The Epic of Gilgamesh: A Hero’s Quest for Everlasting Life

The epic of Gilgamesh is about the ruler of uruk Gilgamesh and his quest to receive everlasting life. Gilgamesh wanted to receive everlasting life because he saw his best friend enkidu die of a slow agonizing death witch lead Gilgamesh to put his own mortality to question.. Enkidu died this death as punishment for the thing he and Gilgamesh did like kill the bull of heaven and chop down all the trees in the cedar forest after killing the demon humbaba. So Gilgamesh goes to the end of the earth to find utnapishtims to grant him everlasting life.

Utnapishtims tells him he can have everlasting life if he can stay awake for 7 days Gilgamesh fails immediately and ends up going back to uruk but before he goes back utnapishtims tells Gilgamesh about a flower that restores youth , so Gilgamesh gets the flower but it gets stolen so he leaves with nothing but knowledge witch he shares with his people. The main character is Gilgamesh he is a hero, fiercest of warriors he is two thirds god one third human and has super natural abilities.. fter seeing his friend enkidu die he goes off on a quest to get him out of the house of dust and gain everlasting life. Gilgamesh had to prove himself many times in the story by defeating challenges that faced him , killing the bull of heaven, when utnapishtim told him to sleep for seven days, getting the flower that restores youth and fighting offa pack of lions that the gods sent after him. The was an abundant presence of mythical beings the sun god, enlil the god of earth ,wind and air, and anu the god of the sky.

His journey takes him to supernatural places such as the underworld the twin peaked mountain called mashu and on a boat journey through the waters of death. The story reaches a low point when Gilgamesh’s’ friend enkidu dies also when he failed utnapishtims challenge to stay awake for a week. The resurrection of the story was when Gilgamesh was told about the flower that restores everlasting life. He returns to uruk after the flower was stolen by a snake with much wisdom that he shares with his people. Gilgamesh’s characteristics define him as a quest hero.

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He is two thirds god and one third mortal and he is the strongest of men, he is ruler of uruk , the greatest of warriors and ambitious builder Gilgamesh surrounded his city with magnificent walls and glorious ziggurats, he was physically beautiful, immensely strong, and very wise. Gilgamesh’s flaws and virtues are very oversized. He goes on an epic quest after his best friend dies. He visits places that are supernatural and cannot be visited by humans. he was faced with many challenges that he over came to complete his quest.

Sumer was one of the earliest civilizations of the near ancient east, located in the southern part of Mesopotamia. The term sumerian refers to the people who speak the Sumerian language. Sumer ancient Egypt and indusvalley civilization were considered the first settled society in the world to have all the features needed to have a civilization. The history of Sumeria dates back to the beginning of writing and law which the Sumerians were accredited for inventing. And was essential for maintaining order within city-states.

For centuries city states used Sumerian law, which established penalties for certain offenses. This represents recognition that society can’t function without respect for life, property and shared values. The Sumerians were non Semitic people and were at one time believed to have been invader, as a number of linguists believed they could possibly detect a substrate language beneath Sumerian. However, archeological record shows clear uninterrupted cultural continuity from the time of the early unbaid period settlements in southern Mesopotamia.

The Sumerian peoples farm land was mad fertile by slit deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. By the late fourth millennium B. C. E. , sumer was divided into about a dozen independent city states, whose limits were defined by canals and boundary stones. Each was centered on a temple dedicated to the particular patron deity of the city and ruled over by a priest and or king, who was tied to the city’s religious rites. The principle Sumerian sites were the cities of mari, agade, kish, borsippa, nippur , isin, adab, shuruppak, girsu lagash, ur and eridu . he minor cities wear sippar , kutha, dilbat, marad, kisurra , zabala, umma , kisiga, awan, hamazi, eshnunna akshak, and zimbir. The Sumerian city-states rose to power during the prehistorical ubad and uruk periods. The historical record opens with early dynastic period from ca. the twenty ninth century B. C. E. , but remains scarce until the lagash period begins in the twenty sixith century. Classical sumer ends with akkadian empire in the twenty fourth century. Followed by the gutian period, there is a short “Sumerian renaissance” in the twenty second, cut short in ca. 000 B. C. E. by Amorite invasions. The Amorite “dynasty of isin” persists until ca. 1730 B. C. E. when Mesopotamia is united under Babylonian rule. Recapping my essay Gilgamesh is an epic about the ruler of uruk who went on a quest to find everlasting life but in the end Gilgamesh did not find everlasting life. His characteristics match that of an epic hero and the sumer civilization was one of the first civilizations to have all the essentials to be a civilization and the Sumerians were credited for inventing writing and law and wear a great civilization.

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