Last Updated: Saturday, December 29, 2001

Gilgamesh was an historical king of Uruk in Babylonia, on the River Euphrates in modern Iraq; he lived about 4700 years before today. (about 2700 B.C. - see timescales) and in particular Sumerian time lines.

Although historians tend to emphasize Hammurabi and his code of law, the people of the area and the time focused on Gilgamesh and the legends accruing around him to explain, as it were, themselves. Hannurabi existed about 1000 years after Gilgamesh, but it is likely that Gilgamesh was very popular even after so many years.
Many stories and myths were written about Gilgamesh, some of which were written down about 4000 years before today. in the Sumerian language on clay tablets which still survive. The Sumerian language is not derived from any Indo-European language or so some scholars say. These Sumerian Gilgamesh stories were integrated into a longer poem, versions of which survive not only in Akkadian (the Semitic language, related to Hebrew, spoken by the Babylonians) but also on tablets written in Hurrian and Hittite (an Indo-European language, a family of languages which includes Greek and English, spoken in Asia Minor).

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Gilgamesh , translated by John Maier and John Gardner (New York: Vintage, 1981)