Quem Criou Gilgamesh?

Os feitos de Gilgamesh, rei de Uruk, na antiga Mesopotâmia, foram cantados por dois mil anos até que um grande incêndio, em 612 a.C. devastou a biblioteca de Nínive, que guardava os registros escritos. Sem eles, o nome de Gilgamesh foi sendo pouco a pouco esquecido até desaparecer completamente. Desapareceram, também, os registros das sociedades que povoaram a Mesopotâmia e regiões vizinhas, e com eles, o passado do Oriente Próximo.

A biblioteca desapareceu em 612 a.C. quando uma coligação de babilônios, citas e medos invadiu e ocupou Nínive incendiando o palácio real. Os tabletes de argila ficaram parcialmente cozidos – processo que, paradoxalmente, ajudou a preservar a placas. Porém, os textos escritos em placas de cera, couro e papiro foram perdidos para sempre.

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The Mesopotamian excavations of the 19th century literally changed world history because now it was understood that the Bible was not the oldest book in the world, that civilizations had flourished for thousands of years before the biblical date of the creation of the world, and these civilizations had actually created many of the technologies, innovations, belief structures, and literary genres which had been ascribed to later peoples.

Composed in the second millennium B.C., the Epic of Gilgamesh recounts the futile quest by its eponymous hero to find immortality. Along the way, he encounters gods and monsters, and hears an account of a flood strikingly similar to that of the later story told in the Bible:

In August 1876, during his third trip to the region, Smith fell ill with dysentery while in Syria. His assistant prepared him a mule-drawn litter to carry him to Aleppo, but the medical help he so desperately needed came too late. The man whose quiet scholarship had convulsed Assyriology and biblical studies, and whose discoveries would inspire the great archaeological digs of the next century, died in the Syrian city at just age 36.

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At that time, European antiquarian societies, museums, governments, and other institutions sent archaeologists to Mesopotamia in the interests of finding physical evidence which would corroborate narratives in the Bible. Since Mesopotamian sites and kings were so frequently mentioned throughout the Old Testament, it was thought that a concerted effort in excavation would prove the narratives true. This was especially important at this time as Darwin's work had been gaining in popularity since its publication in 1859 and people were questioning the historical reliability and authority of the Bible.

In order to make his name immortal, Gilgamesh suggests they travel to the Cedar Forest to kill the monster-demon Humbaba ('demon' understood as 'supernatural entity', not an evil spirit). Humbaba has done nothing wrong and is favored by the gods for his protection of the forest, but this means nothing to Gilgamesh, who is only thinking of himself. Once the two friends have defeated Humbaba, he cries out for mercy, but Enkidu encourages Gilgamesh to kill him, which he does.

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Smith’s archaeological career proceeded rapidly; only days into his excavation at Nineveh he stumbled on missing lines from the account of the flood. Later that year, the discovery of other fragments enabled Smith to start filling in the blanks.

“I loaded into her [the boat] all that I had of gold and of living things, my family, my kin, the beast of the field . . . For six days and six nights . . . tempest and flood raged like warring hosts. When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided. . . . I looked at the face of the world and there was silence, all mankind was turned to clay . . . but fourteen leagues distant there appeared a mountain, and there the boat grounded; on the mountain of Nizir the boat held fast.” (English version by N. K. Sandars)

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Siduri directs him to the ferryman Urshanabi, who takes him across the waters of death to the home of Utnapishtim and his wife. Utnapishtim tells him that there is nothing he can do for him. He was granted immortality by the gods, he says, and has no power to do the same for Gilgamesh. Even so, he offers the king two chances at eternal life. First, he must show himself worthy by staying awake for six days and nights, which he fails at, and then he is given a magic plant which, in a moment of carelessness, he leaves on the shore while he bathes, and it is eaten by a snake. Having failed in his quest, he has Urshanabi bring him back to Uruk, where he writes down his story on the city's walls.

These tales represent him as a great hero, and the historical king was eventually accorded completely divine status as a god. He was regularly depicted as the brother of Inanna, one of the most popular goddesses in all of Mesopotamia. Prayers found inscribed on clay tablets address Gilgamesh in the afterlife as a judge in the Underworld comparable in wisdom to the famous Greek afterlife judges, Rhadamanthus, Minos, and Aeacus.

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As Smith amassed all these pieces, a poem began to take shape. Now known as the Epic of Gilgamesh, this work was totally new to scholars. Believed to have been composed around 1800 B.C., it is one of the world’s oldest great literary works. It tells the story of the demigod Gilgamesh who, among other adventures, embarks on a quest for immortality, during which he hears the story of a great flood that wiped out humanity. In the 1870s Smith published his translations of the work in several books—most notably in The Chaldean Account of Genesis.

At age 14 Smith left formal schooling and became an apprentice in a publishing house that specialized in intricate engravings for banknotes. The work required close attention to visual details and patterns, a skill Smith picked up on the job and which would serve him well later.

While Gilgamesh could, and did, perform many great feats, he could not finally realize his greatest desire to conquer death, to live eternally – or could he?

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They informed Sir Henry Rawlinson, the foremost cuneiform scholar of the time, of their talented lunchtime visitor. Rawlinson, who had worked with Layard at Nineveh, met Smith and was impressed by his abilities. Smith proved particularly adept at spotting which fragment fitted where when faced with a table strewn with shattered clay tablets.

The author of the epic is Shin-Leqi-Unninni (whose name translates as `Moon god, accept my plea') a Babylonian scribe who wrote c. 1300-1000 BCE and has been cited as the first author in the world known by name even though that honor is rightly accorded to the poet-priestess Enheduanna (l. 2285-2250 BCE), daughter of Sargon of Akkad (r. 2334-2279 BCE). Orientalist Samuel Noah Kramer points out that Shin-Leqi-Unninni did far more than simply translate and copy an earlier Sumerian work, he created something wholly new from older sources and this "something new" was the heroic epic (Sumer, 270). According to the scholar N.K. Sandars, the work is “the finest surviving epic poem from any period until the appearance of Homer's Iliad; and it is immeasurably older”(Sandars, 7).

“I loaded into her [the boat] all that I had of gold and of living things, my family, my kin, the beast of the field . . . For six days and six nights . . . tempest and flood raged like warring hosts. When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided. . . . I looked at the face of the world and there was silence, all mankind was turned to clay . . . but fourteen leagues distant there appeared a mountain, and there the boat grounded; on the mountain of Nizir the boat held fast.” (English version by N. K. Sandars)

Jogos para dinamizar suas aulas de História (ou outra disciplina)

Following the battle of the Cedar Forest in which they defeat the demon-monster Humbaba (demon to be understood as supernatural, not evil) and, soon after, the Bull of Heaven (insulting the goddess Inanna-Ishtar along the way) the gods decree the death of Enkidu, claiming that someone must pay the blood price for such deeds. Humbaba was innocent of any wrong-doing and was loved by the gods and the Bull of Heaven was the husband of the underworld goddess Ereshkigal. Neither deserved the death given them by Enkidu. Enkidu dies and, in that moment, Gilgamesh realizes that he, too, will die and this knowledge torments him. He cries out:

Ao se verem, os dois se estranham, medem força e lutam ferozmente. Enkidu faz Gilgamesh ajoelhar-se ou perder o equilíbrio e cair. Em outra interpretação, Gilgamesh acaba derrubando Enkidu. Seja como for, a luta termina empatada, os dois se abraçam e selam sua amizade.

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This magnificent poem, which deals with such eternal human problems as sickness, old age, death, fame and the craving for the unattainable, can be considered a metaphor for Mesopotamia's own heroic struggle to resist decay and leave a name for itself among the peoples of Earth. (16)

Archaeological finds of letters and inscriptions attesting to his deeds, and those of his son, provide no reason to doubt such a man existed. In 2003, in fact, a team of archaeologists claimed to have found Gilgamesh's tomb in the old riverbed of the Euphrates.