In December 1853, 28 Hormuzd Rassam, an Assyrian Christian, excavated the palace of Assurbanipal at Nineveh. 26 According to these materials, Moran and Foster judge that Gilgamesh seems to have existed in about 2700 BC., 27 if he were an historical person. 25 The walls are also mentioned in the Gilgamesh Epic (tablet I i, 9–19 XI 303–305). 24 The ruins of these walls can be inspected and their origin is considered to be about 2700 B.C. 22 In an inscription, Gilgamesh is also cited by Anam, who ruled Uruk in the nineteenth century B.C., 23 as the ancient king of Uruk who had built the city’s walls which Anam rebuilt. 20 In such a background, for the claim to the throne, Gilgamesh is often called “brother” by Shulgi, a king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, in his royal hymns, 21 because according to the tradition, his parents are the same divine parents of Gilgamesh. 19 Thus, by the Third Dynasty of Ur, Gilgamesh had become the topic of royal epics and he was listed as a predecessor among the kings of the dynasty. 18 Scholars believe that the initial text of these tablets seems to trace back to the Third Dynasty of Ur (around 2094–2047 B.C.), even though most of these manuscripts were inscribed around the eighteenth century B.C., in the Old Babylonian period. 17 Sumerian epic poems about Gilgamesh were discovered in Iraq.
16 As befits such parentage, his figure is “two-thirds god, one-third human” (tablet I ii, 1 IX ii, 16). In addition, Gilgamesh is called the son of Lugalbanda, king of Uruk, and the goddess Ninsun, and he is listed in a god-list after his death.
Ur-Nungal, the son of Gilgamiš, reigned 30 years. The defied Gilgamiš, whose father was a lil-lá 13 the lord of Kullab, 14 reigned 126 years. The deified Dumuzi (Tammuz), a fisherman, whose city was ïabur, reigned 100 years. The deified Lugalbanda, a shepherd, reigned 1,200 years. Interestingly, the flood is also mentioned after the ante-diluvian kings whose reigns were said to be more than ten thousand years: “(Then) the Flood swept over (the earth).” 12 According to the Weld-Blundell list, the descent of Gilgamesh is as follows:Įnmekar, son of Meskemgašer, king of Erech, who built Erech, became king he reigned 420 years. Gilgamesh, a legendary king of Uruk, 11 is recorded as one of the post-diluvian kings in the Sumerian king list. 10 The historical background of Gilgamesh 9 This flood account in the Gilgamesh Epic is the most complete of these ancient flood accounts. 8 The Gilgamesh Epic, which consists of twelve tablets, contains the flood account in the eleventh tablet. 7 The flood account in tablet III of the Atrahasis Epic has much resemblance to that contained in the Gilgamesh Epic. 6 The tablets of the Atrahasis Epic excavated in Nineveh are inscribed in Old Babylonian and in Neo-Assyrian. or earlier, although they are not intact, but in pieces. 5 According to the extant Akkadian manuscripts, the Atrahasis Epic traces back to around the seventeenth century B.C. 2 The Sumerian manuscripts, found in Nippur 3 where a scribal school existed, 4 seem to have been inscribed about the time of Hammurabi. The substance of the Sumerian flood story of Ziusudra cannot be ascertained in detail because only one-third of the tablet has survived. The Sumerian story of Ziusudra, 1 the Akkadian Atrahasis Epic, and the Gilgamesh Epic are the renowned flood accounts written in the Ancient Near East, in addition to the Genesis account.
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