive and priapic. He is not a good ruler. The gods create the wild Enkidu out of clay to keep him in check. The pair clash mightily, and then become inseparable. Restless and hungry for glory, they journey to the Forest of Cedar to defeat the monster Humbaba. Then they slay the Bull of Heaven sent by Ishtar, the god of sex and war whose advances Gilgamesh rejects. The gods deem that Enkidu must die, and so he does, slowly and unheroically. Gilgamesh watches over Enkidu’s body until a maggot falls from his nostril, a fantastically intense image that drives home death’s finality.
At this point, the register of the poem shifts, and Gilgamesh’s triumphs are replaced by sorrow and an overwhelming awareness of his own mortality. Alone and anguished, he journeys to the underworld to visit Uta-napishti, the immortalized survivor of a cataclysmic flood, intent on unlocking the secret to eternal life. Inevitably, he is disappointed and returns to Uruk. Gilgamesh is an epic about power, about self-knowledge, about passionate companionship and the unquenchable pain of its loss. Fundamentally, it is an epic about death. Rilke labeled it “das Epos der Todesfurcht”—the epic of the fear of death—and this is what gave it its vital appeal: “It concerns me,” he confessed. “Thousands of years later death is no less bewildering to humankind,” the poet Simon Armitage says in the introduction to his new translation of the epic; “there is no more relatable subject.”
The second story of Gilgamesh is about the text itself, one of the world’s oldest surviving long-form poems. Like Homeric epic, its roots are most likely oral, and questions of authorship are futile. The earliest version was a Sumerian cycle of five poems from around 2100 BCE, probably part of a larger group of stories about the heroic dynasty of Uruk. Sumerian eventually died out, and the five episodes were replaced by one unified version in Akkadian. This was recorded in cuneiform script, often carved in clay tablets, and spread throughout Mesopotamia and the Levant. Sometime between 1300 and 1000 CE, a man called Sin-leqi-unninni created a heavily revised edition organized into 11 “tablets”—referred to now as the Standard Version—which was copied widely and included in the great library of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian king, built in Nineveh in the seventh century.
And then … silence. By the new millennium, Akkadian was a defunct language, and Uruk and Nineveh were in ruins. As far as we know, Gilgamesh was not translated into other writing systems, so when cuneiform fell out of use, the epic seemed to go with it. For centuries it slept, until the Library of Ashurbanipal was discovered by Austen Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam in 1850, and what documents could be recovered were transported to the British Museum. Cuneiform was eventually deciphered, and in 1872, George Smith, an assistant curator working on the archive, came across a fragment of the epic describing a great flood—similar to the one in the Book of Genesis,but in a work significantly older than the Bible. This was too much for Smith, who began stripping his clothes off in excitement: “I am the first man to read that after more than two thousand years of oblivion.”
Critics like to say that Gilgamesh is both incredibly old and refreshingly young. Its sheer age staggers—for comparison, just try to imagine a current novel being rediscovered in the year 5120 CE. As a quasi-historical figure, Gilgamesh was considered by Babylonians to be even older: the Sumerian King List,a chronographic record,hyperbolically places his reign in 7800 BCE. Within the world of the epic itself, time reaches back further still: when Gilgamesh meets Uta-napishti, the Noah-type figure who survived the flood long before Gilgamesh, even he can speak of an “ancient city,” Shuruppak, on the banks of the Euphrates. The epic constantly forces us into these dizzying loops of deep time, forces us both to drastically exceed the limits of our brief lifespan and to be persistently reminded of them.
But Gilgamesh’s comparatively recent reentry into the modern imagination makes it feel fresh, not overburdened by centuries of interpretation and adaptation, like Homer or Virgil, and firmly outside Western literary traditions. There is no first looking into Chapman’s Gilgamesh.This can be dangerous for translators and adapters: there’s an urge to treat the epic like a blank canvas, to make it say something relevant to contemporary concerns, which can strip it of its strangeness and also cut it loose from its Iraqi heritage. But the subject matter of Gilgamesh also seems undeniably contemporary: how could a story about ecological destruction, poor leaders, and misogynist alphas not concern us here and now?…
Eminently worth reading in full. A classic which has survived, against all odds, and what it offers us today: “The Epic of the Fear of Death” from @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social.
* William Butler Yeats
###
As we reach back, we might recall that it was on this date in 2004 that the discovery of what was (and is) believed to be the world’s oldest seat of learning (dating from 295 BCE), the Library of Alexandria, was announced by Zahi Hawass, president of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities during a conference at the University of California. A Polish-Egyptian team had uncovered 13 lecture halls featuring an elevated podium for the lecturer. Such a complex of lecture halls had never before been found on any Mediterranean Greco-Roman site. Alexandria may be regarded as the birthplace of western science, where Euclid discovered the rules of geometry, Eratosthenes measured the diameter of the Earth and Ptolemy wrote the Almagest, the most influential scientific book about the nature of the Universe for 1,500 years.
See also: “Oldest University Unearthed in Egypt“
#Alexandria #ancientHistory #culture #Death #EpicOfGilgamesh #Euclid #Gilgamesh #history #LibraryOfAlexandria #literature #poetry #politics #Ptolomy #SimonArmitage -
Huwawa advocates avoiding humans.
#WhatCharactersAdvocateFor
#HashTagGames #Sumer #Mesopotamia #Babylon #Huwawa #Humbaba #Gilgamesh -
Huwawa advocates avoiding humans.
#WhatCharactersAdvocateFor
#HashTagGames #Sumer #Mesopotamia #Babylon #Huwawa #Humbaba #Gilgamesh -
Huwawa advocates avoiding humans.
#WhatCharactersAdvocateFor
#HashTagGames #Sumer #Mesopotamia #Babylon #Huwawa #Humbaba #Gilgamesh -
Huwawa advocates avoiding humans.
#WhatCharactersAdvocateFor
#HashTagGames #Sumer #Mesopotamia #Babylon #Huwawa #Humbaba #Gilgamesh -
#Gilgamesh translated - https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73432 "The epic of Gilgamesh is more than 40 centuries old. Simon Armitage’s new translation feels thrillingly alive."
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Vivid and sexy, immortal and so human - new translation of #Gilgamesh from #SimonArmitage
ping @CrispinHughes https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2026/03/02/beginning-to-end-a-review-of-simon-armitages-new-translation-of-gilgamesh/ -
Influencia de la épica mesopotámica en la tradición literaria griega y occidental
📰 Título original: El viaje de la épica: de los ríos de Babilonia al mar Egeo, ¿dónde nació la tradición literaria occidental?
🤖 IA: Es clickbait ⚠️
👥 Usuarios: Es clickbait ⚠️Ver resumen IA completo: https://killbait.com/es/influencia-de-la-epica-mesopotamica-en-la-tradicion-literaria-griega-y-occidental/?redirpost=43d3d390-c5ac-47ff-b2cc-4b9a8a1f1088
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Influencia de la épica mesopotámica en la tradición literaria griega y occidental
📰 Título original: El viaje de la épica: de los ríos de Babilonia al mar Egeo, ¿dónde nació la tradición literaria occidental?
🤖 IA: Es clickbait ⚠️
👥 Usuarios: Es clickbait ⚠️Ver resumen IA completo: https://killbait.com/es/influencia-de-la-epica-mesopotamica-en-la-tradicion-literaria-griega-y-occidental/?redirpost=43d3d390-c5ac-47ff-b2cc-4b9a8a1f1088
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Influencia de la épica mesopotámica en la tradición literaria griega y occidental
📰 Título original: El viaje de la épica: de los ríos de Babilonia al mar Egeo, ¿dónde nació la tradición literaria occidental?
🤖 IA: Es clickbait ⚠️
👥 Usuarios: Es clickbait ⚠️Ver resumen IA completo: https://killbait.com/es/influencia-de-la-epica-mesopotamica-en-la-tradicion-literaria-griega-y-occidental/?redirpost=43d3d390-c5ac-47ff-b2cc-4b9a8a1f1088
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Influencia de la épica mesopotámica en la tradición literaria griega y occidental
📰 Título original: El viaje de la épica: de los ríos de Babilonia al mar Egeo, ¿dónde nació la tradición literaria occidental?
🤖 IA: Es clickbait ⚠️
👥 Usuarios: Es clickbait ⚠️Ver resumen IA completo: https://killbait.com/es/influencia-de-la-epica-mesopotamica-en-la-tradicion-literaria-griega-y-occidental/?redirpost=43d3d390-c5ac-47ff-b2cc-4b9a8a1f1088
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Sounds like #bowhead #whales could solve the #paradox of #Gilgamesh, and we should all join the #ConeyIsland #polarbear club
https://www.ecoticias.com/en/an-american-study-shows-that-humans-could-live-up-to-200-years-if-its-method-were-applied/28375/ #longevity #science #whales -
Sounds like #bowhead #whales could solve the #paradox of #Gilgamesh, and we should all join the #ConeyIsland #polarbear club
https://www.ecoticias.com/en/an-american-study-shows-that-humans-could-live-up-to-200-years-if-its-method-were-applied/28375/ #longevity #science #whales -
Sounds like #bowhead #whales could solve the #paradox of #Gilgamesh, and we should all join the #ConeyIsland #polarbear club
https://www.ecoticias.com/en/an-american-study-shows-that-humans-could-live-up-to-200-years-if-its-method-were-applied/28375/ #longevity #science #whales -
Sounds like #bowhead #whales could solve the #paradox of #Gilgamesh, and we should all join the #ConeyIsland #polarbear club
https://www.ecoticias.com/en/an-american-study-shows-that-humans-could-live-up-to-200-years-if-its-method-were-applied/28375/ #longevity #science #whales -
Sounds like #bowhead #whales could solve the #paradox of #Gilgamesh, and we should all join the #ConeyIsland #polarbear club
https://www.ecoticias.com/en/an-american-study-shows-that-humans-could-live-up-to-200-years-if-its-method-were-applied/28375/ #longevity #science #whales -
#Gilgamesh to #Enkidu:
be the match for my stormy heart?
be my second self?
be my axe?
be my wife?
be mine? -
Happy #ValentinesDay (belated)
From me to you <3
Or #Gilgamesh and #Enkidu to each other 😜
i am once again asking you to read #theEpicofGilgamesh
It's approx 4,000 years old, about love and grief at its core and will tear your heart out and begin to mend it again.
Ease of reading: read Stephen Mitchell's version
Academic reading: read Sophus Helle's
(or read both <3)
v-day cards are from "Queer at Last" podcast, shared with permission.
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Grief is as old as humanity.
Epic of Gilgamesh X.235-248 (trans. Andrew R George)
via drowningparty
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A quotation from The Epic of Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh, where are you roaming?
You will never find the eternal life
that you seek. When the gods created mankind,
they also created death, and they held back
eternal life for themselves alone.
Humans are born, they live, and then they die,
this is the order that the gods have decreed.
But until the end comes, enjoy your life,
spend it in happiness, not despair.
Savor your food, make each of your days
a delight, bathe and anoint yourself,
wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean,
let music and dancing fill your house,
love the child who holds you by the hand,
and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.
That is the best way for a man to live.Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100–1200 BC) Sumerian myth
Tablet 10, col. 3 [Siduri] [tr. Mitchell (2004)]More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/gilgamesh/81779/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #gilgamesh #carpediem #doom #enjoyment #goodlife #happiness #humancondition #humanity #joy #living #mortality #seizetheday #gusto
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A quotation from The Epic of Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh, where are you roaming?
You will never find the eternal life
that you seek. When the gods created mankind,
they also created death, and they held back
eternal life for themselves alone.
Humans are born, they live, and then they die,
this is the order that the gods have decreed.
But until the end comes, enjoy your life,
spend it in happiness, not despair.
Savor your food, make each of your days
a delight, bathe and anoint yourself,
wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean,
let music and dancing fill your house,
love the child who holds you by the hand,
and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.
That is the best way for a man to live.Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100–1200 BC) Sumerian myth
Tablet 10, col. 3 [Siduri] [tr. Mitchell (2004)]More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/gilgamesh/81779/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #gilgamesh #carpediem #doom #enjoyment #goodlife #happiness #humancondition #humanity #joy #living #mortality #seizetheday #gusto
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A quotation from The Epic of Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh, where are you roaming?
You will never find the eternal life
that you seek. When the gods created mankind,
they also created death, and they held back
eternal life for themselves alone.
Humans are born, they live, and then they die,
this is the order that the gods have decreed.
But until the end comes, enjoy your life,
spend it in happiness, not despair.
Savor your food, make each of your days
a delight, bathe and anoint yourself,
wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean,
let music and dancing fill your house,
love the child who holds you by the hand,
and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.
That is the best way for a man to live.Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100–1200 BC) Sumerian myth
Tablet 10, col. 3 [Siduri] [tr. Mitchell (2004)]More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/gilgamesh/81779/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #gilgamesh #carpediem #doom #enjoyment #goodlife #happiness #humancondition #humanity #joy #living #mortality #seizetheday #gusto
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A quotation from The Epic of Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh, where are you roaming?
You will never find the eternal life
that you seek. When the gods created mankind,
they also created death, and they held back
eternal life for themselves alone.
Humans are born, they live, and then they die,
this is the order that the gods have decreed.
But until the end comes, enjoy your life,
spend it in happiness, not despair.
Savor your food, make each of your days
a delight, bathe and anoint yourself,
wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean,
let music and dancing fill your house,
love the child who holds you by the hand,
and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.
That is the best way for a man to live.Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100–1200 BC) Sumerian myth
Tablet 10, col. 3 [Siduri] [tr. Mitchell (2004)]More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/gilgamesh/81779/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #gilgamesh #carpediem #doom #enjoyment #goodlife #happiness #humancondition #humanity #joy #living #mortality #seizetheday #gusto
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I wonder how many people were first introduced to Gilgamesh by Captain Picard in "Darmok".
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A quote I like and resonate with from the Epic of Gilgamesh (the oldest tale ever written!).
There's not many ancient representations of Siduri.
Hopefully what I drew is not too disgraceful. -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@cobrate/113465461010323005
Suite 2e Millénaire - 20e siècle av. J-C. : https://mastodon.social/@cobrate/113472238773926079
“Celles qui doivent devenir épouses, il couche avec elles
Lui d’abord, le mari seulement après
Les dieux en ont décidé ainsi
Dès qu’on lui a coupé le cordon
il a eu ce droit.”
- L’Épopée de #Gilgamesh = #viol -
Context (Lifted from Peter Pringle’s Video Desc.): Gilgamesh was king of the Sumerian city of Uruk in Southern Mesopotamia, some 5000 years ago. According to legend, he was a ruthless despot, so the gods created a friend for him, a kind of wild man called Enkidu, who was able to challenge him successfully in battle. This took Gilgamesh’s mind off oppressing his people, and he and Enkidu became inseparable friends. The two of them shared many remarkable adventures together but they made a fatal mistake. They traveled to the great cedar forest, where they killed a sacred beast known as “The Bull of Heaven”. This angered the gods, so they sentenced Enkidu to death.
TABLET VIII of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, contains the text I sing in this lament. I would like to thank Andrew R. George, the translator of Gilgamesh, whose translation of the text appears in the subtitles to this video, for his generous help with the pronunciation of Old Babylonian. […]
There are two musical instruments in this interpretation of the lament of Gilgamesh. The lute I decided to use is the Persian “setar”, which is one of the closest instruments to the ancient three-stringed lutes that is still in existence today. The setar is capable of playing a wide range of quarter tones but, according to archaeomusicologists, the Babylonians did not use them. Personally, I’m not so sure about that.
The other musical instrument I used is a pair of reed pipes which are played together. The ones you see at the beginning of the video are copies of the pair of silver pipes that were discovered by archaeologist, Sir Leonard Woolley, during his excavations of the Sumerian city of Ur, in the 1920’s. They have a sound similar to the modern “duduk” and, like the duduk, the shehnai and the Australian didgeridoo, they are played using the technique known as “circular breathing”, in order to produce a continuous tone without interruption. The ancient Babylonian reed pipe was known as the “malilum”.
Since I could not sing, accompany myself on the lute, and play the pipes at the same time, I sampled the sound of the pipes and used a MIDI pedal keyboard (like the ones organists use to play bass notes) to trigger the sounds - one foot for each of the two silver pipes. That way I could perform all the parts of the lament at once, without any need for overdubs.
The glazed brick wall you see behind me in this video is part of the magnificent “Gate of Ishtar”, which was the main entrance to the ancient city of Babylon.
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GILGAMESH LAMENT FOR ENKIDU
Context (Lifted from Peter Pringle’s Video Desc.): Gilgamesh was king of the Sumerian city of Uruk in Southern Mesopotamia, some 5000 years ago. According to legend, he was a ruthless despot, so the gods created a friend for him, a kind of wild man called Enkidu, who was able to challenge him successfully in battle. This took Gilgamesh’s mind off oppressing his people, and he and Enkidu became inseparable friends. The two of them shared many remarkable adventures together but they made a fatal mistake. They traveled to the great cedar forest, where they killed a sacred beast known as “The Bull of Heaven”. This angered the gods, so they sentenced Enkidu to death.
TABLET VIII of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, contains the text I sing in this lament. I would like to thank Andrew R. George, the translator of Gilgamesh, whose translation of the text appears in the subtitles to this video, for his generous help with the pronunciation of Old Babylonian. […]
There are two musical instruments in this interpretation of the lament of Gilgamesh. The lute I decided to use is the Persian “setar”, which is one of the closest instruments to the ancient three-stringed lutes that is still in existence today. The setar is capable of playing a wide range of quarter tones but, according to archaeomusicologists, the Babylonians did not use them. Personally, I’m not so sure about that.
The other musical instrument I used is a pair of reed pipes which are played together. The ones you see at the beginning of the video are copies of the pair of silver pipes that were discovered by archaeologist, Sir Leonard Woolley, during his excavations of the Sumerian city of Ur, in the 1920’s. They have a sound similar to the modern “duduk” and, like the duduk, the shehnai and the Australian didgeridoo, they are played using the technique known as “circular breathing”, in order to produce a continuous tone without interruption. The ancient Babylonian reed pipe was known as the “malilum”.
Since I could not sing, accompany myself on the lute, and play the pipes at the same time, I sampled the sound of the pipes and used a MIDI pedal keyboard (like the ones organists use to play bass notes) to trigger the sounds - one foot for each of the two silver pipes. That way I could perform all the parts of the lament at once, without any need for overdubs.
The glazed brick wall you see behind me in this video is part of the magnificent “Gate of Ishtar”, which was the main entrance to the ancient city of Babylon.
https://quokk.au/c/historymusic/p/471105/gilgamesh-lament-for-enkidu
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GILGAMESH LAMENT FOR ENKIDU
Context (Lifted from Peter Pringle’s Video Desc.): Gilgamesh was king of the Sumerian city of Uruk in Southern Mesopotamia, some 5000 years ago. According to legend, he was a ruthless despot, so the gods created a friend for him, a kind of wild man called Enkidu, who was able to challenge him successfully in battle. This took Gilgamesh’s mind off oppressing his people, and he and Enkidu became inseparable friends. The two of them shared many remarkable adventures together but they made a fatal mistake. They traveled to the great cedar forest, where they killed a sacred beast known as “The Bull of Heaven”. This angered the gods, so they sentenced Enkidu to death.
TABLET VIII of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, contains the text I sing in this lament. I would like to thank Andrew R. George, the translator of Gilgamesh, whose translation of the text appears in the subtitles to this video, for his generous help with the pronunciation of Old Babylonian. […]
There are two musical instruments in this interpretation of the lament of Gilgamesh. The lute I decided to use is the Persian “setar”, which is one of the closest instruments to the ancient three-stringed lutes that is still in existence today. The setar is capable of playing a wide range of quarter tones but, according to archaeomusicologists, the Babylonians did not use them. Personally, I’m not so sure about that.
The other musical instrument I used is a pair of reed pipes which are played together. The ones you see at the beginning of the video are copies of the pair of silver pipes that were discovered by archaeologist, Sir Leonard Woolley, during his excavations of the Sumerian city of Ur, in the 1920’s. They have a sound similar to the modern “duduk” and, like the duduk, the shehnai and the Australian didgeridoo, they are played using the technique known as “circular breathing”, in order to produce a continuous tone without interruption. The ancient Babylonian reed pipe was known as the “malilum”.
Since I could not sing, accompany myself on the lute, and play the pipes at the same time, I sampled the sound of the pipes and used a MIDI pedal keyboard (like the ones organists use to play bass notes) to trigger the sounds - one foot for each of the two silver pipes. That way I could perform all the parts of the lament at once, without any need for overdubs.
The glazed brick wall you see behind me in this video is part of the magnificent “Gate of Ishtar”, which was the main entrance to the ancient city of Babylon.
https://quokk.au/c/historymusic/p/471105/gilgamesh-lament-for-enkidu
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GILGAMESH LAMENT FOR ENKIDU
Context (Lifted from Peter Pringle’s Video Desc.): Gilgamesh was king of the Sumerian city of Uruk in Southern Mesopotamia, some 5000 years ago. According to legend, he was a ruthless despot, so the gods created a friend for him, a kind of wild man called Enkidu, who was able to challenge him successfully in battle. This took Gilgamesh’s mind off oppressing his people, and he and Enkidu became inseparable friends. The two of them shared many remarkable adventures together but they made a fatal mistake. They traveled to the great cedar forest, where they killed a sacred beast known as “The Bull of Heaven”. This angered the gods, so they sentenced Enkidu to death.
TABLET VIII of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, contains the text I sing in this lament. I would like to thank Andrew R. George, the translator of Gilgamesh, whose translation of the text appears in the subtitles to this video, for his generous help with the pronunciation of Old Babylonian. […]
There are two musical instruments in this interpretation of the lament of Gilgamesh. The lute I decided to use is the Persian “setar”, which is one of the closest instruments to the ancient three-stringed lutes that is still in existence today. The setar is capable of playing a wide range of quarter tones but, according to archaeomusicologists, the Babylonians did not use them. Personally, I’m not so sure about that.
The other musical instrument I used is a pair of reed pipes which are played together. The ones you see at the beginning of the video are copies of the pair of silver pipes that were discovered by archaeologist, Sir Leonard Woolley, during his excavations of the Sumerian city of Ur, in the 1920’s. They have a sound similar to the modern “duduk” and, like the duduk, the shehnai and the Australian didgeridoo, they are played using the technique known as “circular breathing”, in order to produce a continuous tone without interruption. The ancient Babylonian reed pipe was known as the “malilum”.
Since I could not sing, accompany myself on the lute, and play the pipes at the same time, I sampled the sound of the pipes and used a MIDI pedal keyboard (like the ones organists use to play bass notes) to trigger the sounds - one foot for each of the two silver pipes. That way I could perform all the parts of the lament at once, without any need for overdubs.
The glazed brick wall you see behind me in this video is part of the magnificent “Gate of Ishtar”, which was the main entrance to the ancient city of Babylon.
https://quokk.au/c/historymusic/p/471105/gilgamesh-lament-for-enkidu
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GILGAMESH LAMENT FOR ENKIDU
Context (Lifted from Peter Pringle’s Video Desc.): Gilgamesh was king of the Sumerian city of Uruk in Southern Mesopotamia, some 5000 years ago. According to legend, he was a ruthless despot, so the gods created a friend for him, a kind of wild man called Enkidu, who was able to challenge him successfully in battle. This took Gilgamesh’s mind off oppressing his people, and he and Enkidu became inseparable friends. The two of them shared many remarkable adventures together but they made a fatal mistake. They traveled to the great cedar forest, where they killed a sacred beast known as “The Bull of Heaven”. This angered the gods, so they sentenced Enkidu to death.
TABLET VIII of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, contains the text I sing in this lament. I would like to thank Andrew R. George, the translator of Gilgamesh, whose translation of the text appears in the subtitles to this video, for his generous help with the pronunciation of Old Babylonian. […]
There are two musical instruments in this interpretation of the lament of Gilgamesh. The lute I decided to use is the Persian “setar”, which is one of the closest instruments to the ancient three-stringed lutes that is still in existence today. The setar is capable of playing a wide range of quarter tones but, according to archaeomusicologists, the Babylonians did not use them. Personally, I’m not so sure about that.
The other musical instrument I used is a pair of reed pipes which are played together. The ones you see at the beginning of the video are copies of the pair of silver pipes that were discovered by archaeologist, Sir Leonard Woolley, during his excavations of the Sumerian city of Ur, in the 1920’s. They have a sound similar to the modern “duduk” and, like the duduk, the shehnai and the Australian didgeridoo, they are played using the technique known as “circular breathing”, in order to produce a continuous tone without interruption. The ancient Babylonian reed pipe was known as the “malilum”.
Since I could not sing, accompany myself on the lute, and play the pipes at the same time, I sampled the sound of the pipes and used a MIDI pedal keyboard (like the ones organists use to play bass notes) to trigger the sounds - one foot for each of the two silver pipes. That way I could perform all the parts of the lament at once, without any need for overdubs.
The glazed brick wall you see behind me in this video is part of the magnificent “Gate of Ishtar”, which was the main entrance to the ancient city of Babylon.
https://quokk.au/c/historymusic/p/471105/gilgamesh-lament-for-enkidu
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MC3 Interview: Cam Kerkau on adapting big classic stories for today
How does one tell the biggest story ever for a modern audience? You just tell it.
https://www.sidequesting.com/2025/11/mc3-interview-cam-kerkau-on-adapting-big-classic-stories-for-today/
#Comic #ComicBook #Interviews #MCCC #CamKerkau #comic #ComicBook #gilgamesh #interview #MC3 #MCCC #MotorCityComicCon -
𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄: "𝗚𝗶𝗹𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀𝗵" 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗦𝗼𝗽𝗵𝘂𝘀 𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲 -
. . . elliptical, paradoxical, mysterious, adventurous, at once a strange rollicking adventure to kill giants and subdue women but also a careful meditation on mortality and love and power. Even so, it is Helle's translation that returns to the story its power. . . .
https://waywordsstudio.com/general/reviews/gilgamesh-trans-by-sophus-helle/
#bookreviews #literature #books #bookworm #read #book #readreadread #sophushelle #gilgamesh #mythology #hero
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Designer Diary: How Victorian archaeology shaped Langton Manor Ep. 2. The huluppu tree from a Sumerian myth became a basement mystery: ancient, wrong, and perfect for puzzles. 📜
Read more: https://bromelain.mobi/blog/news/huluppu-tree-victorian-archaeology-escape-room
#indiedev #gamedev #indiegame #PuzzleGames #EscapeRoom #MysteryGame #HorrorGames #LangtonManor #Mesopotamia #Cuneiform #Gilgamesh
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The Epic of Gilgamesh mirrors human life: adventure, wisdom-seeking, loss. Gilgamesh's struggles are universal, echoing our own searches for meaning and acceptance of mortality. #Gilgamesh #Mesopotamia #AncientHistory #Humanism #EpicTales #Mythology #AncientWisdom #BiblicalStudies #Literature #Storytelling
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Gilgamesh's journey. An adventure to wisdom, love to loss, that mirrors life. His struggles resonate universally, reminding us of mortality and the quest for meaning. #Gilgamesh #Mesopotamia #Ancientwisdom #Humanexperience #Mortality #Epic #Mythology #Archaeology
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𝑳𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝑵𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒅𝒔: 𝑰𝒏 𝑫𝒆𝒇𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑭𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒔𝒚 -
Riddle: What do Beowulf, Palmolive dish liquid, and Sarah Maas have in common? Hint: Ursula K. Le Guin knows!
https://waywordsstudio.com/.../way.../in-defense-of-fantasy/
#podcast #literature #books #bookworm #book #read #readreadread #ursulakleguin #jrrtolkien #lordoftherings #epics #art #gilgamesh #homer #amadisofgaula #beowulf #dungeonsanddragons #williammorris #lorddunsany #genre #trope
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Gilgamesh repeatedly fails the trials set before him and returns home to Uruk, realising that immortality is beyond his reach.
In the last part of the epic, the god Enki allows the shade of #Enkidu to rise and briefly reunite with #Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh says to Enkidu:
"[My friend, the] penis that you touched so your heart rejoiced,
grubs devour [it like an] old garment.
[My friend, the crotch that you] touched so your heart rejoiced,
it is filled with dust [like a crack in the ground.]"4/4
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"Hear me, elders, hear me, young men,
my beloved friend is dead, he is dead,
my beloved brother is dead, I will mourn
as long as I breathe, I will sob for him
like a woman who has lost her only child."But #Enkidu doesn't answer. #Gilgamesh touches his heart, but it does not beat.
Then he veils Enkidu’s face like a bride’s.Distressed by Enkidu's death, Gilgamesh undertakes a long and perilous journey to discover the secret of eternal life.
3/4
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Enkidu challenges Gilgamesh to a test of strength. #Gilgamesh, who is a demigod of superhuman strength, wins the contest and the two become friends. Together, they embark on many journeys, and eventually have to fight the Bull of Heaven after Gilgamesh rejects #Ishtar's offer to become her consort. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Bull of Heaven, insulting Ishtar in the process, after which the gods decide to sentence #Enkidu to death and kill him by giving him a fatal illness.
2/?
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For the last day of #PrideMonth, #MythologyMonday's theme is #LGBTQ myths. There are many queer stories in mythology all over the world. Today I want to tell you about #Gilgamesh and #Enkidu. Gilgamesh is a hero in Mesopotamian mythology and the eponymous protagonist of the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem written in Akkadian ca. 2100–1200 BCE. Enkidu is a wild man created by the gods to stop Gilgamesh from oppressing the people of Uruk, the Sumerian city-state.
1/?
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𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄: "𝗜𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗮" 𝗯𝘆 𝗘𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗛. 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝘀𝗼𝗻 -
An original setting (!) and energized retelling of the most potent myth in ancient Sumer, fantasized unfortunately almost out of recognition.
#bookreviews #literature #books #bookworm #read #book #readreadread #emilyhwilson #inanna #historicalfantasy #fantasy #sumerianstrilogy #gilgamesh
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I’ve just finished two amazing novels by Emily H Wilson, part of The Sumerians trilogy.
They are based on ancient Sumerian myths and stories about the likes of Inanna, the Goddess, who lived on as Ishtar, Aphrodite and Venus, and Gilgamesh, he of the famous Epic of Gilgamesh. She has turned them into real people with a gentle nod to where the Gods & Goddesses may have come from.
#Bookstodon #EmilyHWilson #TheSumerians #Inanna #Gilgamesh
#HistoricalFiction
