An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh?by Anonymous, Edited by Morris Jastrow, Translated by Albert T. Clay
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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 M��ller (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 shop in Bagdad and acquired for the Berlin Museum. The tablet consists of four columns (two on the obverse and two on the reverse) and deals with the hero's wanderings in search of a cure from disease
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