An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh EpicJastrow, Morris
General
An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic
Jastrow, Morris
Epic poetry, Assyro-Babylonian
Line 238. _mu-ti_ here cannot mean "husband," but "man" in general. See
above note to line 107. Langdon's strange misreading _ri-es-su_ for
_ri-es-ka_ ("thy head") leads him again to miss the point, namely
that Enkidu comforts his rival by telling him that he is destined for
a career above that of the ordinary man. He is to be more than a mere
prize fighter; he is to be a king, and no doubt in the ancient sense,
as the representative of the deity. This is indicated by the statement
that the kingship is decreed for him by Enlil. Similarly, Hu(m)baba or
Huwawa is designated by Enlil to inspire terror among men (Assyrian
version, Tablet IV, 5, 2 and 5), _i-sim-sú d_Enlil = Yale tablet,
l. 137, where this is to be supplied. This position accorded to Enlil
is an important index for the origin of the Epic, which is thus shown
to date from a period when the patron deity of Nippur was acknowledged
as the general head of the pantheon. This justifies us in going back
several centuries at least before Hammurabi for the beginning of
the Gilgamesh story. If it had originated in the Hammurabi period,
we should have had Marduk introduced instead of Enlil.
Line 242. As has been pointed out in the corrections to the text
(Appendix), _sú-tu-ur_ can only be III, 1, from _atâru_, "to be in
excess of." It is a pity that the balance of the line is broken off,
since this is the first instance of a colophon beginning with the
term in question. In some way _sutûr_ must indicate that the copy of
the text has been "enlarged." It is tempting to fill out the line
_sú-tu-ur e-li [duppi labiri]_, and to render "enlarged from an
original," as an indication of an independent recension of the Epic
in the Hammurabi period. All this, however, is purely conjectural,
and we must patiently hope for more tablets of the Old Babylonian
version to turn up. The chances are that some portions of the same
edition as the Yale and Pennsylvania tablets are in the hands of
dealers at present or have been sold to European museums. The war has
seriously interfered with the possibility of tracing the whereabouts
of groups of tablets that ought never to have been separated.
YALE TABLET.
TRANSLITERATION.
(About ten lines missing.)
Col. I.
.................. [ib]-ri(?)
[mi-im-ma(?) sá(?)]-kú-tu wa(?)-ak-rum
[am-mi-nim] ta-ah-si-ih
[an-ni]-a-am [e-pi]-sá-am
...... mi-im[-ma sá-kú-tu(?)]ma-
di-is
[am-mi]-nim [tah]-si-ih
[ur(?)]-ta-du-ú [a-na ki-i]s-tim
si-ip-ra-am it-[ta-sú]-ú i-na [nisê]
it-ta-ás-sú-ú-ma
i-pu-sú ru-hu-tam
.................. us-ta-di-nu
............................. bu
...............................
(About 17 lines missing.)
.............. nam-........
.................... u ib-[ri] .....
.............. ú-na-i-du ......
[zi-ik]-ra-am ú-[tí-ir]-ru
[a-na] ha-ri-[im]-tim
[i]-pu(?)-sú a-na sa-[ka]-pu-ti
Col. II.
(About eleven lines missing.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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