Gilgamesh flood myth

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The Deluge tablet of the Gilgamesh epic in Akkadian
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The Deluge tablet of the Gilgamesh epic in Akkadian

Gilgamesh flood myth refers to a story in the Epic of Gilgamesh relating to the deluge. This flood story was added as Tablet XI (eleven) to the ten original tablets of the Gilgamesh Epic by an editor who copied or altered parts of the flood story from the Epic of Atrahasis. [1]

Contents

[edit] The original Gilgamesh Epic may not have include the flood myth

Gilgamesh's supposed historical reign is believed to have been approximately 2500 BC, 400 years prior to the earliest known written stories. The discovery of artifacts associated with Agga and Enmebaragesi of Kish, two other kings named in the stories, has lent credibility to the historical existence of Gilgamesh.[citation needed]

The earliest Sumerian versions of the epic date from as early as the Third dynasty of Ur (2100 BC-2000 BC). [citation needed] The earliest Akkadian versions are dated to ca. 2000-1500 BC. [citation needed] The "standard" Akkadian version, composed by Sin-liqe-unninni and including the flood story, was edited sometime between 1300 BC and 1000 BC.[2]

[edit] Tablet eleven (XI), the flood tablet

The Gilgamesh flood tablet XI contains additional story material besides the flood. The flood story was included because in the story the flood hero Utnapishtim is granted immortality by the gods and that fits the immortality theme of the Gilgamesh Epic. In Tablet XI Gilgamesh meets Utnapishtim, who tells him about the great flood and reluctantly gives him a chance for immortality. He tells Gilgamesh that if he can stay awake for six days and seven nights he will become immortal. However, Gilgamesh falls asleep and Utnapishtim tells his wife to bake a loaf of bread for every day he is asleep so that Gilgamesh cannot deny his failure. When Gilgamesh wakes up, Utnapishtim decides to tell him about a plant that will rejuvenate him. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that if he can obtain the plant from the bottom of the sea and eat it he will be rejuvenated, be a younger man again. Gilgamesh obtains the plant, but doesn't eat it immediately because he wants to share it with other elders of Uruk. He places the plant on the shore of a lake while he bathes and it is stolen by a snake. Gilgamesh, having failed both chances, returns to Uruk, where the sight of its massive walls provokes him to praise this enduring work of mortal men. Gilgamesh realizes that the way mortals can achieve immortality is through lasting works of civilization and culture.

[edit] Sentences copied from the Atrahasis Epic into the Gilgamesh Epic

These are a few of the sentences copied, but many more were also copied.

Atrahasis Epic Gilgamesh Epic - tablet XI
"Wall, listen to me." Atrahasis III,i,20 "Wall, pay attention" Gilgamesh XI,22
"Like the apsu you shall roof it" Atrahasis III,i,29 "Like the apsu you shall roof it" Gilgamesh XI,31
"I cannot live in [your city]" Atrahasis III,i,47 "I cannot live in your city" Gilgamesh XI,40
"Ninurta went forth making the dikes [overflow]" Atrahasis U rev,14 "Ninurta went forth making the dikes overflow" Gilgamesh XI,102
"One person could [not] see another" Atrahasis III,iii,13 "One person could not see another" Gilgamesh XI,111
"For seven days and seven nights came the storm" Atrahasis III,iv,24 "Six days and seven nights the wind and storm flood" Gilgamesh XI,127
"He offered [a sacrifice]" Atrahasis III,v,31 "And offered a sacrifice" Gilgamesh XI,155
"the lapis around my neck" Atrahasis III,vi,2 "the lapis lazuli on my neck" Gilgamesh XI,164
"How did man survive the destruction?" Atrahasis III,vi,10 "No man was to survive the destruction" Gilgamesh XI,173

[edit] Material altered or omitted

The Epic of Atrahasis provides additional information on the flood and flood hero that is omitted in Gilgamesh XI and other versions of the Ancient Near East flood myth. According to Atrahasis III ii, lines 40-47 the flood hero was at a banquet when the storm and flood began: "He invited his people...to a banquet... He sent his family on board. They ate and they drank. But he (Atrahasis) was in and out. He could not sit, could not crouch, for his heart was broken and he was vomiting gall."

Atrahasis tablet III iv, lines 6-9 clearly identify the flood as a local river flood: "Like dragonflies they [dead bodies] have filled the river. Like a raft they have moved in to the edge [of the boat]. Like a raft they have moved in to the riverbank." The sentence "Like dragonflies they have filled the river." was changed in Gilgamesh XI line 123 to: "Like the spawn of fishes, they fill the sea." We can see the mythmaker's hand at work here, changing a local river flood into an ocean deluge.

Other editorial changes were made to the Atrahasis text in Gilgamesh that removed any suggestion that the "gods" may have been people with human needs. For example, Atrahasis OB III, 30-31 "The Anunnaki, the great gods [were sitt]ing in thirst and hunger" was changed in Gilgamesh XI, 113 to "The gods feared the deluge." Sentences in Atrahasis III iv were omitted in Gilgamesh, e.g. "She was surfeited with grief and thirsted for beer" and "From hunger they were suffering cramp."

These and other editorial changes to Atrahasis are documented and described in the book by Prof. Tigay (see below) who is associate professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literature in the University of Pennsylvania. Tigay comments: "The dropping of individual lines between others which are preserved, but are not synonymous with them, appears to be a more deliberate editorial act. These lines share a common theme, the hunger and thirst of the gods during the flood."

[edit] Alternative Translations

As with most translations, especially from an ancient dead language, scholars may differ on the meaning of ambiguous sentences.

For example, line 57 in Gilgamesh XI is usually translated (with reference to the boat) "ten rods the height of her sides."[3] or "its walls were each 10 times 12 cubits in height".[4] A rod was a dozen cubits and a Sumerian cubit was about 20 inches. Hence these translations imply the boat was about 200 feet high which would be impractical with the primitive technology in Gilgamesh's time (about 2700 BC). One problem with these translations is nowhere in line 57 is there an Akkadian word for "height". The sentence literally reads "Ten dozen-cubits each I-raised its-walls." [5] A similar example from an unrelated house building tablet reads: "he shall build the wall [of the house] and raise it four ninda and two cubits." This measurement (about 83 feet) obviously means wall length not height.[6]

Line 142 in Gilgamesh XI is usually translated "Mount Nişir held the boat, allowing no motion." Nişir (with a dot under the s) is often spelled Nimush. The Akkadian words translated "Mount Nişir" are "KUR-ú KUR ni-şir". The word KUR was a Sumerian word and could mean hill or country. The first KUR is followed by a phonetic complement -ú which indicates that KUR-ú is to be read in Akkadian as šadú (hill) and not as mātu (country). Since šadú (hill) could also be translated as mountain in Akkadian and scholars knew the Biblical expression Mount Ararat, it has become customary to translate šadú as mountain or mount. But the flood hero was Sumerian according to the Sumerian king list and in Sumerian the word KUR meant hill or country, not mountain. Therefore KUR-ú should be translated as hill. The second KUR lacks a phonetic complement and is therefore read in Akkadian as mātu (country). Hence, the entire clause reads "The hill/mound country nişir held the boat". Nişir is usually transliterated as a proper name, because of the KUR sign that precedes nişir and the absence of a case ending on nişir. But nişir may have been derived from nişirtu which meant hidden, inaccessible, secluded, and secret. Hence the clause can be read as "A mound [in] inaccessible country held the boat." A sand bar in a marsh would qualify. This is an ambiguous sentence and we cannot be sure that it means inaccessible mound. But likewise we cannot be sure that it means Mount Nimush.

Lines 146-147 in Gilgamesh XI are usually translated "I ... made sacrifice, incense I placed on the peak of the mountain." [7] Similarly "I poured out a libation on the peak of the mountain." [8] But Kovacs [9] provides this translation of line 156: "I offered incense in front of the mountain-ziggurat." Parpola provides the original Akkadian for this sentence: "áš-kun sur-qin-nu ina UGU ziq-qur-rat KUR-i"[10] Áš-kun means I-placed; sur-qin-nu means offering; ina means on; UGU means top-of; ziq-qur-rat means temple tower; and KUR-i means hill-like. Ziggurat KUR-i is a construct-genitive phrase in which KUR-i can be interpreted as an adjective modifying ziggurat. Parpola's glossary (page 145) defines ziq-qur-rat as "temple tower, ziggurat" and refers to line 157 so there is no doubt that he translates ziq-qur-rat as temple tower in this context. The sentence literally reads "I placed an offering on top of a hill-like temple-tower." A ziggurat was an elevated platform or temple tower where priests made offerings to the temple god. The top of a temple ziggurat was a place where sacrificial food was cooked for the priests to eat. Most translators disregard ziq-qur-rat and say it was a metaphor for peak and is therefore redundent and can be ignored. There is no authority for this other than previous translations of line 157. Why most translators disregard the clear meaning of this sentence is not clear. Kovacs' translation implies that the flood hero's offering was at a ziggurat.

One of the Sumerian cities with a ziggurat was Eridu located west of an arm of the Persian Gulf known as the apsû. The only ziggurat at Eridu was at the temple of the god Ea (Enki), known as the apsû-house. In Gilgamesh XI, line 42 the flood hero said "I will go down [the river] to the apsû to live with Ea, my Lord." The flood hero "placed an offering on top of a hill-like temple-tower" at the temple of the god Ea in the city of Eridu, on an arm of the Persian Gulf, near the place where the boat grounded.

Lines 189-192 (lines 198-201) in Gilgamesh XI are usually translated "Then godEnlil came aboard the boat. He took hold of my hand and brought me on board. He brought aboard my wife and made her kneel at my side. Standing between us, he touched our foreheads to bless us." In the first sentence "Then dingir-kabtu came aboard the boat" the Akkadian determinative dingir is usually translated as "god", but can also mean "priest"[11] Dingir is usually translated as god because there is another Akkadian word ēnu that is translated priest. Dingir-kabtu literally means "divine important-person".[12] Translating this as Enlil is the translator's conjecture. In the context of "Standing between us, he touched our foreheads to bless us." this is clearly an act of a priest, not a god.

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

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[edit] Bibliography

  • Tigay, Jeffrey H., (1982). The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. ISBN 0-8122-7805-4.
  • W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atrahasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, Eisenbrauns, 1999, ISBN 1-57506-039-6.
  • George, Andrew R., trans. & edit. (1999 (reprinted with corrections 2003). The Epic of Gilgamesh. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-044919-1.
  • Kovacs, Maureen Gallery, transl. with intro. (1985,1989). The Epic of Gilgamesh. Stanford University Press: Stanford, California. ISBN 0-8047-1711-7. Glossary, Appendices, Appendix (Chapter XII=Tablet XII). A line-by-line translation (Chapters I-XI).
  • Parpola, Simo, with Mikko Luuko, and Kalle Fabritius (1997). The Standard Babylonian, Epic of Gilgamesh. The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. ISBN 951-45-7760-4 (Volume 1) in the original Akkadian cuneiform and transliteration. Commentary and glossary are in English.
  • Heidel, Alexander (1946). The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels. University of Chicago. ISBN 0-226-32398-6.
  • Bailey, Lloyd R. (1989). Noah, the Person and the Story. South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 0-87249-637-6.
  • Best, Robert M. (1999). Noah's Ark and the Ziusudra Epic. Fort Myers, Florida: Enlil Press. ISBN 0-9667840-1-4.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tigay (1982)
  2. ^ Andrew George, page xxv
  3. ^ Andrew George, page 90
  4. ^ Kovacs, page 99
  5. ^ Parpola, page 109
  6. ^ R M Best, page 275
  7. ^ Andrew George, page 94
  8. ^ Heidel page 87
  9. ^ Kovacs page 102
  10. ^ Parpola, page 111
  11. ^ Margaret Whitney Green, Eridu in Sumerian Literature, PhD dissertation, University of Chicago (1975), p. 224.
  12. ^ Parpola, page 128
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