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Gilgamesh Quotes

Browse 10 quotes about Gilgamesh.

Gilgamesh Quotes

“Go up, Ur-Shanabi, pace out the walls of Uruk. Study the foundation terrace and examine the brickwork. Is not its masonry of kiln-fired brick? And did not seven masters lay its foundations? One square mile of city, one square mile of gardens, One square mile of clay pits, a half square mile of Ishtar's dwelling, Three and a half square miles is the measure of Uruk!”

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Book:The Epic of Gilgamesh
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“The image of the Serpent, because of its association with life, rejuvenation, fertility, and regeneration, was a symbol of immortality. The coiled Serpent with its tail in its mouth was a circle of infinitude indicating omnipotence and omniscience. The Serpent, depicted in several successive rings, represented cyclical evolution and reincarnation. In ancient philosophy or mythological systems, creation and wisdom were closely bound together, and the Serpent was a potent symbol of both. It is in this capacity that the Serpent appears in the Babylonian and Sumerian mythologies, which contain elements akin to the Genesis story. The Serpent has the power to bestow immortality but also has the power to cheat humankind. In many of the ancient Near Eastern stories—for instance, the Gilgamesh Epic and myth of Adapa—the Serpent holds out the promise of immortality but then cheats man at the last minute.”

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Book:The Serpent and the Goddess: Women, Religion, and Power in Celtic Ireland
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“Any flood would feel like the end of the world if your neighbors drowned and your community washed away. In Mesopotamia when torrential rains hit alongside spring snowmelt, the Tigris and Euphrates would burst their banks, growing the region under hundreds of miles of lakes. Archaeologists say an ancient Sumerian city called Shurrupak (Iraq's Tell Fara) was laid waste by flood nearly 5,000 years ago. A Babylonian version of GILGAMESH mentions Shurrupak by name. It describes a deluge that wipes out mankind, and a pious king called Ziusudra who overhears from a sympathetic god that the great flood is on its way. Ziusudra builds a huge boat and survives.”

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Book:Rain: A Natural and Cultural History
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“Whether or not the fame of Gilgamesh of Uruk had reached the Aegean – and the idea is attractive – there can be no doubt that it was as great as that of any other hero. In time his name became so much a household word that jokes and forgeries were fathered onto it, as in a popular fraud that survives on eighth-century B.C. tablets which perhaps themselves copy an older text. This is a letter supposed to be written by Gilgamesh to some other king, with commands that he should send improbable quantities of livestock and metals, along with gold and precious stones for an amulet for Enkidu, which would weigh no less that thirty pounds. The joke must have been well received, for it survives in four copies, all from Sultantepe.”

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Book:The Epic of Gilgamesh
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