Gilgamesh and Enkidu fighting Humbaba, 18th-17th century BC

Terracotta relief, Berlin State Museums, Vorderasian Museum, VA 07246

Image here from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gilgamesh_and_Enkidu_slaying_Humbaba_at_the_Cedar_Forest._From_Iraq;_purchase._19th-17th_century_BCE._Vorderasiatisches_Museum,_Berlin.jpg

Discovered in the nineteenth century, preserved on clay tablets in the library of an Assyrian king, the Epic of Gilgamesh is believed to have been first written down about 1600BC, though the stories on which it is based are much older still.

They relate to a great hero who may also have been the king of Sumerian Uruk in the third millennium BC. 

The five poems which make up the cycle deal with such themes as giants and monsters, friendship and loss, and the quest for eternal life. Along the way, our hero’s encounters set the standard for other great narratives of the future: Hebrew, Greek, and Roman.

Oh. And there’s also a flood, which one good man and his family survive by building an ark into which they gather all their animals. Sound familiar? Well you heard it here first.

RJW F2411 Online (via Zoom)

A 5-hour short course, delivered via 2 x 2½-hour sessions on consecutive Mondays (Monday 18 & Monday 25 March, 2.00-4.30).

£40 (individual registration); £72 (for two people sharing one screen).