The Epic of Gilgamesh: Reading Begins/Context Post

Today (25^(th) of January 2026) we are starting our first mythological read of the year: the Epic of Gilgamesh. We will be reading this text over the next three weeks, starting with the Standard (Akkadian) version and ending with the Old Babylonian version.

Also, quick shoutout to our new mod u/cpjacobson97 welcome to the mod team!

Reading Schedule:

• Start Date/Context Post: 25/01/26
• Week 1: Beginning to end of Tablet VII (Standard Version) - 31/01/26
• Week 2: Tablet VIII to end (Standard Version) - 07/02/26
• Week 3: Babylonian Version - 14/02/26

After we finish this text, we will be starting ‘Atrahasis’ the myth surrounding the great flood, during the week of 15/02/26

Historical Background:

We covered a lot of the basic history surrounding ancient Mesopotamia in our first read of the year ‘The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction’ by Amanda H. Podany. There is no way I can do that justice, but I will try to give a basic (and unexpert) overview here. Ancient Mesopotamia was a series of empires in the region of Southwestern Asia. Today, it covers what we call the Near East/Middle East. Mesopotamia is perhaps the earliest civilization that we know of on Earth i.e. we have extant evidence of a distinct culture within an organised society. What we call Mesopotamia began around 5000 BCE and scholars put an estimated end date around 1000 – 500 BCE. It is believed that the epic of Gilgamesh originated sometime after expressive writing developed, around 3500 BCE. If you want to read more about Mesopotamia, click here.

Most of the story of the epic of Gilgamesh is set in Uruk, an important city-state in ancient Sumer. It follows Gilgamesh, a demi-god king who is basically a tyrant and his friend/nemesis Enkidu, a man created by the gods to reform him. This story takes place well into the era of the gods – the universe has been created, the gods all have specific jobs and traits connected to them, and humanity has been created. While this story features a lot of gods, the main plot is very human based, which is why we are reading it ahead of more mythical texts like Atrahasis and Enuma Elish. Gilgamesh and Enkidu go on an adventure together that involves all sorts of mythical places. I don’t want to go into spoilers here, so I’m going to leave it at that.

Translation Background:

We covered a lot of background behind languages in Mesopotamia in ‘The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction’ by Amanda H. Podany. To sum it up, Mesopotamia was made up of several countries that ended up becoming an empire. Due to this blending of cultures more than one language was in use in writing throughout its existence. The people of Mesopotamia developed their written tradition over the space of centuries, so the use of different languages, such as Akkadian, Sumerian and Babylonian, fluctuated depending on what was in fashion. There is also evidence that scribes and other people were bilingual and that the languages at times did intermingle.  The ancient Mesopotamians wrote on clay tablets, which means that we have a significant number of preserved samples that we can look at today.  There are several versions of the epic of Gilgamesh still surviving, but all of them are partial and fragmented, some more than others**.** Two are more intact than the others and they tend to get most of the translators’ attention: the Standard (Akkadian) and the Old Babylonian texts. These are the two that we are going to read.

Different versions of Gilgamesh contain different parts/perspectives of the story. As of today, we do not have a single complete version of the text. Scholars are trying to research further into this area and find more tablets that cover the story. The hope is that, eventually, enough versions of the story will be found to create an amalgamated ‘definitive version’ or that a complete intact version of the story will be found. In his introduction to the Penguin Classics translation, Andrew George goes into detail about this subject.

Cast of Characters

• Gilgamesh – demigod and king of Uruk, descended from a line of divinely blessed kings.
• Enkidu – a ‘wild man’ created by the gods to reform Gilgamesh’s tyrannical ways.
• Ninsun – Gilgamesh’s mom who is an actual goddess.
• Anu – god of the skies and the realm of the gods. He is part of a triad of top gods, alongside Enlil and Ea. He is the creator of Enkidu and the father of Isthar.
• Enlil – the storm god. He is part of the top god triad with Anu and Ea.
• Ea – the ocean/water god, part of the top god triad with Anu and Enlil.
• Aruru – goddess of fertility and creation, she co-creates Enkidu with Anu.
• Shamash – the sun god
• Humbaba – a giant and the guardian of the Forest of Cedar
• Ishtar aka Inanna – goddess of love and war, the most prominent goddess in terms of worship in Uruk during this era.
• Shiduri – a minor goddess of wisdom
• Uta-napishti aka Utanapishti – survivor of the Flood
• Ur-shanabi  aka Urshanabi – Uta-napishti’s ferryman

I believe we will be learning a lot more about the gods in the reads following the epic of Gilgamesh, so I’m not going to do a breakdown of every god here.