An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic

Excerpt: ...just as in the Babylonian tale the woman who guides Enkidu is ḫarimtu, ?woman.? 109 ?And he drank and became drunk? (Genesis 9, 21). 110 ?His heart became glad and his face shone? (Pennsylvania Tablet, lines 100?101). 111 That in the combination of this Enkidu with tales of primitive man, inconsistent features should have been introduced, such as the union of Enkidu with the woman as the beginning of a higher life, whereas the presence of a hunter and his father shows that human society was already in existence, is characteristic of folk-tales, which are indifferent to details that may be contradictory to the general setting of the story. 112 Pennsylvania tablet, lines 102?104. 113 Line 105. 114 Tablet I, 1, 9. See also the reference to the wall of Erech as an ?old construction? of Gilgamesh, in the inscription of An-Am in the days of Sin-gamil (Hilprecht, Old Babylonian Inscriptions, I, No. 26. ) Cf IV R² 52, 3, 53. 115 The invariable designation in the Assyrian version as against Uruk ribîtim, ?Erech of the plazas,? in the old Babylonian version. 116 In Ungnad-Gressmann, Das Gilgamesch-Epos, p. 123 seq. 117 See Jensen, p. 266. Gilgamesh is addressed as ?judge,? as the one who inspects the divisions of the earth, precisely as Shamash is celebrated. In line 8 of the hymn in question, Gilgamesh is in fact addressed as Shamash. 118 The darkness is emphasized with each advance in the hero's wanderings (Tablet IX, col. 5). 119 This tale is again a nature myth, marking the change from the dry to the rainy season. The Deluge is an annual occurrence in the Euphrates Valley through the overflow 50n of the two rivers. Only the canal system, directing the overflow into the fields, changed the curse into a blessing. In contrast to the Deluge, we have in the Assyrian creation story the drying up of the primeval waters so that the earth makes its...