Epic of Gilgamesh (Radio Edit)

Pipsy podcast on suurin jälkeen. Aloita ilmainen kokeilushopi-faippiste komsi bustolla. Kärin kokeilushopi-faippiste komsi, kokeilushopi-faippiste komsi. 000 bucketshausteni on historiasta, ja Munut sheet on järjestelmiissä mu ἐisheryvän ja kən ihreiläräisyks羅a on necessary potsakastaro riflesme. 天ä Lustowejui on ne diskellaan pohjuva rotatea on his erkenn Fingerringinカメд 싶은 kuncila-amerik pagesin ja tutkustalen vuonna. San случае kymm獄 sellaisi etenntä foldsinstaasta %e tu procedures eller Ocebla Hol головin genera Serviceottavетrice puhöi ja syessembätyn o discovery want vasta Meraa asioita ja Τe Pole effective mutta oon demásan Tokki Ski Marke Robert The Bruce It's Marry Lane Robertson Welcome back Marry Lane Hey, thank you for having me back to teach me more stuff Marry Lane 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 Gilgamer but I did my dissertation on How has the imagery from the Epic of Gilgamer's changed according to different power struggles across Bronze Age and it was so bad that I almost failed my entire degree because of it and I thought "Ah, Gilgamer's, I remember this" and then I thought in my brain and I don't so watch really, but 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 be, it will also be like me bringing shame to university I don't know if I should even name the university I'm not at this point because when you said a bit I was like "I'd love to hear a bit this again" but I don't remember anything about it Okay, well we can fix that I remember Bronze Age So, what do you know? Okay, this is the "So what do you know?" This is where I have a go at guessing what you are I'm a lovely listener, might know about today's subject and you might have heard 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 Leaveshifax 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 playing out of luck because no one's done any kind of movies about Gilgamesh and it's very disappointing 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 marry a lens benefit although I'm sure you all come flooding 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 3,300 lines long but only about 24, 100 or 25, 100 remain compared to for example 15,000 in the Iliad It's written in Keneiform on 12 tablets and we have to remember that Keneiform was a script not a language used in ancient Mesopotamia which is the region between and around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and what is now Iraq, Syria and parts of Turkey which was home to a succession of civilizations like the Sumerians, the Acadians, the Syrians and Babylonians 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 3,000 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 all 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 Ura around 2100, 2000 BCE but it's probably older than that and 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 2000's 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 Seen Lechi Unini he named in a later literary catalogs 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, financial message, Hemiah where it's more like people are links in a chain in the life story of a story the tale itself, the story itself is more important than the author 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 Iraq? It wasn't Gilgamesh No, it wasn't his name? It was Bill Gamesh Bill Gamesh Yes! Oh, that's funny, it's Stephen! The boring question you probably get asked a lot 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 on what we would. He's referenced in what we would consider a semi-historical document which is called "We call it the Sumerian King List" basically a list of kings in southern. what is now southern Iraq, what we would call "Sumer" but 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? It's interesting. Moody, how does our story of Gilgamesh begin? Is it a. do we meet him in adulthood? Do we meet him as a king? We do, he's the tyrannical king of Iraq he exhausts the man and boys by forcing them to build a humongous wall which is real and 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 at university and the version I learned was he's lonely and needs a friend which makes me question what source I use but I'll tell you this when I did my course in Romans I used to use rotten Romans Did you? The horror of my history books? Yes, and my professor said how did you know of that because I used to come out with facts at the pressurton and I had to be like, "Cool." Very dairy, yeah. And do you know what I'm supposed to say? Okay, so he needs a friend or he needs an equal to sort of match him in the ring who is created or you know who is sent down to match or fight or play with Gilgamesh. So the gods create Enkidu from clay and divine blood. He's a wonderful 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 their animals. Yeah, so Gilgamesh learns about this when the hunters complain effectively. He learns about Enkidu from the complaint. So he's an animal rights activist. He's just like, "This guy's ruining my hunting." Okay, I'm gonna go sort him out. How do you think tyrannical Gilgamesh addresses this new threat? This is the one time I think I'll go 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 she's like, "I'd rather be with the humans than animals. And thus ends my knowledge." (Laughter) Beautifully put. And so it's what the radio for. So well done. Moody, I mean, Maryline did a very beautiful, elegant description. So who is the woman who is sent along? Yeah, so Gilgamesh sends a woman called Shamhat to seduce Enkidu effectively. And she's a tamer. or maybe a sex worker, a pre-stess of Ishtar. And afterwards, he comes to work 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 in a quest? We have this scene where Enki-Du is feeling sad. I'm keeping in mind that lots of bits are missing from the epic. We'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 Enki-Du is not so keen. They go on a quest, effectively, to kill the guardian of the Cedar Forest, Khumbaba. So Enki-Du and Gilgamesh, primarily, has killed an important forest guardian. What do you think of the repercussions for Gilgamesh having committed this crime? I just feel like Gilgamesh has shown no remorse so far. That I just don't seem shown no more now. Also, I feel like Gilgamesh, if he's really not, has had a real hand in rightness tail. So I'm like, Gilgamesh is not bad, but he's still a great. Oh. You think he authours his own quest narrative? For sure. Oh, okay. Minions start with a G. I defeat the forest monster. I don't know. Do they follow it? Does Enki-Du follow Gilgamesh? Well. I want Gilgamesh to grow and learn and go to therapy, like I was promised. But maybe they have to break up. Ah, well, that's how romcoms work. So is it a romcom, Moody? What happens next? Not quite. Although there is a third party who enters the game. 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 quite a. 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. But 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 bowl of heaven, which is the constellation tourist, Kill Gilgamesh. That's me. I'm tourist. Are you? Yeah. Okay, well, you might not like what happens next in this story then. Why? Well, because the bowl of heaven is sent down to Kill Gilgamesh. To Kill Gilgamesh. And Gilgamesh, he's not being punished for slaughtering the innocent forest guardian. He's being punished for rejecting a sex god. Yes. I feel like he's learned nothing. But he's going to fight now a celestial bowl. Mary Lane, how would you go about defeating a celestial bowl? You take it to a celestial abattoir in the heavens around killing time. Yeah. You mean going on the head. Okay. Spoken like a tree farmer. Yeah. Yeah. Moody, can you give us the gory details of the goring? Yes. So they work together essentially because the bowl of heaven is quite a destructive creature. And as he approaches or everything he does essentially ends up killing huge amounts of people every, you know, every time he breathes a huge gulf opens up in the ground and swallows people up, et cetera. And for memory, Enke you do grabs him and then Gilgamesh stabs him in the head between horns. So, you know, the bowl guns pretty accurate then. Yeah. Just sword in this one or blade of some kind. Okay. So, what's the first 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. I mean that feels like a very childish move. Yeah, yeah. Quite, it's quite the move. And then she's the goddess of like love and desire and stuff. Yeah. Very petty. It is. There's no growth here. No, no. It's a while for that to happen. So, I think I was right. He just learned anything. It was nothing. Okay. But to be honest, I suppose he and 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 Enke do? So the gods are pretty angry. I mean, they've built a whole constellation, which is bad. They sentence Enke do to death. And he actually dreams of being in the underworld. So why not Gilgamesh? Because Enke do's 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 is about to face the ultimate consequence in a way. Because Enke do 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, of him mourning. And some of it compares him to like a lioness. So there's like some women, like a woman mourning her cubs. I mean, a female mourning her cubs. So it's such a loss. He won't let them take the body away until a maggot crawls out of Enke do's nose and he's finally like, OK, yes, you are dead. And I have to let go. And he ranges this huge funeral and lists tons of gifts given in Enke do's memory. Wow. Gilgamesh has been punished by having the one thing he loves taken from him. Yeah. Mary Lane, what do you think Gilgamesh, a grieving Gilgamesh, does after the funeral? I mean, I still don't think he's learned it. You don't think he's grown from this? No. OK. I think he wants revenge. Oh, so you think he's going to go John Wick? Would you go after Anu? Wow. That would be a power move. I mean, I wouldn't put it past this. OK, so Mary Lane thinks that it's sort of revenge mission. He's going to-- I mean, do we want to say if he did go for revenge mission, that would probably be the most coherent structural journey thing he's done so far in this story. So maybe he doesn't. But currently, he'd go for revenge. OK. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, you're right that there's no growth in that he's then-- [LAUGHTER] --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-evident, anxious reaction. OK. So he goes on a quest for immortality. Yes. And he seeks out the wisdom from one of the soul survivors of the great flood, the only immortal living man. There is a immortal living woman alongside him that isn't really-- But she's not being mentioned, unfortunately. She's just-- She's just his wife. He is an end bird. Yeah. Pretty much. So he goes in search of a man called Utanapishdi, and broad brushstrokes. The gods for God, basically, to build death into human DNA. So population just explodes. [LAUGHTER] Really? Yeah, and it's just too loud. And they're like, we can't sleep. We got to get rid of these people. So they decide to send down a deluge that will wipe out all life on Earth. 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. Oh, yeah. So they don't have to suffer the way Enki do 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 Utanapishdi 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. Any challenges Gilgamesh to stay awake for seven nights. This 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 approved. Just seven breakfasts. He has an athena. Yeah. Exactly. And so Utanapishdi explains that eternal life is not an individual survival. It's not the survival of Enki do. 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. Ah. That's really beautiful. Yeah. Will Gilgamesh see the beauty? You're worried he's not going to learn. Will he throw a willy at someone else? It's a good point. Does our violence sad king finally go, oh, I've been chasing the wrong thing all along? Nope. Gilgamesh, come on. I know. So he's. I don't remember because I blocked it. It was just so pointed in this guy. Oralentless. He's just so refusing to grow as a person. Exactly. Not yet. Not yet. Okay. So Utanapishdi 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, in the apso with this sort of subterranean lake or freshwater source, which is a mythical source of kind of nourishment of groundwater, but also wisdom. So there's this connection between water, wisdom, and memory. This story is like Babylonian. So is that a very, very far away from the hetites? They had versions of it, though. So it traveled. Because in the hetite in Hattusili, is that right? Hattusha, yeah. Hattusha, sorry. They're capital. There was the. Beside it, they called it like a liminal space where they just like water going into this tunnel and they thought it was something to do with like a passage to the realm where that kind of wisdom. Interesting. Is an interpretation of archaeology, which is the classic, we don't know. Wait, I don't know. Richard, could be. Richard. Richard. Richard, I'm like, that's when he washed our hands. Yeah. So strike that from my notes. That's when I was lovely. Yeah. Yes, because the hetites would come along later, I suppose, the hetites are. They're around the same time. Yeah. And they are using kinereform as well. So the myth does travel and they have versions of the Gilgamesh. I think, although I don't know when they date when they're dated. Yeah, and 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 die? - How does, you know? - So yeah, he ties these heavy stones to his feet and he goes and retrieves the plants of heartbeat and then he does. - He does. - The resurfaces and he takes a shower and a snake steals the plant. - Oh, so you hide it when that happens. - It's like, yank goes straight over to Eden's like, you'll weave. (laughing) - I try to try some on this apple. - It is an apple. - The apple can probably go with it. - I mean snakes are quite, you know, they have good and bad in mythology of range of respiratory. - Sure. - So they're ambiguous. - It's a cheeky snake. - It's a very cheeky snake. - It's a yank moment, as Mary Lane said. Okay, so the snake is stolen his eternal life. - Yeah. - Gutting. - Yeah. - Does Gilgamesh now get the memo and go, okay, I'll give up on the whole living for everything. - At long last. - All right. 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 different elements that make up the city's civilization, human life, and sees that it's more important than his own ego and individual success. And he is, why is he finally brings that wisdom back to Uruk and will ideally incorporate it into how he rules? And this kind of personal growth narrative has led some scholars to call it wisdom literature, but who knows exactly, kind of has everything. - Oh. - I would like to put out that he went to his venture and when he killed special forest guardian, his best friend died, killed a boule 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. - Yes. - I do remember the end bit of the story was that the secrets that he learns is to build structures that sound for all time, have a lineage of offspring that carry on your bloodline and have great stories that are told forever more. - Yeah, sort of. He writes his quests down on a, I think it's a lapis lazily tablet and he buries it somewhere in the wall and he says, someone will find this someday and remember me and lo and behold here we are remembering Gilgamesh. - Because those walls of Uruk? - Yeah, we're still standing. They are, yeah. And they're very, they're like nine kilometers long and they're very thick and they're very real. Like I think archeologists estimate 300 million bricks in this thing. - So he did it. - Yeah. - It turned a life. He nailed it. - He built those walls before after the adventure because something like before he's working the men and the boys to the boat. - And it's gonna say yes. - So once again, has he learned. - Yes, my lasting memory is this thing where I forced everyone to play the label. - Yeah. - 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 history? - Yeah, so the first Akkadian text were found in 1849 by Austin Henry Leard and Nineveh and the Library of Usher Bonapal. And these were ones that were copied down by scribes and obviously with the death of scribal training or when copied them down anymore, so they just get buried. Once Kinneiform was deciphered, parts of it got translated 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. - 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. (laughing) - Did you do it Gilgamesh style? (laughing) - 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 let an Enky do and get naked and run through Calvin Garden? - He literally did. (laughing) - Really? Really? - He ran naked through the British Museum? - That's right, yeah. - George of his clothes and just ran screaming naked through Shouting, I did it, I did it. - That might be the 100 I've got right this whole time. It was a total stab in it, huh? - But you want to window? (upbeat music) - Time now for the new on to window. This is the part of the show where Mary Lane and I sit silent and need 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 Cedar safe. He had the face of a raging lion, he breathed fire. His cry was a deluge. In ancient Mesopotamia people sometimes used sheep and trails to predict the future. And one omen says that intestines shape like Khumbaba's face for tell 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 creates 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 handful of people with already full pockets. It has helped me understand the mythology of Khumbaba. But the Gilgamesh who slayed Khumbaba and chopped down trees as tall as the sky was not the same broken man who clawed his way to Utanapishti, 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 Utanapishti'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. This 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? And what are the chances that it might contain just the call to survival, community, and care that we need? - Amazing, beautiful. Thank you so much. - Thank you. - Thank you. - So nice. That's such a nice way to take a message while I make it hopeful. I think it's what I need is hope. - Yeah, I think so too. I hope so anyway. - Oh, yeah, absolutely. Definitely need more of the humanity and less of the monsters. Well, thank you so much, Mary Elaine. I 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 Kinea Form, which people love. People really love that episode, to one of our most popular ever. - That's amazing. - 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 your Dead To Me on BBC Sounds to hear new episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. And yeah, just like to say, huge thank you to our guests in History Corner. We have the magnificent Dr. Moody Arachid from University of Oxford. Thank you, Moody. - Thank you for having me. - Always a pleasure. And in Commonly Corner, we have the marvelous Mary Elaine Robertson. Thank you, Mary Elaine. - Cheers and anyway, 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. 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