When history, music, and world literature collide... The Epic of Gilgamesh is the great Sumerian/Babylonian poetic work which pre-dates Homer’s writing by 1500 years and, therefore, stands as the oldest piece of epic western literature. I read it in graduate school and loved it. What you hear in this video are a few of the opening lines of part of the epic poem, accompanied only by a long-neck, three-string, Sumerian lute known as a gish-gu-di. Gilgamesh was a king of Uruk, Mesopotamia, who lived sometime between 2800 and 2500 BC. He is the main character in the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian poem that is considered the first great work of literature. In the epic, Gilgamesh is a demigod of superhuman strength who built the city walls of Uruk to defend his people and travelled to meet the sage Utnapishtim, who survived the Great Deluge. According to the Sumerian King List, Gilgamesh ruled his city for 126 years. In the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh and his son Urlugal rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of Nippur. Im a nerd. This stuff makes me deliriously happy. https://youtube/watch?v=QUcTsFe1PVs&feature=youtu.be
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 01:44:01 +0000
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