Ancient Babylonia - Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh, in Babylonian legend, king of Uruk. He is the hero of the Gilgamesh
epic, a work of some 3,000 lines, written on 12 tablets c.2000 B.C. and
discovered among the ruins at Nineveh. It tells of the adventures of the warlike and
imperious Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu. When Enkidu suddenly sickened and
died, Gilgamesh became obsessed by a fear of death. His ancestor Ut-napishtim
(who with his wife had been the only survivor of a great flood) told him of a
plant that gave eternal life. After obtaining the plant, however, Gilgamesh left it
unguarded and a serpent carried it off. The hero then turned to the ghost of
Enkidu for consoling knowledge of the afterlife, only to be told by his friend
that a gloomy future awaited the dead.
Ancient Babylonia
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