The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamish

Description

The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamish by E. A. Wallis Budge was first published in 1929. This book includes both the earliest known telling of the great flood, which pre-dates any Christian reference to the flood story with Noah by thousands of years, and the story of the ancient Mesopotamian hero, Gilgamish. The epic poem regarding this tells the story of how Gilgamish mourns the loss of his friend Enkidu, and after coming to the realisation that he too is mortal, undertakes a journey to try and discover the secret to an eternal life. However, he eventually learns that "Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands." The tablets these stories come from, date from as early as the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2100 BC). The Old Babylonian tablets (c. 1800 BC), are the earliest surviving tablets for a single Epic of Gilgamesh narrative.

This book has 14,806 words, 29 pages in the PDF version, and was originally published in 1929.

Production notes: This ebook of The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamish was published by Global Grey on the 24th July 2018, and updated on the 19th February 2023. The artwork used for the cover is 'Deluge' - by Ivan Aivazovsky.