Epic of Gilgamesh Text #
The Epic of Gilgamesh is putatively one of the earliest form of literature extant. He was an historical king of Uruk in Babylonia, on the River Euphrates in today’s Iraq; he lived about 2700 B.C. Discovered in the late 19th C., The Epic of Gilgamesh is a narrative tale about the friendship between the King of Ur and Enkidu, a feral human raised in the wild.
Excavations of ancient sites proved to be valuable. More @:
https://nebo-lit.com/history/excavations.html
There are many versions and interpretations of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The oldest is believed to be the Akkadian one, followed by a Sumerian and then a later Babylonian version. All are fragments with missing lines.
Michael Schmidt, Princeton U. stresses that Gilgamesh is an alien text. The shards of the poem, found on scattered clay tablets around the Middle East cannot be forced into a coherent or familiar narrative that allows easy identification with King Gilgamesh and his unlikely friend, the wild man Enkidu.
Schmidt encourages us to see “Gilgamesh” not as a finished, polished composition—a literary epic, like the Aeneid, which is what many people would like it to be—but, rather, something more like life, untidy, ambiguous. Only by reading it that way, he thinks, will we get close to its hard, nubbly heart.
The following is based on a lecture by Andrew George, Professor of Babylonian, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
M. L. West has shown that some aspects of the story of Achilles in the Iliad reveal very suggestive parallels with the story of Gilgamesh (1997: 334– 47).
For example, both Achilles and Gilgamesh have a divine mother;
A common element is the recording of The Flood or The Deluge common to most ancient mythology.
Prologue - Tablet I lines 1 - 10 #
He who saw the Deep, the country’s foundation,
Who knew the proper ways, was wise in all matters,
Gilgamesh, who saw the Deep, the country’s foundation,
Who knew the proper ways, was wise in all matters,
He explored everywhere the seats of power,
And learnt of everything the sum of wisdom,
He saw what was secret, discovered what was hidden,
He brought back a tale of before the flood.
He came a far road, was weary, found peace
And all his labours were set on a tablet of stone.
Gilgamesh, who lived before 2500 BCE, became deified after he died with a number of variant sources making him into an Epic hero. It was his legendary greatness that gave rise to his heroic deeds being recorded some 1000 years after he had died. While valorised, the author: Shin-eqi-unninni, portrays a complicated flawed larger than life man in all his travail. Is it a true representation of the human condition?
Great men build great monuments to be remembered. Uruk had huge walls surrounding about 8 square miles of city to protect the inhabitants. Its ruins are still there today, almost 5000 years later. But Gilgamesh is well known today because several people took the time to record his life on clay tablets.
Recorded history or song is more durable than stone, a fact noted by Juvenal:
“a name that might/ Cling to the stones that guard their ashes, those stones the barren/ Fig tree’s malicious strength is capable of shattering,” Satire X The Rewards of Fame and Eloquence. 166 - 168.
Prologue End Tablet I lines 18 – 28 #
Climb Uruk’s wall and walk back and forth!
Survey its foundations, examine the brickwork
Were its bricks not fired in an oven?
Did seven sages not lay its foundations?
A square mile is city, a square mile is a date grove,
Half A square mile the temple. A square mile is clay-pit
A square mile is the Temple of Istar,
three square miles and a half is Uruk’s expanse.
See: https://nathangoldwag.wordpress.com/2021/08/15/forever-we-marvel-at-the-walls-of-uruk/
See the tablet – box of cedar;
Release its clasp of bronze,
Lift the lid of its secret,
Pick up the tablet of lapis lazuli and read out
The travails of Gilgamesh and all that he went through.
See: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_K-3375
Gilgamesh, a super hero, 2/3 god and 1/3 man, (11 cubits - 17 feet tall and 4 cubits from nipple to nipple). Other sources give credence to the existence of giants. The cyclops of Greek myths, and David and Goliath are other examples.
When the gods created Gilgamesh they gave him a perfect body. Shamash the glorious sun endowed him with beauty, Adad the god of the storm endowed him with courage, the great gods made his beauty perfect, surpassing all others, terrifying like a great wild bull. Two thirds they made him god and one third man.
In Uruk he built walls, a great rampart, and the temple of blessed Eanna for the god of the firmament Anu, and for Ishtar the goddess of love.
Gilgamesh, corrupted by his power, became an abusive oppressive tyrant. He insists on the droit du seigneur: he, not the groom, spends the wedding night with the bride.
GILGAMESH went abroad in the world, but he met with none who could withstand his arms till be came to Uruk. But the men of Uruk muttered in their houses,
‘Gilgamesh sounds the tocsin for his amusement, his arrogance has no bounds by day or night. No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them all, even the children; yet the king should be a shepherd to his people. His lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior’s daughter nor the wife of the noble; yet this is the shepherd of the city, wise, comely, and resolute.'
The gods heard their lament, the gods of heaven cried to the Lord of Uruk, to Anu the god of Uruk:
‘A goddess made him, strong as a savage bull, none can withstand his arms. No son is left with his father, for Gilgamesh takes them all; and is this the king, the shepherd of his people? His lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior’s daughter nor the wife of the noble. When Anu had heard their lamentation the gods cried to Aruru, the goddess of creation,
‘You made him, O Aruru; now create his equal; let it be as like him as his own reflection, his second self; stormy heart for stormy heart. Let them contend together and leave Uruk in quiet.'
So the goddess conceived an image in her mind, and it was of the stuff of Anu of the firmament. She dipped her hands in water and pinched off clay, she let it fall in the wilderness, and noble Enkidu was created. There was virtue in him of the god of war, of Ninurta himself. His body was rough, he had long hair like a woman’s; it waved like the hair of Nisaba, the goddess of corn. His body was covered with matted hair like Samugan’s, the god of cattle. He was innocent of mankind; he knew nothing of the cultivated land.
Enkidu ate grass in the hills with the gazelle and lurked with wild beasts at the water-holes; he had joy of the water with the herds of wild game.
The gods, listening to the complaints of his people send a priestess, the Goddess of Love, Shamhat, a sacred prostitute, to offer herself to Enkidu, the wild brutalised man, and they make love continuously for six days and seven nights. Enkidu is transformed by that experience, and becomes socialised, humanised and empathetic.
By becoming human, Enkidu loses something. He loses his kinship with the animals and the ability to be with them because they’re afraid of him after this experience.
The gods expect Enkidu to rein in Gilgamesh’s untrammelled power because of his great strength. They already recognised that the role of good leadership and governance was to rule in the general interests of wider community.
The seduction of Enkidu #
(Warning – Ancient Porn ?)
Shamshat unfashioned the cloth of her loins
She bared her sex and he took in her charms
She did not recoil, she took in his scent:
She spread her clothing and he lay upon her.
She did for the man the work of a woman,
His passion caressed and embraced her.
For six days and seven nights
Enkidu was erect, as he coupled with Shamhat.
When with her delights he was fully sated
He turned his gaze to his herd.
The gazelles saw Enkidu and started to run,
The beasts of the fields shied away from his presence.
It’s a kind of Anti-Garden of Eden story, where instead of sexuality being a fall, it’s an initiation into what it means to be human. It can also be seen as an indictment of civilised society and a demand for freedom from oppression and for equitable justice.
“Come,” said Shamhat, “let us go to Uruk, I will lead you to Gilgamesh, the mighty king… Every day is a festival in Uruk, with people singing and dancing in the streets, musicians playing their lyres and drums, the lovely priestesses standing before the temple of Ishtar, chatting and laughing, flushed with sexual joy, and ready to serve men’s pleasure in honour of the goddess, so that even old men are aroused from their beds.
You who are still so ignorant of life, I will show you Gilgamesh the mighty king, the hero destined for both joy and grief. You will stand before him and gaze with wonder, you will see how handsome, how virile he is, how his body pulses with erotic power. He’s even taller and stronger than you - so full of life-force that he needs no sleep.”
When Enkidu discovers Gilgamesh’s claim of “Jus Prima Nocta” the right of the King to sleep with all brides on their wedding night, he challenges it. When the fight ends in a draw, the two men, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become great friends and travel the world together.
Humbaba #
Visiting the Cedars of Lebanon, where they kill the Guardian of the Cedar Forest, the great demon, Humbaba the Terrible before cutting down some trees. The cedar was rafted down the river to build large gates for Gilgamesh’s city of Ur.
Humbaba
Humbaba, whose shout is the flood weapon, whose utterance is fire and whose Breath is death, can hear for a distance of sixty leagues through the forest. So who can penetrate his forest? Disability would seize anyone who penetrated his forest.
Later conquests of Noah and the Whale, Hercules and Medusa, Jason and Golden Fleece, Theseus and the Minotaur echo the supernatural feats of Epic Heroes in defying the gods.
Ishtar #
Once home from the Cedar forest of Lebanon, Gilgamesh bathes, puts on clean clothes, and shakes out his long hair. Seeing him, Ishtar, the goddess of love and war, is dazzled, and calls out to him, proposing marriage:
“Grant me your fruits, O grant me!” She will give him a chariot of lapis lazuli and gold, she says. His ewes will bear twins; his goats will bear triplets.
Inanna indeed did also propose marriage in the Sumerian composition.
Gilgamesh responds by inquiring how he would profit from marrying her.
You are a brazier that goes out in the cold, he tells her. You are a door that lets in the wind, a palace that collapses on top of its warriors, a water skin that leaks, a shoe that pinches the foot. The men that you loved: what became of them? One you turned into a frog, another into a wolf. No thanks, He says. (Homer’s Calypso?)
When Gilgamesh spurns the goddess, Ishtar, she begs her father, the sky-god Anu, to let her have the Bull of Heaven (Taurus) to wreak vengeance on Gilgamesh and his city. Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.
The Mourning Bride by William Congreve. (1697)
The motif of marriage proposal by a goddess or a female of high status who falls in love with a handsome male is also found in Greek literature. The closest parallel can be found in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: Aphrodite falls in love with Anchises, the beautiful Trojan hero, and proposes a marriage, promising a lavish dowry. Another example is the Nausikaa episode, where Nausikaa, looking at the cleaned Odysseus, wants to marry him (West 1997: 413). Book 5 of the Odyssey also comes to mind, where the goddess Kalypso orders Odysseus an immortal life by her side. Fumi Karahashi (University of Pennsylvania) and Carolina López-Ruiz (The Ohio State University)
Other examples include, Phaedra and Theseus, Potipher’s wife and Joseph, Bellerophon and Stheneboea (Anteia), Miss Havisham from Dickens Great Expectations Movie - Fatal Attraction, Allan Tudge and Rachael Miller.
Anu reluctantly gives in, and the Bull of Heaven is sent down into Uruk. Each time the bull breathes, its breath is so powerful that enormous abysses are opened up in the earth and hundreds of people fall through to their deaths. Working together again, Gilgamesh and Enkidu slay the mighty bull. Ishtar is enraged, but Enkidu begins to insult her, saying that she is next, that he and Gilgamesh will kill her next, and he rips one of the thighs off the bull and hurls it into her face.
Enkidu falls ill after having a set of ominous dreams; he finds out from the priests that he has been singled out for vengeance by the gods. The Chief Gods have met and have decided that someone should be punished for the killing of Humbaba and the killing of the Bull of Heaven, so of the two heroes, they decide Enkidu should pay the penalty. Enraged at the injustice of the decision, Enkidu curses the great Cedar Gate built from the wood of the Cedar Forest, and he curses the temple harlot, Shamhat, and the trapper, for introducing him to civilization. Shamhash reminds him that, even though his life has been short, he has enjoyed the fruits of civilization and known great happiness. Enkidu then blesses the harlot and the trapper.
So Enkidu lay stretched out before Gilgamesh; his tears ran down in streams and he said to Gilgamesh,
’ O my brother, so dear as you are to me, brother, yet they will take me from you.’ Again he said, I must sit down on the threshold of the dead and never again will I see my dear brother with my eyes.'
While Enkidu lay alone in his sickness he cursed the gate as though it was living flesh,
‘You there, wood of the gate, dull and insensible, witless, I searched for you over twenty leagues until I saw the towering cedar. There is no wood like you in our land. Seventy -two cubits high and twenty-four wide, the pivot and the ferrule and the jambs are perfect. A master craftsman from Nippur has made you; but O, if I had known the conclusion! If I had known that this was all the good that would come of it, I would have raised the axe and split you into little pieces and set up here a gate of wattle instead. Ah, if only some future king had brought you here, or some god- had fashioned you. Let him obliterate my name and write his own, and the curse fall on him instead of on Enkidu.'
With the first brightening of dawn Enkidu raised his head and wept before the Sun God, in the brilliance of the sunlight his tears streamed down.
‘Sun God, I beseech you, about that vile Trapper, that Trapper of nothing because of whom I was to catch less than my comrade; let him catch least, make his game scarce, make him feeble, taking the smaller of every share, let his quarry escape from his nets.'
When he had cursed the Trapper to his heart’s content he turned on the harlot. He was roused to curse her also.
‘As for you, woman, with a great curse I curse you! I will promise you a destiny to all eternity. My curse shall come on you soon and sudden. You shall be without a roof for your commerce, for you shall not keep house with other girls in the tavern, but do your business in places fouled by the vomit of the drunkard. Your hire will be potter’s earth, your thievings will be flung into the hovel, you will sit at the cross-roads in the dust of the potter’s quarter, you will make your bed on the dunghill at night, and by day take your stand in the wall’s shadow. Brambles and thorns will tear your feet, the drunk and the dry will strike your cheek and your mouth will ache. Let you be stripped of your purple dyes, for I too once in the wilderness with my wife had all the treasure I wished.'
When Shamash heard the words of Enkidu he called to him from heaven:
‘Enkidu, why are you cursing the woman, the mistress who taught you to eat bread fit for gods and drink wine of kings? She who put upon you a ‘magnificent garment, did she not give you glorious Gilgamesh for your companion, and has not Gilgamesh, your own brother, made you rest on a ‘royal bed and recline on a couch at his left hand? He has made the princes of the earth kiss your feet, and now all the people of Uruk lament and wail over you. When you are dead he will let his hair grow long for your sake, he will wear a lion’s pelt and wander through the desert.’
When Enkidu heard glorious Shamash his angry heart grew quiet, he called back the curse and said,
‘Woman, I promise you another destiny. The mouth which cursed you shall bless you! Kings, princes and nobles shall adore you. On your account a man though twelve miles off will clap his hand to his thigh and his hair will twitch. For you he will undo his belt and open his treasure and you shall have your desire; lapis lazuli, gold and’ carnelian from the heap in the treasury.
A ring for your hand and a robe shall be yours. The priest will lead you into the presence of the gods. On your account a wife, a mother of seven, was forsaken.'
Gilgamesh had peeled off his clothes, he listened to his words and wept quick tears, Gilgamesh listened and his tears flowed. He opened his mouth and spoke to Enkidu: ‘Who is there in strong-walled Uruk who has wisdom like this?
Strange things have been spoken, why does your heart speak strangely? The dream was marvellous but the terror was great; we must treasure the dream whatever the terror; for the dream has shown that misery comes at last to the healthy man, the end of life is sorrow.’ And Gilgamesh lamented, ‘Now I will pray to the great gods, for my friend had an ominous dream.'
This day on which Enkidu dreamed came to an end and be lay stricken with sickness. One whole day he lay on his bed and his suffering increased. He said to Gilgamesh, the friend on whose account he had left the wilderness, ‘Once I ran for you, for the water of life, and I now have nothing:’ A second day he lay on his bed and Gilgamesh watched over him but the sickness increased. A third day he lay on his bed, he called out to Gilgamesh, rousing him up. Now he was weak and his eyes were blind with weeping. Ten days he lay and his suffering increased, eleven and twelve days he lay on his bed of pain. Then he called to Gilgamesh,
‘My friend, the great goddess cursed me and I must die in shame. I shall not die like a man fallen in battle; I feared to fall, but happy is the man who falls in the battle, for I must die in shame.’
And Gilgamesh wept over Enkidu. With the first light of dawn he raised his voice and said to the counsellors of Uruk:
‘Hear me, great ones of Uruk,
I weep for Enkidu, my friend.
Bitterly moaning like a woman mourning
I weep for my brother.
O Enkidu, my brother,
You were the axe at my side,
My hand’s strength, the sword in my belt,
The shield before me,
A glorious robe, my fairest ornament;
An evil Fate has robbed me.
The wild ass and the gazelle
That were father and mother,
All long-tailed creatures that nourished you
Weep for you,
All the wild things of the plain and pastures;
The paths that you loved in the forest of cedars
Night and day murmur.
Let the great ones of strong-walled Uruk
Weep for you;
Let the finger of blessing
Be stretched out in mourning;
Enkidu, young brother. Hark,
There is an echo through all the country
Like a mother mourning.
Weep all the paths where we walked together;
And the beasts we hunted, the bear and hyena,
Tiger and panther, leopard and lion,
The stag and the ibex, the bull and the doe.
The river along whose banks we used to walk,
Weeps for you,
Ula of Elam and dear Euphrates
Where once we drew water for the water-skins.
The mountain we climbed where we slew the Watchman,
Weeps for you.
The warriors of strong-walled Uruk
Where the Bull of Heaven was killed,
Weep for you.
All the people of Eridu
Weep for you Enkidu.
Those who brought grain for your eating
Mourn for you now;
Who rubbed oil on your back
Mourn for you now;
Who poured beer for your drinking
Mourn for you now.
The harlot who anointed you with fragrant ointment
Laments for you now;
The women of the palace, who brought you a wife,
A chosen ring of good advice,
Lament for you now.
And the young men your brothers
As though they were women
Go long-haired in mourning.
What is this sleep which holds you now?
You are lost in the dark and cannot hear me.’
Gilgamesh is utterly devastated by the death of his friend Enkidu and lamented; six days and seven nights he wept for Enkidu, in a vigil over the corpse, until the worm fastened on him. When a maggot crawls out of Enkidu’s corpse, Gilgamesh becomes aware that man is just matter - dead meat and that he too will some day die.
Now, with the death of Enkidu, everything changes. Gilgamesh sends up a great, torn-from-the-gut lament - a dirge - elegy:
“O my friend, wild ass on the run,
donkey of the uplands,
panther of the wild,”
may the Forest of Cedar grieve for you,
and the pure Euphrates.
First Statue #
He calls for his craftsmen—“Forgemaster! [Lapidary!] Coppersmith! Goldsmith!”—and orders Enkidu’s funerary monument:
“Your eyebrows shall be of lapis lazuli, your chest of gold.”
Enkidu’s death sends Gilgamesh into another journey to seek immortality. He lets his hair grow, dresses up in the skin of a lion and sets off for the mountains to see how he can avoid death.
when you have gone to the earth I will let my hair grow long for your sake, I will wander through the wilderness in the skin of a lion.'
First he goes to the mountain where the sun rises and sets. It is guarded by two scorpions. Gilgamesh explains to them that he is seeking Uta-napishti, the one man, he has heard, who became immortal. The scorpions grant him entry to a tunnel that the sun passes through each night. But if he wants to get through it he must outpace the sun. He starts out and, in utter, enfolding darkness, he runs. He can see nothing behind him or ahead of him. This goes on for hours and hours. In the end, he beats the sun narrowly, emerging into a garden where the fruits on the trees are jewels:
A carnelian tree was in fruit,
hung with bunches of grapes, lovely to look on.
A lapis lazuli tree bore foliage,
in full fruit and gorgeous to gaze on.
New Yorker, HOW TO READ “GILGAMESH” The heart of the world’s oldest long poem is found in its gaps and mysteries. By Joan Acocella October 7, 2019
‘For six days and seven nights the winds blew, torrent and tempest and flood overwhelmed the world, tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts.
UTNAPISHTIM said,
‘As for you, Gilgamesh, who will assemble the gods for your sake, so that you may find that life for which you are searching? But if you wish, come and put into the test: only prevail against sleep for six days and seven nights.'
The Wisdom of Utanapishti #
(The underworld) Corresponds to Noah and the Ark.
Man is snapped off like a reed in a canebrake
The comely young man, the pretty young woman
All too soon in their prime Death abducts them
*………. *(missing, or non existent?)
No one at all sees Death
No one at all sees the fact of Death
No one at all hears the rage of Death,
Death, so savage, who hacks men down.
Early civilisations put great store in omens. Order, justice could only be dispensed by the gods. Dissolution and dystrophy threatened all order, reverting to chaos. The cycles of nature gaurantee renewal or rebirth.
The Wisdom of Utanapishti: the Mayfly #
Tablet X lines 308 – 315
Ever do we build our households,
Ever do we make our nests,
Ever do brothers divide their inheritances,
Ever do feuds arise in the land.
Ever the river has risen and brought us the flood
The Mayfly floating on the water
On the face of the sun its countenance gazes,
Then all of a sudden nothing is there.
At the end of the World #
Advice of a woman he meets returning from the underworld.
Make merry each day,
Dance and play day and night
Let you clothes be clean
Let your head be washed, may you bathe in water!
Gaze on the little one who holds your hand,
Let a woman enjoy your repeated embraces.
Uta-napishti now tells Gilgamesh the story that made George Smith (first translator) take off his clothes. We might have done the same, for Uta-napishti’s tale is far more blood curdling than the one in the Old Testament. Like Noah, Uta-napishti was warned of the coming catastrophe, and he ordered an ark to be built. The bottom of the hull was one acre in area, with six decks raised on it. (And the vessel seems to have been cube-shaped!) Once the ark was finished, Uta-napishti and his family and all the animals he could lay his hands on, and whatever craftsmen he could summon, boarded the ark. (Joan Acocella)
The Deluge #
Many stories of the flood have survived-
the Sumerian Flood Story, 1690 BCE
the eleventh tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic, 2100 - 1400 BCE
the Atrahasis Epic.
The Egyptian 2181 - 2040
The Biblical 1450 BCE
Of these, the best known is Gilgamesh XI, which was one of the earliest cuneiform texts to be discovered and published. In 1872 George Smith read a paper called “The Chaldean Account of the Deluge” in which he presented fragments of the flood story from the Gilgamesh Epic. These fragments, dating from the seventh century B.C., were discovered in the library of King Ashurbanipal in Nineveh.
The God Errakal was uprooting the mooring poles
Minurra, passing by made the weirs overflow
The Auunnaki Gods carried torches of fires
Scorching the country with brilliant flashes
The stillness of the Storm God passed over the sky
And all that was bright, then turned into darkness.
The Epic gives us insights into the Cradle of Civilisation. Its Archetypes as Professor Wheel Wright explains in Metaphor and Reality (Indiana, 1962), are symbols which carry the same or very similar meanings for a large portion, if not all, of mankind.
For examples of Archetypes see:
The tale of the flood is meticulously recorded some 2000 years before the Hebrews record it. At times it talks about the one God, a precursor to monotheism. It records mankind’s longing for continuity, for living a good life through fostering justice by curbing the unlimited power some leaders crave.
Gilgamesh gives us a homily at the end. Make merry and enjoy the continuity of your children and grandchildren before you die.
End of the Poem #
Tablet XI lines 323 - 28
O Ur- Shanibi, Climb Uruk’s wall and walk back and forth!
Survey its foundations, examine the brickwork
Were its bricks not fired in an oven?
Did seven sages not lay its foundations?
A square mile is city,
a square mile is a date grove,
Half A square mile the temple of Istar.
A square mile is clay-pit,
three square miles and a half is Uruk’s expanse.
…
City - homes, family
Date Grove - food
Clay pits - industry
Temple - spiritual, intellectual
The seven sages were gods who came from the sea to teach humankind to cultivate the soil and make sure that the gods - by means of sacrifice - would receive their meals.
Conclusion #
The Epic of Gilgamesh illustrates enduring universal themes of the human condition. Both heroes go through hardship – the travail and pain of life. Both aspire to immortality, but the brevity of life is revealed to be that of an insect - the mayfly - whose existence is a mere blink in the scale of existence. In the search for meaning in life, the individual is insignificant – survival of the tribe, society, community or civilisation is paramount. When given the choice of who should prevail, the gods chose the King over Enkidu. The gods gave themselves eternal life; they gave us inescapable death. Such is the destiny of mortal men.
“No one at all sees Death,
no one at all sees the face [of Death,]
no one at all [hears] the voice of Death,
Death so savage, who hacks men down. . . .
Ever the river has risen and brought us the flood,
the mayfly floating on the water.
On the face of the sun its countenance gazes,
then all of a sudden nothing is there!”
Acknowledgements: #
My first toehold into the Epic tale was several references to it in Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion. Then in 2006, I heard Rachael Kohn on ABC Radio National interview a translator, Stephen Mitchell from Los Angelos. In 2019, I watched a fascinating online lecture by Professor Andrew George. You can watch it @ /www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd7MrGy_tEg
The fullest surviving version is derived from twelve stone tablets, in the Akkadian language, found in the ruins of the library of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria 669-633 B.C., at Nineveh. The library was destroyed by the Persians in 612 B.C., and all the tablets are damaged.
The tablets name an author: Shin-eqi-unninni (his name means “The moon god Sin hears my prayers”) - the second oldest known human author we can name by name! Somewhere between 1300 and 1000 BCE.
Edhenuuanna is likely the oldest, though recent digs appear to find others.
This summary is derived from several sources: translations, commentaries, and academic scholarship from sundried clay tablets discovered in 1839 in Iraq near Mosul. Germany, France, America and others have also looted the deserts and stolen valuable artifacts.
Over the past 50 years thousands of tablets have been meticulously unearthed by European archaeologists and painstakingly patched together and transcribed into French, German, Italian and English.
You will find several sources on the World Wide Web.
Lecture by Andrew George