Sumerian Historical Timeline and Gilgamesh Writings
© 1995-2001 Untangle Incorporated
Last Updated: Friday, November 02, 2001
| B.C. | Historical Period | Language Stage | Textual Material | Gilgamesh Material |
| 2600-2500 2400 2340 |
Early Dyastic III Or Pre-Sargonic | Old Sumerian | 'Archaic' texts from Fara and Abu Salabikh | |
| Inscriptions of 1st dynasty of Lagas circa 2500-2350 | ||||
| Documents and inscriptions | 'The Death of Gilgamesh'(1) 'Gilgamesh and Agga' (2) 'Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven' (3) | |||
| Sargonic or Old Akkadian | ||||
| 2200 2100 2000 1900 1800 1700 1600 | Gutian | Neo-Sumerian | Gudea inscriptions circa 2140-2120 | 'Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Nether World' (4) 'Gilgamesh and the Land of the Living' (5) |
| 3rd dynasty of Ur | Administrative and legal documents circa 2100-2000 | |||
| Old Babylonian Isin-dynasty Larsa-dynasty 1st dynasty of Babylon | Old Babylonian Sumerian or Post Sumerian | Royal inscriptions Literary Texts | 'Gilgamesh and the Huluppuh Tree' (6) | |
| Middle Babylonian | Gilgamesh Fragments (7) | |||
| Hittite | Hittite Version Tablet I (8) | |||
| 1500 1100 900 600 | Late Babylonian | Standard Version (9) Nimrud fragment (10) Heidel version (11) Uruk fragmennt (12) | ||
| Notes: 1. Fragments A and B described by Kramer in Bulletin of American Schools of Oriental Research 94:2-12, and Pritchard Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament 50-52 2.Kramer and Jacobson editors, American Journal of Archeology 53:1018; Kramer, Pritchard, ibid, 44-47 3. Witzel Analecta Orientalia 6:45-68 4. Shaffer (book with that name) 5.Kramer Journal of Cuniform Studies 1:3-54 and JCS :7 footnotes 6.Kramer, (book with that name), 1938 7.Fragments include the Boghazkoi, Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazkoi 4:12 , Harmal from Texts in the Iraq Museum 9:45 ed. A. Van Dijk, also summer 15:9-10 by same author, Pennsylvanian Tablet Langdon ed in Publications of the Babylonian Section 10(3) and other fragments cited in Tigay ibid, 305-306 8. Otten Istanbueler Mittenlungen and others (page 306 Tigay ibid) 9. Thompson, The Epic of Gilgamesh: Text, Transliteration and Notes 10. Wiseman, Iraq 37:160-163 11. Heidel, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 11:140-43 12.Von Wieher, zeitschrift fur Assyriologie 1(1886) | ||||