Epic of Gilgamesh - History

History

Many distinct sources exist from over a 2,000-year timeframe. The old Sumerian poems, followed by a later Akkadian version, are the chief sources for modern translations, with the Sumerian version mainly used to fill in lacunae in the Akkadian version.

Although several revised versions based on new discoveries have been published, the epic remains incomplete.

The earliest Sumerian poems are now generally considered to be distinct stories rather than parts of a single epic. They date from as early as the Third Dynasty of Ur (2150-2000 BC). The earliest Akkadian versions are dated to the early second millennium, most probably in the eighteenth or seventeenth century BC, when one or more authors drew upon existing literary material to create a single epic. The "standard" Akkadian version, consisting of twelve tablets, was edited by Sin-liqe-unninni sometime between 1300 and 1000 BC, and was found in the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh.

The Epic of Gilgamesh was discovered by Hormuzd Rassam in 1853 and is now widely known. The first modern translation was published in the early 1870s by George Smith. Recent translations into English include one undertaken with the assistance of the American novelist John Gardner, and John Maier, published in 1984. In 2001, Benjamin Foster produced a translation in the Norton Critical Edition Series that uses new material to fill in many of the blanks in previous editions.

The most definitive translation is a two-volume critical work by Andrew George. George discusses the state of the surviving material, and provides a tablet-by-tablet exegesis, with a dual language side-by-side translation. This translation was published by Penguin Classics in 2000. Stephen Mitchell in 2004 supplied a controversial translation that takes many liberties with the text and includes modernized allusions and commentary relating to the Iraq war of 2003. The first direct Arabic translation from the original tablets was made in the 1960s by the Iraqi archeologist Taha Baqir.

The discovery of artifacts (ca. 2600 BC) associated with Enmebaragesi of Kish, mentioned in the legends as the father of one of Gilgamesh's adversaries, has lent credibility to the historical existence of Gilgamesh.