09/17/07
HIST 100:THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH, CONTINUED

1. Brief review/overview of historical developments (see the link here for a summary)

note: you might find this timeline of Mesopotamian history helpful
eye idols from Tel Brak
map of Mesopotamia, 2500 BC
map showing Sumerian and Akkadian empires
Map showing empires of Sargon II (not our Sargon) and Ashurbanipal II

Ziggurat at Ur and reconstruction

2. Transmission of the Epic of Gilgamesh

Note the great geographical and lingusitic spread of the epic:
King Shulgi (ca. 2000): Tablets in Sumerian
Sin-lique-unninni: Akkadian
Also Hittite tablets
Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran written in Aramaic:
(The Book of Giants from Qumran reportedly refers to glgmy/s and hwbbs)
Versions from Babylon, Uruk and Assyria
Cf. Utnapishtim and flood tablets

a) King Shulgi of Ur (ca. 2094 -2047 BC) (“Sumerian Renaissance”)
praise poem of Shulgi
b) Sin-liqe-unninni (sometime between 1300 and 1000 BC)
c) Assyrian King Ashurbanipal II (883-859 BC) of Nineveh, Neo-Assyrian period

throne room of Ashurbanipal II’s palace (reconstruction)
limestone frieze (ca. 875) of Ashurbanipal II at war

Lamassu from A II’s palace

d) Hittite fragments

3. Gilgamesh and history
2750 BC, according to Sumerian King list ruled 126 years (!!)

LillĂ»



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