Gilgamesh was a hero in ancient Mesopotamian mythology and the protagonist of the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem written in Akkadian during the late 2nd millennium BC. He was possibly a historical king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk, who was posthumously deified. His rule probably would have taken place sometime in the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period, c. 2900 – 2350 BC, though he became a major figure in Sumerian legend during the Third Dynasty of Ur.
Sumer is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia, emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. Like nearby Elam, it is one of the cradles of civilization, along with Egypt, the Indus Valley, the Erligang culture of the Yellow River valley, Caral-Supe, and Mesoamerica. Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, a surplus which enabled them to form urban settlements. The world's earliest known texts come from the Sumerian cities of Uruk and Jemdet Nasr, and date to between c. 3350 – c. 2500 BC, following a period of proto-writing c. 4000 – c. 2500 BC.
Inanna is the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine law, and political power. Originally worshiped in Sumer, she was known by the Akkadian Empire, Babylonians, and Assyrians as Ishtar. Her primary title was "the Queen of Heaven".
The history of Sumer spans the 5th to 3rd millennia BCE in southern Mesopotamia, and is taken to include the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods. Sumer was the region's earliest known civilization and ended with the downfall of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2004 BCE. It was followed by a transitional period of Amorite states before the rise of Babylonia in the 18th century BCE.
The architecture of Mesopotamia is ancient architecture of the region of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, encompassing several distinct cultures and spanning a period from the 10th millennium BC to the 6th century BC. Among the Mesopotamian architectural accomplishments are the development of urban planning, the courtyard house, and ziggurats. Scribes had the role of architects in drafting and managing construction for the government, nobility, or royalty.
Akkadian literature is the ancient literature written in the Akkadian language in Mesopotamia during the period spanning the Middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about Bilgamesh, king of Uruk, dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur. These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic in Akkadian. The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the "Old Babylonian" version, dates back to the 18th century BC and is titled after its incipit, Shūtur eli sharrī. Only a few tablets of it have survived. The later Standard Babylonian version compiled by Sîn-lēqi-unninni dates from the 13th to the 10th centuries BC and bears the incipit Sha naqba īmuru. Approximately two-thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have been recovered. Some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BC Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.
Dilmun, or Telmun, was an ancient East Semitic-speaking civilization in Eastern Arabia mentioned from the 3rd millennium BC onwards. Based on contextual evidence, it was located in the Persian Gulf, on a trade route between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley civilisation, close to the sea and to artesian springs. Dilmun encompassed Bahrain, Kuwait, and eastern Saudi Arabia. This area is certainly what is meant by references to "Dilmun" among the lands conquered by King Sargon II and his descendants.
Lama, Lamma, or Lamassu is an Assyrian protective deity.
Enkidu (Sumerian: 𒂗𒆠𒄭EN.KI.DU10) was a legendary figure in ancient Mesopotamian mythology, wartime comrade and friend of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. Their exploits were composed in Sumerian poems and in the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, written during the 2nd millennium BC. He is the oldest literary representation of the wild man, a recurrent motif in artistic representations in Mesopotamia and in Ancient Near East literature. The apparition of Enkidu as a primitive man seems to be a potential parallel of the Old Babylonian version (1300–1000 BC), in which he was depicted as a servant-warrior in the Sumerian poems.
Atra-Hasis is an 18th-century BC Akkadian epic, recorded in various versions on clay tablets, named for its protagonist, Atrahasis. The Atra-Hasis tablets include both a creation myth and one of three surviving Babylonian flood myths. The name "Atra-Hasis" also appears, as king of Shuruppak in the times before a flood, on one of the Sumerian King Lists.
Gilgameš is an opera in three acts by Rudolf Brucci. The libretto by Arsenije Arsa Milošević is based on the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. It premiered on November 2, 1986 at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad.
The Epic of Gilgamesh has directly inspired many manifestations of literature, art, music, and popular culture, as identified by Theodore Ziolkowski in the book Gilgamesh Among Us: Modern Encounters With the Ancient Epic (2011). It was only during and after the First World War that the first reliable translations of the epic appeared that reached a wide audience, and it was only after the Second World War that the epic of Gilgamesh began to make itself felt more broadly in a variety of genres. In the years following World War II, Gilgamesh, formerly an obscure figure known only by a few scholars, gradually became increasingly popular with modern audiences. The Epic of Gilgamesh's existential themes made it particularly appealing to German authors in the years following the war. In his 1947 existentialist novel Die Stadt hinter dem Strom, the German novelist Hermann Kasack adapted elements of the epic into a metaphor for the aftermath of the destruction of World War II in Germany, portraying the bombed-out city of Hamburg as resembling the frightening Underworld seen by Enkidu in his dream. In Hans Henny Jahnn's magnum opusRiver Without Shores (1949–1950), the middle section of the trilogy centers around a composer whose twenty-year-long homoerotic relationship with a friend mirrors that of Gilgamesh with Enkidu and whose masterpiece turns out to be a symphony about Gilgamesh.
The Gilgamesh flood myth is a flood myth in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is one of three Mesopotamian Flood Myths: the Sumerian Flood Story, an episode of the Atra-Hasis Epic and included in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Many scholars believe that the flood myth was added to Tablet XI in the "standard version" of the Gilgamesh Epic by an editor who used the flood story from the Epic of Atra-Hasis. A short reference to the flood myth is also present in the much older Sumerian Gilgamesh poems, from which the later Babylonian versions drew much of their inspiration and subject matter.
Assyrian Australians, refers to ethnic Assyrians possessing Australian nationality. They are descended from the Northern Mesopotamian region, specifically the Assyrian homeland. Today, their homeland is a part of North Iraq, Southeast Turkey, Northwest Iran and Northeast Syria.
A lilu or lilû is a masculine Akkadian word for a spirit or demon.
The art of Mesopotamia has survived in the record from early hunter-gatherer societies on to the Bronze Age cultures of the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires. These empires were later replaced in the Iron Age by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires. Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia brought significant cultural developments, including the oldest examples of writing.
Ashurbanipal, also known as the Ashurbanipal Monument or the Statue of Ashurbanipal, is a bronze sculpture by Fred Parhad, an artist of Assyrian descent. It is located in the Civic Center of San Francisco, California, in the United States. The 15-foot (4.6 m) statue depicting the Assyrian king of the same name was commissioned by the Assyrian Foundation for the Arts and presented to the City of San Francisco in 1988 as a gift from the Assyrian people. The sculpture reportedly cost $100,000 and was the first "sizable" bronze statue of Ashurbanipal. It is administered by the City and County of San Francisco and the San Francisco Arts Commission.
Gilgamesh and Aga, sometimes referred to as incipit The envoys of Aga, is an Old Babylonian poem written in Sumerian. The only one of the five poems of Gilgamesh that has no mythological aspects, it has been the subject of discussion since its publication in 1935 and later translation in 1949.
