One of the crowning achievements of Mesopotamian literature is the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” a 3,000-line poem that follows the adventures of a Sumerian king as he battles a forest monster and quests after the secret of eternal life. While the poem’s hero is a demigod with Hercules-like strength, most scholars believe he is based on an actual king who served as the fifth ruler of the city of Uruk. The historical Gilgamesh appears on the Sumerian “King List” and is thought to have lived sometime around 2700 B.C. Few contemporary accounts of his reign have survived to today, but archeologists have found inscriptions that credit him with building Uruk’s massive defensive walls and restoring a temple to the goddess Ninhil, which suggests he may have been a real ruler whose deeds were later repurposed as myth. A demigod is another name for the Nephilim, offspring of Fallen Angels. Gilgamesh was another name for Nimrod. Notice the fact that he is holding a lion, showing he is a giant!
Comments
Post a Comment