An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic

An Old Babylonian Version of
the Gilgamesh
by Anonymous,
Edited by Morris Jastrow,
Translated by Albert T. Clay

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Gilgamesh
Epic, by Anonymous, Edited by Morris Jastrow, Translated by Albert T.
Clay
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Title: An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic
Author: Anonymous
Editor: Morris Jastrow
Release Date: July 4, 2006 [eBook #11000]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OLD
BABYLONIAN VERSION OF THE GILGAMESH EPIC***
This eBook was produced by Jeroen Hellingman.

Yale Oriental Series
Researches
Volume IV

Part III
Published from the fund given to the university in memory of Mary
Stevens Hammond

Yale Oriental Series. Researches, Volume IV, 3.
An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic
On the Basis of Recently Discovered Texts
By
Morris Jastrow Jr., Ph.D., LL.D. Professor of Semitic Languages,
University of Pennsylvania
And
Albert T. Clay, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D. Professor of Assyriology and
Babylonian Literature, Yale University

Copyright, 1920, by Yale University Press

In Memory of William Max Müller (1863-1919) Whose life was
devoted to Egyptological research which he greatly enriched by many
contributions

PREFATORY NOTE
The Introduction, the Commentary to the two tablets, and the Appendix,
are by Professor Jastrow, and for these he assumes the sole
responsibility. The text of the Yale tablet is by Professor Clay. The
transliteration and the translation of the two tablets represent the joint
work of the two authors. In the transliteration of the two tablets, C. E.
Keiser's "System of Accentuation for Sumero-Akkadian signs" (Yale
Oriental Researches--VOL. IX, Appendix, New Haven, 1919) has been
followed.

INTRODUCTION.
I.
The Gilgamesh Epic is the most notable literary product of Babylonia
as yet discovered in the mounds of Mesopotamia. It recounts the
exploits and adventures of a favorite hero, and in its final form covers
twelve tablets, each tablet consisting of six columns (three on the
obverse and three on the reverse) of about 50 lines for each column, or
a total of about 3600 lines. Of this total, however, barely more than
one-half has been found among the remains of the great collection of
cuneiform tablets gathered by King Ashurbanapal (668-626 B.C.) in his
palace at Nineveh, and discovered by Layard in 1854 [1] in the course
of his excavations of the mound Kouyunjik (opposite Mosul). The
fragments of the epic painfully gathered--chiefly by George
Smith--from the circa 30,000 tablets and bits of tablets brought to the
British Museum were published in model form by Professor Paul Haupt;

[2] and that edition still remains the primary source for our study of the
Epic.
For the sake of convenience we may call the form of the Epic in the
fragments from the library of Ashurbanapal the Assyrian version,
though like most of the literary productions in the library it not only
reverts to a Babylonian original, but represents a late copy of a much
older original. The absence of any reference to Assyria in the fragments
recovered justifies us in assuming that the Assyrian version received its
present form in Babylonia, perhaps in Erech; though it is of course
possible that some of the late features, particularly the elaboration of
the teachings of the theologians or schoolmen in the eleventh and
twelfth tablets, may have been produced at least in part under Assyrian
influence. A definite indication that the Gilgamesh Epic reverts to a
period earlier than Hammurabi (or Hammurawi) [3] i.e., beyond 2000
B. C., was furnished by the publication of a text clearly belonging to
the first Babylonian dynasty (of which Hammurabi was the sixth
member) in CT. VI, 5; which text Zimmern [4] recognized as a part of
the tale of Atra-hasis, one of the names given to the survivor of the
deluge, recounted on the eleventh tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic. [5]
This was confirmed by the discovery [6] of a fragment of the deluge
story dated in the eleventh year of Ammisaduka, i.e., c. 1967 B.C. In
this text, likewise, the name of the deluge hero appears as Atra-hasis
(col. VIII, 4). [7] But while these two tablets do not belong to the
Gilgamesh Epic and merely introduce an episode which has also been
incorporated into the Epic, Dr. Bruno Meissner in 1902 published a
tablet, dating, as the writing and the internal evidence showed, from the
Hammurabi period, which undoubtedly is a portion of what by way of
distinction we may call an old Babylonian version. [8] It was picked up
by Dr. Meissner at a dealer's