The Epic of Gilgamesh | Mesopotamian Legend

Two men representing Gilgamesh and Enkidu stand together with arms around each other. Gilgamesh wears patterned royal clothing and boots, while Enkidu wears animal skins and is barefoot, highlighting their differences and friendship. — For nearly five thousand years, storytellers have told of a deep friendship. Gilgamesh was a king, and Enkidu a wild man from the forest. These very different men began as enemies but became close companions, united by mutual respect. Their differences—city and forest—made that friendship stronger.

Nearly 5,000 years ago, the people living between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers told stories of Gilgamesh, a king who searched for a way to live forever. These stories, which mixed history and legend, were passed down for hundreds of years. They were eventually written down, becoming one of the earliest surviving works of literature.

An epic is a long poem that tells the story of heroes or gods. Like most epics, the first stories of Gilgamesh were passed down by word of mouth. Hundreds of years later, these stories were collected and recorded on clay tablets.

A Cruel King Learns Compassion

Gilgamesh ruled Uruk, a city-state on the Euphrates River. He forced his subjects to build great palaces and massive walls to protect the city. The people lived in constant fear of Gilgamesh until a wild man emerged from the forest.

Enkidu was also big and strong, but he came from the forest, where he lived with the animals. Because of this, he was wild and ignorant of civilized life. When Enkidu learned of Gilgamesh’s cruelty, the wild man challenged the mighty king to fight. As the two were locked in battle, they realized they admired one another, so instead of remaining enemies, Gilgamesh and Enkidu became inseparable friends.

Elderly woman telling a story by a campfire at night, with children and a man listening closely under a full moon, their faces lit by the fire. — Stories like the Epic of Gilgamesh were passed down by word of mouth from one generation to the next. This is why there are several versions of traditional stories that do not always agree, but it is also why we still know the story of Gilgamesh nearly 5,000 years later.

The Gods Punish the Heroes

Gilgamesh dreamed of becoming a glorious hero whose name would live on forever, so he and Enkidu left Uruk to seek adventure. They entered a forbidden Cedar Forest guarded by a monstrous giant named Humbaba.

“In order to protect the Cedar Forest, the gods assigned Humbaba as a terror to human beings; Humbaba’s roar is a flood, his mouth is fire, and his breath is death!”

After a fierce battle, Gilgamesh and Enkidu killed Humbaba and cut down the sacred cedar trees. They floated the logs down the Euphrates River so the people of Uruk could use the valuable wood for building.

The goddess Ishtar became angry and sent the fearsome Bull of Heaven to destroy the crops of the people of Uruk. The bull ravaged the land, bringing famine and destruction. Enkidu helped restrain the beast while Gilgamesh struck it down with his sword. The enraged gods caused Enkidu to fall ill and die.

The Search for Eternal Life

Gilgamesh was heartbroken by his friend’s death. The king also feared that he would one day die, so Gilgamesh began searching for the secret of eternal life. He learned that a great flood had destroyed the world many years earlier. One man, Utnapishtim, had been warned by the gods and was still living long after the flood. It was said that he would live forever, so Gilgamesh decided to meet this survivor and learn his secret.

Gilgamesh traveled across the Waters of Death to a distant place at the end of the world, where Utnapishtim lived. The old man told the king,

“The life that you are seeking you will never find. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping.”

Fragment of a clay tablet covered in cuneiform writing from the Epic of Gilgamesh. — This clay tablet preserves part of the Epic of Gilgamesh written in cuneiform, one of the world’s earliest writing systems. The story was first passed down by word of mouth before being recorded on tablets like this, allowing it to survive for thousands of years.

Gilgamesh returned home filled with wisdom from his adventures with Enkidu and Utnapishtim. Gilgamesh became a gentle ruler who no longer mistreated the people of Urduk. Gilgamesh realized he could not escape death but could live on in the memories of the people he loved.

Passed Down By Word of Mouth

The Epic of Gilgamesh did not begin as a single book. It started as stories—told and retold in Sumer, then across Mesopotamia, long before they were written down.

Imagine sitting by a fire at sunset as a storyteller wove a tale about Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The stories did not have to agree with one another. They were entertainment, and they varied from storyteller to storyteller and from place to place. Storytellers often embellished their tales by adding colorful details. In an era before screens, the adventures took place in the minds of both the storytellers and their listeners.

Most of these stories are lost; only a few survive.

In many cultures, and perhaps in Sumer, storytellers may have traveled from place to place, sharing their stories in exchange for food and lodging. In this way, legends could spread far from their place of origin.

The Epic of Gilgamesh we read today comes mostly from clay tablets found in the library of Ashurbanipal, an Assyrian king who ruled from 668 to 627 BCE. His library at Nineveh was more than 500 miles from Ur in Sumer, and by the time these tablets were inscribed, the stories they preserved were already centuries old.

That distance and time help explain why the story exists in many versions. What we read today is presented as a single, unified work, but it was not written that way. It is a collection of stories that were shaped over time, not the work of a single author.

Gilgamesh and Noah

The Epic of Gilgamesh has many parallels to the story of Noah and the great flood in the Old Testament of the Jewish and Christian holy books. Other cultures also tell stories of a great flood. In Greek mythology, the god Zeus once sent a flood to punish humanity. In Hindu tradition, a man named Manu saves mankind from a great deluge.

Some scientists believe that rising sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age may have inspired these flood stories. As glaciers melted, water poured into the oceans, swallowing low-lying land and changing coastlines. To people living at the time, these sudden changes may have felt as if the entire world were flooding. Stories like Gilgamesh may reflect memories of these ancient events.

Resources

Download this lesson as a worksheet with activities

Editable File (Microsoft Word)
Printable PDF (Adobe Acrobat)

Mr. Donn has an excellent website that includes a section on Mesopotamia.

NEXT

Hammurabi’s Code

EXPLORE

A Cruel King Learns Compassion

The Gods Punish the Heroes

The Search for Eternal Life

Resources