In short
The Epic of Gilgamesh—its Mesopotamian origins, plot (tyrannical king, Enkidu, quests, divine punishment, flood-immortality search), and modern rediscovery/translation; ending with a “nuance window” linking the myth to community, grief, and care for the living world.
Guest backgrounds
Dr Moody Al-Rashid is an honorary fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, researching/teaching Mesopotamian history, cuneiform, and Akkadian; Mary-Lane Robertson is an award-winning comedian/actor/storyteller with a degree in archaeology and a dissertation on Gilgamesh imagery across Bronze Age power struggles.
Key claims
Gilgamesh is a long cuneiform poem on 12 tablets; earliest story roots are older than surviving tablets; Sin-leqi-unninni popularized the standard version; Gilgamesh’s “immortality” lesson is community survival, not personal endless life.
Notable examples
Uruk’s wall-building; Enkidu created from clay; Shamchat seducing Enkidu; killing Khumbaba; Ishtar rejecting Gilgamesh and sending the Bull of Heaven; Enkidu’s death and Gilgamesh’s grief; seeking Utnapishti after the Great Flood; the plant of heartbeat stolen by a snake; George Smith’s 1870s English flood translation and his naked museum run.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOUnderstanding the Epic of Gilgamesh
0:00 to 1:02
Explore the origins and significance of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
“This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.”
Understanding the Epic of Gilgamesh
2:46 to 4:30
Explore the origins and significance of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
“Marie-Eleine, last time you let slip that you have a degree in archaeology.”
History of the Story's Documentation
4:30 to 6:19
Learn about the historical context and documentation of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
“because no one's done any kind of movies about Gilgamesh which is very disappointing.”
Gilgamesh: Historical or Mythical?
6:19 to 8:12
Discuss whether Gilgamesh was a real historical figure or a myth.
“He named in a later literary catalog, so we're not too sure to what degree we can call him the author.”
The Tyranny of Gilgamesh
8:12 to 9:48
Examine the character of Gilgamesh and his early actions as a ruler.
“Moody, how does our story of Gilgamesh begin?”
Enkidu's Creation and Role
9:48 to 10:54
Understand how Enkidu was created to challenge Gilgamesh and his significance.
“Okay, and Gilgamesh is like, this guy's ruining my hunting.”
The Quest Against the Bull of Heaven
10:54 to 13:12
Follow Gilgamesh and Enkidu's encounter with the Bull of Heaven after a rejection.
“So what is the first adventure they go on?”
The Aftermath of Their Actions
13:12 to 14:03
Explore the consequences of Gilgamesh and Enkidu's actions against divine entities.
“He's being punished for rejecting a sex god.”
The Consequences of Actions
14:03 to 15:56
Discussion on the emotional impact of Enkidu's death on Gilgamesh.
“They offer it to Anu, the sky god, and then they throw its penis at Ishtar.”
The Consequences of Actions
15:58 to 16:54
Discussion on the emotional impact of Enkidu's death on Gilgamesh.
“Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype?”
Show all 18 chapters
Quest for Immortality
17:56 to 24:16
Gilgamesh embarks on a quest for immortality after Enkidu's death.
“terms apply Mary Lane, what do you think Gilgamesh, a grieving Gilgamesh, does after the funeral?”
Lessons Learned from Adventures
24:17 to 25:48
Reflecting on the lessons Gilgamesh learns throughout his journeys.
“that he went through this adventure where he killed a special forest guardian.”
Rediscovery of Gilgamesh
25:49 to 27:34
The history of how the Epic of Gilgamesh was rediscovered in modern times.
“This is how the ancient world understood it.”
Reflections on the Epic
27:35 to 28:01
Discussion on the themes and meanings of the Epic of Gilgamesh in contemporary times.
“The epic of Gilgamesh has meant and will mean different things to me throughout my life.”
The Myth of Khumbaba and Gilgamesh
28:01 to 30:01
Explore the symbolism behind Khumbaba and Gilgamesh's journey toward understanding life.
“In ancient Mesopotamia, people sometimes used sheep entrails to predict the future.”
Reflections on Hope and Community
30:01 to 30:58
Discuss the themes of hope, community, and the importance of caring for one another.
“You definitely need more of the humanity and less of the monsters.”
Reflections on Hope and Community
31:00 to 32:53
Discuss the themes of hope, community, and the importance of caring for one another.
“Do the wonder products that you see on your social media and supermarket shelves really deliver on their bold claims?”
Reflections on Hope and Community
32:57 to 33:24
Discuss the themes of hope, community, and the importance of caring for one another.
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Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
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1:41Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name's Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are grabbing our bestie and gallivanting back to ancient Mesopotamia to learn all about the epic of Gilgamesh. And to help us on this daunting quest, we have two very special guides. In History Corner, she's an honorary fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, where she researches and teaches on the history of Mesopotamia, Cineiform and the Akkadian language. You might have read her wonderful recent book, Between Two Rivers, Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History.
2:15Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:It is glorious. And you'll remember her from our episodes on the ancient Babylonians and Cineiform. It's Dr Moody Al-Rashid. Welcome, Moody. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's awesome to be back. We love having you back. And in Comedy Corner, she's an award-winning comedian, actor and storyteller. You might have seen her sell-out Edinburgh Fringe show, or caught her on Breaking the News, or Rosie Jones' disability comedy Extravaganza, or her new Radio 4 show, Human Watch. And you'll definitely remember her from our episode on Scottish hero Robert Bruce, not Robert the Bruce. It's Mary-Lane Robertson.
2:44Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Welcome back, Mary-Lane. Hi, thank you for having me back to teach me more stuff. Marie-Eleine, last time you let slip that you have a degree in archaeology. Yes. And we immediately went, uh-oh, this is interesting, how much will she know? Well, that's the thing, because I did not know much about Robert Bruce at all, but I did do my dissertation on the Epic of Gilgamesh.
3:08But I did my dissertation on how has the imagery from the Epic of Gilgamesh changed according to different power struggles across bronzage and it was so bad that I almost failed my entire degree because of it and I thought oh Gilgamesh I remember this and then I thought in my brain and I don't so what's really I can't even remember which one's the Tigris and which one's the Euphrates I'm really rusty okay so a refresher course for you it will It'll also be like me bringing shame to university. I don't know if I should even name the university I want at this point. Because when you said about it, I was like, I'd love to hear about this again, but I don't remember anything about it.
3:52OK, well, we can fix that. I remember Bronze Age. So, what do you know?
4:04Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:OK, this is the So What Do You Know. This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. and you might have heard that the epic of Gilgamesh features a great flood narrative similar to the biblical story of Noah or maybe you've encountered Gilgamesh as the king of heroes from the Fate anime series or if you've read Alif Shafak's 2024 novel There Are Rivers in the Sky or listen to Johnny Flynn and Robert McFarlane's Gilgamesh inspired album Lost in the Cedarwood. But if you're a movie buff like me you're plain out of luck because no one's done any kind of movies about Gilgamesh which is very disappointing.
4:34Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:So who exactly was Gilgamesh? Was he really that epic? and what are the consequences of rejecting a goddess? Let's find out. Right, Dr Moody, we'll start with some basics. For my benefit and perhaps Mary-Elaine's benefit, although I'm sure it will come floating back to you, what exactly is the Epic of Gilgamesh? So it's a long poem from ancient Mesopotamia that tells a transformative journey of a king called Gilgamesh who ruled the city of Uruk. It's originally about 3 ,000 or 3 ,100 lines long, but only about 2 ,400 or 2 ,500 remain, compared to, for example, 15 ,000 in the Iliad. It's written in cuneiform on 12 tablets, and we have to remember that cuneiform was a script, not a language, used in ancient Mesopotamia, which is the region between and around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq, Syria, and parts of Turkey, which was home to a succession of civilizations like the Sumerians, the Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians.
5:30Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Well, that's a very good summary. Well done. Okay, Mary-Elaine, you've already said Bronze Age. How long ago do you think the epic of Gilgamesh was first written down? I should know that the Bronze Age was around 3000 BC. Is that right? That's about right, yeah. But we probably go a little later with our first recording of the actual story. Yeah, so we don't actually know how old this story itself is because it has these oral roots that we have hints of in the language and in other references. So it was probably recited, for example, in the courts of kings, including the kings of Ur around 2100, 2000 BCE, but it's probably older than that.
6:08And then some of the earliest tablets, written kind of records of versions of this story come from around that time period, the third millennium BCE or the 2000s BCE. There's an old Babylonian version, and then there's a kind of standard Babylonian version, which is the one that gets copied over and over and over and over again, that comes from around probably 1100 BCE, written by a scholar named Sin Leki Unini. He named in a later literary catalog, so we're not too sure to what degree we can call him the author. Does he just establish the most popular version? This raises fun in the nerdy sense questions about authorship in ancient Mesopotamia, where it's more like people are links in a chain in the life story of a story.
6:54The tale itself, the story itself, is more important than the author.
6:57Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Gilgamesh was not always the name of the character. What? Do you want to guess what his original name was? Stephen. Stephen. Stephen, King of Uruk. It wasn't Gilgamesh. No. Woody? What was his name? It was Bilgamesh. Bilgamesh. Yes. No, that's funnier than Stephen. The boring question you probably get asked a lot is, is Gilgamesh a real guy who then gets turned into a literary folk hero? Or is this pure speculation, pure fantasy? Nobody really knows the answer to that. He's referenced in what we would consider a semi-historical document, which we call it the Sumerian King List. Basically a list of kings in what is now southern Iraq, what we would call Sumer.
7:42But it begins with these mythical primordial kings like Alulim who ruled for 30 ,000 years or Atana who ruled for 400 years. So we know that these are probably not real people or maybe they are based on real people, but these are not their real reigns. There are real kings on the list, though, that we know existed that are corroborated from other sources like King Sargon. So is he a literary character who moved into the history books or is he a historical figure who took on legendary proportions? That's interesting.
8:13Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Moody, how does our story of Gilgamesh begin? Do we meet him in adulthood? Do we meet him as a king? We do. He's the tyrannical king of Uruk. He exhausts the men and boys by forcing them to build a humongous wall, which is real, an archaeological wall, and play violent sports. And finally, the women beg the gods and goddesses to create a match or an equal for Gilgamesh to challenge him and just calm this guy down, really. Right. I studied this at university, and the version I learnt was, he's lonely and needs a friend. Which makes me question what source I used. But I'll tell you this, when I did my course on Romans, I used to use Rotten Romans.
8:56Did you? The Horrible Histories books? Yes, and my professor said, how did you know that, because I used to come out with facts that the professors didn't know, and I'd have to be like, quote, Horrible Histories.
9:04Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Cherry Deary. And you see my references. Okay, so he needs a friend, or he needs an equal to sort of match him in the ring. who is created or who is sent down to match or fight or play with Gilgamesh? So the gods create Enkidu from clay and divine blood. There's a really beautiful description. He's born in silence, in other words, not with the cries of childbirth. He's at first a wild man. He's described as being very hairy and almost animal-like, and he lives among the animals, the gazelles, and he causes grief to hunters because he's constantly foiling their traps and rescuing the animals. Yeah, so Gilgamesh learns about this when the hunters complain, effectively.
9:43He learns about Enkidu from the complaints.
9:44Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:So he's an animal rights activist. He's going along sabotaging traps and things. Exactly. Okay, and Gilgamesh is like, this guy's ruining my hunting. Okay, I'm going to go sort him out. Okay, how do you think tyrannical Gilgamesh addresses this new threat? This is the one time I think I'll get this bit right. This is the one thing I remember from the story, which take from that what you will. they get a really attractive lady. They do. Yes. They cover her nice smelling oils and they're like, show him why he wants to enter society and she seduces him and Enki Do is like, I'd rather be with humans than animals and thus ends my knowledge.
10:28Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Beautifully put and suitable for Radio 4, so well done. Moody, I mean, Mary Lane did a very beautiful, elegant description. So who is the woman who is sent along? Yeah, so Gilgamesh sends a woman called Shamchat to seduce Enkidu effectively. She's a temple worker, maybe a sex worker, a priestess of Ishtar. And afterwards, he comes to Uruk and confronts Gilgamesh, but they turn out to be equally matched and become friends slash lovers. So what is the first adventure they go on? And what spurs the adventure? Why do they need to go on a quest. We have this scene where Enkidu is feeling sad and keeping in mind that lots of bits are missing from the epic.
11:05We're not 100 % sure why. And to cheer him up, Gilgamesh decides they need to make a name. He needs to make a name for himself. But Enkidu is not so keen. They go on a quest, effectively, to kill the guardian of the cedar forest, Khumbaba.
11:19Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:So Enkidu and Gilgamesh primarily has killed an important forest guardian. What do you think are the repercussions for Gilgamesh having committed this crime? I just feel like Gilgamesh has shown no remorse so far that I just don't see him showing remorse now. Also, I feel like Gilgamesh, if he's real or not, has had a real hand in writing his tail. So I'm like, Gilgamesh did something bad, but he's still great. Oh, you think he authors his own quest narrative? For sure. Oh, okay. My name's down with a G. I defeat the forest monster. I don't know, do they fall out? Does Enki do fall out for Gilgamesh?
11:55Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Well, yeah. I want Gilgamesh to grow and learn and go to therapy like I was promised but maybe they have to break up. Well that's how rom-coms work so is it a rom-com Moody? What happens next? Not quite although there is a third party who enters the scene who is quite a powerful one. So after the fight the goddess Ishtar who's again the goddess of love and war violence. Those two things don't seem like the same remit. No, she's a very volatile goddess. Sure. So yeah, she takes the same pleasure in lovemaking and murder, I guess. Yeah, she's an interesting figure. Sure. And she sees Gilgamesh and falls in love and proposes marriage.
12:37But Gilgamesh rejects her, listing all her dead or otherwise diminished former lovers, one of whom gets turned into like an earwig or something like that. and she gets pretty angry and calls on her father, Anu, the sky god, to send down the Bull of Heaven, which is the constellation Taurus, to kill Gilgamesh. That's me. I'm Taurus.
12:58Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Are you? Yeah. Okay, well, you might not like what happens next in this story then. Why? Well, because the Bull of Heaven is sent down to kill Gilgamesh, to Kilgamesh, and Gilgamesh, he's not being punished for slaughtering the innocent forest guardian. He's being punished for rejecting a sex god. I feel like he's learned nothing. But he's going to fight now a celestial bull. Mary-Lane, how would you go about defeating a celestial bull? You take it to a celestial abattoir in the heavens, around killing time. Yeah? Humane gun on the head. Okay. Spoken like a true farmer. Yeah. Yeah. Moody, can you give us the gory details of the goring?
13:34Yes. So they work together, essentially, because the bull of heaven is quite a destructive creature. And as he approaches Uruk, everything he does essentially ends up killing huge amounts of people. Every time he breathes, a huge gulf opens up in the ground and swallows people up, etc. From memory, Enkidu grabs him and then Gilgamesh stabs him in the head between the horns.
13:58Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:A bolt gun's pretty accurate then. Yeah, just a sword in this one or a blade of some kind. That would be a very good one. They cut out the heart? Yes, they cut out the heart. They offer it to Anu, the sky god, and then they throw its penis at Ishtar.
14:19Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:I mean that feels like a very childish move Yeah, yeah It's quite the move And she's the goddess of love and desire and stuff Yeah Very petty It is There's no growth here emotionally, is there? Definitely not It takes a while for that to happen So I think I was right He doesn't learn anything He learns nothing Okay But to be honest I suppose here he's just defending himself from a bill that is attacking him But he did really shame Ishtar for that to happen. He did. So then what happens to Gilgamesh and Enkidu? So the gods are pretty angry. I mean, they've killed a whole constellation, which is bad.
14:54They sentence Enkidu to death. And he actually dreams of being in the underworld.
14:59Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:So why not Gilgamesh? Yeah! Because Enkidu is just like the guy who's been dragged along. Gilgamesh is sort of like that typical, like entitled guy that just never has to face consequences for anything he does. But he's about to face the ultimate consequence in a way because Enkidu does die. He dreams that he's in the underworld and he dies. And Gilgamesh is utterly grief stricken to the point where he won't even let them take the body away. And there's all this imagery of him mourning. And some of it compares him to like a lioness. So there's like a woman mourning her cubs. I mean a female lion mourning her cubs.
15:36So it's such a loss, he won't let them take the body away until a maggot crawls out of Enkidu's nose and he's finally like, OK, yes, you are dead and I have to let go. And he arranges this huge funeral and lists tons of gifts given in Enkidu's memory.
15:51Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Wow. Gilgamesh has been punished by having the one thing he loves taken from him. Yeah. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype? Like those$5 roses at a gas station, or a second-hand piece of technology that breaks in the first 10 minutes. Marketers know that feeling. We optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach, and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not-so-great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that. Bull spend. Now you can invest in what looks good to your CFO. LinkedIn ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks.
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18:03Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Mary Lane, what do you think Gilgamesh, a grieving Gilgamesh, does after the funeral? I mean, I still don't think he's learned anything. You don't think he's grown from this? No. Okay. I think he wants revenge. Oh, so you think he's going to go John Wick? Would he go after Anu? Wow. That would be a power move. I mean, I wouldn't put it past this guy. Okay, so Mary Lane thinks that it's sort of revenge mission. I mean, to be honest, if he did go for a revenge mission, that would probably be the most coherent structural journey thing he's done so far in the story. So maybe he doesn't. But coherently, he'd go for revenge.
18:38Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Okay. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, you're right that there's no growth in that he then, instead of being like, I should be less horrible and calm down, he becomes really anxious about death. And he embarks on this new quest to attain immortality. So it's quite a self-involved, anxious reaction. Okay, so he goes on a quest for immortality. Yes, and he seeks out the wisdom from one of the sole survivors of the Great Flood, the only immortal living man. There is an immortal living woman alongside him that doesn't really get mentioned, unfortunately. She's just his wife. And bird. Pretty much. So he goes in search of a man called Uttanapishti, you know, in broad brushstrokes.
19:25The gods forgot, basically, to build death into human DNA. And so population just explodes. Really? Yeah, and it's just too loud. And they're like, we can't sleep. We've got to get rid of these people. So they decide to send down a deluge that will wipe out all life on Earth.
19:40Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:He's the lone survivor of the flood. And because his software doesn't have death built in, he's just living forever with his wife. Yeah, and Gilgamesh is like, he must know how to live forever. So I'm going to go find him so that I don't have to suffer the way Enkidu did. Gilgamesh is desperately trying to sort of get the secret of knowledge. Does he sink or swim in his quest to live forever? So Uttanapishti basically takes one look at him and says, you're on the wrong quest. He recounts the whole flood story, explains that Gilgamesh can't and shouldn't follow this path to immortality. And he challenges Gilgamesh to stay awake for seven nights.
20:16This conquering sleep is sort of like conquering death and Gilgamesh fails. And I think he wakes up to seven loaves of bread that have been baked each day just to prove. Just seven breakfasts that he hasn't eaten. Yeah, exactly. And so Uttana Pishti explains that eternal life is not an individual survival. It's not the survival of Enkidu. It's not Gilgamesh. It's not even his own survival, but the survival of the whole community. And because life can end in an instant, you should make the most of what time that you do. That's really beautiful. Yeah. Will Gilgamesh see the beauty in it?
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20:50Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:You're worried he's not going to learn. I'm going to throw a willy at someone else. It's a good point. Does our violent, sad king finally go, oh, I've been chasing the wrong thing all along? Nope. Gilgamesh, come on. I know. I think I don't remember it because I blocked it. You're just so disappointed in this guy. So relentless. He's just so refusing to grow as a person. Exactly. Not yet. Not yet. Okay. So Uttanapishti is like, well, okay, fine. There is something called the plant of heartbeat, which you can find at the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the ocean, basically. Right. In the Apsu, this sort of subterranean lake or freshwater source, which is a mythical source of kind of nourishment, of groundwater, but also of wisdom.
21:39So there's this connection between water, wisdom, and memory. This story is like Babylonian. So it's very, very far away from the Hittites. They had versions of it though So it traveled Because in Hattusli Is that right? Hattusha, yeah Hattusha, sorry Their capital There was the But beside it They called it like a liminal space Where they had this like Water going into this tunnel And they thought it was something to do With like a passage Into another realm Or that kind of wisdom Interesting Is an interpretation in archaeology Which is the classic We don't know We don't know Ritual
22:14Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Could be ritual Ritual Could be ritual Like that's where we washed our hands Yes So strike that from my notes. That's lovely. Yes, because the Hittites would come along later, I suppose. The Hittites are... They're around the same time. Yeah, and they are using cuneiform as well. So the myth does travel and they have versions of the Gilgamesh epic, although I don't know when they date, when they're dated. Yeah, they were like, he was three foot five. And his name was Stephen. Okay, so the water and wisdom, the kind of plant of heartbeat, Gilgamesh knows where to get it. Does he pop on his scuba gear and go diving?
22:51Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:He does, yeah. He ties these heavy stones to his feet and he goes and retrieves the plant of heartbeat. He does. Resurfaces and he takes a shower and a snake steals the plant of heartbeat. Oh, don't you hate it when that happens? It's like, yoink, goes straight over to Eden. It's like, yo, Eve. Try some of this apple. Where the apple come from? I mean, snakes are quite, you know, They're good and bad in mythology of ancient Mesopotamia. So they're ambiguous. It's a cheeky snake. It's a very cheeky snake. It's a yoink moment, as Mary Lynn said. Okay, so the snake has stolen his eternal life. Yeah.
23:26Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Gutting. Yeah. Does Gilgamesh now get the memo and go, okay, I'll give up on the whole living forever thing? At long last. Hooray! Personal development. Yes. Okay, Moody, tell us about Gilgamesh's personal growth. Yeah, so he finally returns to Uruk and we have this scene that reprises the very beginning of the myth. where he's looking, he's surveying the city, and he seems far more aware now of what's at stake. He looks at the different elements that make up the city, civilization, human life, and sees that it's more important than his own ego and individual success. And he is wiser. He finally brings that wisdom back to Uruk and will ideally incorporate it into how he rules.
24:07And this kind of personal growth narrative has led some scholars to call it wisdom literature, but who knows exactly. He kind of has everything. I would like to point out that he went through this adventure where he killed a special forest guardian. His best friend died. Killed a bull of heaven. Offended so many gods. Troubled all these different people. And it feels like when he got out of the city he just said, you know what guys, let's be peaceful. And the women of the city were like, this is what we said from day one. The women were like, we were always like, let's be peaceful.
24:41Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Yes. I do remember the end bit of the story was that the secrets that he learns is to build structures that stand for all time, have a lineage of offspring that carry on your bloodline and have great stories that are told forevermore. Yeah, so he writes his, you know, his quests down on a, I think it's a lapis lazuli tablet and he buries it somewhere in the wall and he says, someone will find this someday and remember me. me and lo and behold here we are remembering Gilgamesh. Because those walls of Uruk are still standing. They are yeah and they're like nine kilometres long and they're very thick and they're very real.
25:22Like I think archaeologists estimate 300 million bricks in this thing.
25:27Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:So he did it. Yeah. Eternal life. He nailed it. Did he build those walls before or after the adventure? Because it sounded like before he was working the men and the boys to the bone. I was going to say yeah. So once again, has he learned? Yes, my lasting memory is this thing where I forced everyone to do slave labour. We should talk about how the story of Gilgamesh, the epic of Gilgamesh, was rediscovered in modern times. This is how the ancient world understood it. This is how it was passed down through their generations. But I guess we then received it much later on. Could you talk us through the modern text's history?
25:59Yeah, so the first Akkadian texts were found in 1849 by Austin Henry Laird in Nineveh in the Library of Ashurbanipal. And these were ones that were copied down by scribes. And obviously, with the death of scribal training, no one copied them down anymore. So they just get buried. Once cuneiform was deciphered, parts of it got translated. And in the 1870s, a self-taught working class Londoner called George Smith, who was studying clay tablets at the British Museum, He was the first to translate the epic into English, producing a translation of this flood tablet, Tablet 11. That was quite an exciting discovery at the time.
26:35Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:And Mary Lane, George Smith, our working class self-taught Londoner, he was so thrilled to have produced this translation. How did he celebrate? Oh, did he do it Gilgamesh style? Or go on a killing spree. Oh, no, he didn't have too much to drink, did he? He certainly let go of his inhibitions Oh no, did he just like an enki-do and get naked and run through Covent Garden? He literally did Really? Really? He ran naked through the British Museum That's right, yeah Stripped off his clothes and just ran screaming naked through shouting I did it! I did it! That might be the one I'd have got right this whole time And it was a total stab in the dark The Nuance Window
27:23Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Time now for the nuance window. This is the part of the show where Mary-Lane and I sit silently to contemplate our mortality for two minutes while Dr Moody regales us with something we need to know about the epic of Gilgamesh. My stopwatch is ready, so take it away, Dr Moody. The epic of Gilgamesh has meant and will mean different things to me throughout my life. It's about power, grief, community, death, love. But right now, as we watch one interconnected crisis after another unfold, I want to tell you what I think it could mean in this moment. Khumbaba was the guardian of the cedar forest, appointed by the god Enlil to keep the ancient cedars safe.
27:56He had the face of a raging lion. He breathed fire. His cry was a deluge. In ancient Mesopotamia, people sometimes used sheep entrails to predict the future. And one omen says that intestines shaped like Khumbaba's face foretell the arrival of a usurper king. Imagine the face of this monster, like the coiled intestines of a dying animal. Slippery, bloody. palpitating. I used to wonder why create such a terrifying creature to guard trees. Like many of you, I bear witness daily to the destruction of a once thriving world, to line the pockets of a handful of people with already full pockets. It has helped me understand the mythology of Chumbaba.
28:34But the Gilgamesh who slayed Chumbaba and chopped down trees as tall as the sky was not the same broken man who clawed his way to Uttanapishti, the oldest man in the world. He was looking for the key to eternal life, but he found instead a lesson in how to live. I think the crux of Utena Pishti's message is this. Instead of trying to live impossibly long lives, let us do more with the short time that we have. For Gilgamesh, this means acting as a shepherd to the people in his care, and by extension the places they rely on. When he returns to Uruk and surveys the city, he sees people's homes, the date orchards, the clay pits, and the temple which represent domestic life, agriculture, crafts, and religion.
29:12This is worth fighting for, he realizes. The survival of each successive generation confers immortality on the whole. Our well-being is tied to the well-being of those around us, and to the places that sustain us, to the waters that give us life, to the trees that give us air, the land that Khumbaba gave his life to guard. I think there is a timeless lesson in these 12 tablets and their unexpectedly flawed hero. Selfish, cowardly, violent, vulnerable, relentless and eventually enlightened. What are the chances that this story has survived from its earliest oral tellings to a fragmentary translation over 4 ,000 years later?
29:47And what are the chances that it might contain just the call to survival, community and care that we need?
29:52Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Amazing. Beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you. So nice. It's such a nice way to take a message while making it hopeful. I think that's what I need is hope. Yeah, I think so too. I hope so anyway. Yeah, absolutely. You definitely need more of the humanity and less of the monsters. Well, thank you so much, Mary-Elaine. Thank you so much, Dr Moody. And listener, if you want more ancient history with Dr Moody, check out our episodes on the Babylonians and the one on the history of Cuneiform, which people loved. People really, really loved that episode. It's one of our most popular ever. That's amazing.
30:22Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:It's lovely. For more epic myths, we've got one on King Arthur, of course. And for more Mary-Elaine, we have the episode on Robert Bruce. Not Robert the Bruce. If you enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with friends. Subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds to hear new episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. And yeah, I'd just like to say a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner. We have the magnificent Dr Moody Al-Rashid from the University of Oxford. Thank you, Moody. Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure. And in Comedy Corner, we have the marvellous Marie-Elaine Robertson.
30:49Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Thank you, Marie-Elaine. Cheers very much. Thank you. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we delve into another dramatic historical epic. But for now, I'm off to go and grab a mate to help me beat up a tree. Bye.
31:08Do the wonder products that you see on your social media and supermarket shelves really deliver on their bold claims? Dehumidifiers.
31:16Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid:Standing discs. Nail polish. From supplements claiming to boost your mind and body. I've seen so many claims about creatine. To fake tans promising a safe, streak-free glow. I really like it. I'm Greg Foots and my BBC Radio 4 show Sliced Bread is back to separate more science fact from marketing fiction. I would tend to lean towards it being a positive. All our suggestions come from your emails or voice notes, even if you're a bit under the weather. Hello Greg, I want to know about cough mixture. I'm finding out the answers in my new series of Sliced Bread, available first on BBC Sounds.
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32:41So cut the bull spend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a 250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash broadcast. That's linkedin.com slash broadcast. Terms and conditions apply.
33:23Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
From the publisher
Greg Jenner is joined in the ancient world by Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid and comedian Marjolein Robertson to learn all about the famous Mesopotamian poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Sumerian poems about a legendary king called Gilgamesh began to be composed sometime in the third millennium, and were told and retold throughout Mesopotamia until a Babylonian scholar named Sîn-leqi-unninni wrote down what has become the standard version. The tale he recorded tells of a tyrannical king of Uruk, Gilgamesh, and the transformative journey he takes with his enemy-turned-friend (and possibly more), Enkidu. In the 3100 lines of the poem, they fight forest guardians and celestial bulls, anger the gods, and even challenge death itself.
In this episode, we retell the story of Gilgamesh, exploring the history of the epic’s composition, what it tells us about ancient Mesopotamian storytelling and beliefs, and how it was rediscovered in the nineteenth century, written in cuneiform on clay tablets housed in the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. We also look at the themes of companionship, community and environmental protection that are still relevant today, and ask the question: is Gilgamesh just a legend, or was he based on a real king?
This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.
Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Katharine Russell Written by: Katharine Russell, Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Dr Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Gill Huggett Senior Producer: Dr Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: Philip Sellars
