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MEHMET-ALI ATAÇ
Abstract
The Epic of Gilgamesh has been interpreted by Th. Jacobsen and his followers pri-
marily as the story of a hero who struggles beyond his capacity to find immortal-
ity, gets disappointed, and finally faces the truth, maturing and turning to ‘normality’
on the premise that it is his achievements and not himself that will last. The present
paper challenges a literal reading of the plot of the Epic along these lines, and
through select comparison with the ancient Egyptian, ‘heterodox’ Hebrew, Ira-
nian, and Gnostic traditions, argues that the meaning system embedded in the
Epic can be thought to point to notions of ‘mysticism’ and ‘soteriology’, expressed
in a distinctively Mesopotamian idiom that suppresses an explicit display of such
concepts.
*
My sincere thanks to Irene J. Winter for reading an earlier version of the
manuscript and sending me critical comments and detailed edit suggestions, as
well as to an anonymous JANER referee for alerting me regarding a number of
philological matters that would have otherwise escaped my attention.
1
Some examples are Jacobsen 1930, idem., 1976: esp. 218-9; Foster 1984,
Abusch 1986, idem., 1993; Cooper 2002.
2
Tigay 1997: 46. The older poems of Gilgamesh (known as Bilgames in these
poems) in Sumerian are not the same as the later Standard Babylonian Version,
but ‘separate and individual tales without common themes. They were probably
part of a long-standing oral tradition and first committed to writing under the Third
Dynasty of Ur’ (George 1999: xix). To some extent, these poems were the source
of the later Standard Babylonian Version, which is the ‘classical Epic of Gilgamesh,’
so to speak (ibid., xv, xx). This Akkadian epic acquired its original shape in the
Old Babylonian Period (Tigay 1997: 41). Its final version ‘restructured the epi-
sodes, reworded the text extensively, and added supplementary material,’ but it is
closely related to its Old and Middle Babylonian forerunners and tells the same
story (ibid., 45). ‘This version became so widely accepted in the first millennium
that scribes were no longer able or willing to modify it in any substantial way’
(ibid.). On the Akkadian authors’ separating some of the themes of the Sumerian
poems from their original contexts and using them in the Akkadian epic in con-
structing a sequence of events, see ibid., 42.
3 Tablet XII of the Standard Babylonian ‘series of Gilgamesh’ is in fact a close
paraphrase in Akkadian of the latter half of one of the Bilgames poems in Sumerian.
Even though some have argued that Tablet XII had an indispensable place in the
Epic, most scholars would agree that the tablet was appended to the series ‘be-
cause it was plainly related material’ (George 1999: xxviii). According to Tigay,
the appendage of this tablet to the epic might be connected with the interest of
incantation priests, like Sîn-leqi-unnÌnnÊ, in Gilgamesh as ruler of the Netherworld
(Tigay 1997: 44).
4 In stating in a nutshell the main subject matter of the epic, Abusch writes: ‘It
is about nature, culture, the value of human achievements and their limitations,
friendship and love, separation and sorrow, life and death.’ (Abusch 1986: 143-4).
Abusch further indicates that in the Epic, man is addressed both as an individual
and as a social being (ibid., 144). See also Jacobsen 1976: 218-9, Foster 1984: e.g.
21-22, and Abusch 1993: e.g. 7 and 14. In his 1993 work Abusch particularly sees
the carpe diem advice of Siduri to Gilgamesh, contained in the Old Babylonian Version
of the Epic, as a suggestion that the hero should take up the normal life of a mortal
man who experiences the pleasures and bears the responsibilities of human family
and society (ibid., 14). More recently Cooper has written: ‘The Akkadian Gilgamesh
epic is about growing up, as Jacobsen came to believe, but Gilgamesh’s friendship
with Enkidu and his rejection of Ishtar were not part of a refusal to grow up, as
Jacobsen thought, but were important stages in the maturation process…’ (2002):
81-82.
5 See again Jacobsen 1976: 219 where the author writes: ‘The appearance of
Enkidu provides Gilgamesh with a ‘chum’ and allows him to remain in preadoles-
cence rather than moving on to a heterosexual relationship.’ Along similar lines,
Abusch interprets Gilgamesh’s encounter with the barmaid Siduri in the Old
Babylonian Version as Gilgamesh’s seeking in the barmaid a woman with whom
he can live and through whom he can attain immortality, to replace the dead friend
whom he grieved (Abusch 1993: 4). One can quote other opinions regarding the
relationship between the two heroes: ‘The tragedy of Enkidu begins with his at-
traction to the opposite sex, is joined by jealousy and revulsion for another of his
own sex, and is now sealed by his friendship with Gilgamesh, which has no sexual
basis at all’ (Foster 1984: 22); ‘The meaning of the dream, however, is clear from
its content. Gilgamesh sees an axe, with which he cohabits as with a woman; as
the axe is equivalent to Engidu, the dream cannot mean anything but that homo-
sexual intercourse is going to take place between Gilgamesh and the newcomer’
(Jacobsen 1930: 70). On an assessment of the suggested homoerotic connotations
in the epic, as well as the ‘evolution’ of Jacobsen’s ideas on the meaning of the
Epic, see Cooper 2002.
6 SV I 48 and IX 51.
7 Bamberger 1952: 15. Most of these books were composed in Hebrew or
Aramaic, and a few in Greek. ‘Some of these books were included in Greek manu-
scripts of the Bible, and thence were taken over by the Catholic Church as sacred
scripture’ (ibid., 15-16).
8 Filoramao 1990: 2; Couliano 1990: 29. The origins of Gnosticism are prac-
28ff; Filoramo 1990: 7ff. Part of the evidence for Gnosticism’s ancient origins should
come from disentangling the codes of ancient sources themselves, especially those
of Mesopotamia and Egypt, which scholars of Gnosticism so far have not dealt
with deeply.
9 SV I 65-93.
10 SV I 245-293.
11 For an analysis especially of the Sumerian text, see Sladek 1974.
12 On this myth, see Griffiths 1960; te Velde 1977; Parkinson 1995: esp. 70ff;
te Velde 2001.
translated by Foster as the ‘joy-woe man,’ which characterizes his state of being a
man of intense but agonizing emotions (Foster 1984: 29). The words are also trans-
lated as ‘joy-woe-man … i.e. of fickle mood’ in Black et al. 1999.
14 SV I 68, 72, 76 (George 1999: 3-4).
15 For a synoptic assessment of these theories with special emphasis on the hockey
game and the nature of Gilgamesh’s sexual association with the male and female
citizens of Uruk, see again Cooper 2002: 77ff.
16 SV I 92-93.
17 OB I vii; OB II i, vii; SV II iii, iv.
18 In the fragmentary texts preserved, it is not entirely clear how the apkallus
angered the gods. Erica Reiner writes: ‘It certainly seems as if the scribes deliber-
ately suppressed a cycle dealing with those human beings who, at one time or other
of history, and no doubt with the connivance of Ea, revolted against the gods and
‘brought down Iàtar from heaven into Eanna,’ or ‘aroused Adad’s anger’ by some
forgotten or perhaps unmentionable act, or ‘angered Ea’ through some form of
challenge which is still obscure to us, in spite of the three duplicates we now have
though texts do not specify what the hubris of the sages was, one can
think of how Gilgamesh is also a semi-divine figure who has supe-
rior wisdom, and posit that the apkallus also angered the gods on
account of an excessive manifestation of their super-human capacity.
As for the comparison outside the Mesopotamian tradition, it is the
‘apocryphal’ Book of Enoch where another group of semi-divine be-
ings, the Giants, who are the offsprings of fallen heavenly angels,
the ‘Watchers,’ and mortal women, are said to have brought wide-
spread slaughter, destruction, and moral corruption to the world.19
As is the case in both The Epic of Gilgamesh and that of Atrahasis, in
the Book of Enoch as well mankind complains to the ‘Most High’ for
release from their troubles, bringing about the destruction of the Giants
by means of the Flood.20 The story of these Giants’ presence on earth
is also alluded to in the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Genesis (6: 1-4)
in which the beney ha’elohim, sons of God, descend from heaven and
conjugally unite with the benot ha’adam, daughters of men.21 Even
of this allusion’ (1961: 11; for a transliteration and translation of the reverse of the
relevant bilingual text/tablet LKA No. 76, see ibid., 2ff). It is clear from the Poem
of Erra, however, that these antediluvian sages were relegated to the Apsû by Marduk:
‘I dispatched those (renowned) umm§nu(-sages) down into the Apsû: I did not or-
dain their coming up again’ (v. 147, Marduk speaking to Erra, Cagni [trans.] 1977:
32). It is noteworthy that in both the apkallu tradition and the Epic of Atrahasis, it is
Enki/Ea as the god of gnosis who encourages the initial generation of humanity to
be rebellious, as is especially clear in the latter work: ‘Enki made his voice heard
/ And spoke to his servant: / ‘Call the elders, the senior men! / Start [an upris-
ing] in your own house, / Let heralds proclaim … / Let them make a loud noise
in the land: / Do not revere your gods, / Do not pray to your goddesses, / But
search out the door of Namtara’ (OB I vii, Dalley [trans.] 2000: 19).
19 I Enoch 7-9, Black (trans.) 1985: 28-30; Reeves 1992: 67. ‘Then the giants
began to devour the flesh of men, and mankind began to become few upon the
earth; and as men perished from the earth, their voice went up to heaven: ‘Bring
our cause before the Most High, and our destruction before the glory of the Great
One’’ (I Enoch 8.4, Black [trans.] 1985: 29). One can compare one of the relevant
passages in the Epic of Atrahasis: ‘600 years, less than 600, passed, / And the coun-
try became too wide, the people too numerous. / The country was as noisy as a
bellowing bull. / The God grew restless at their racket, / Ellil had to listen to their
noise. / He addressed the great gods, / ‘The noise of mankind has become too
much, / I am losing sleep over their racket. / Give the order that àuruppû-disease
shall break out’ (OB I vii, Dalley [trans.] 2000: 18).
20 I Enoch 8-9, ibid., 29.
21 Reeves 1992: 68. ‘These (leaders) and all the rest (of the two hundred watchers)
took for themselves wives from all whom they chose; and they began to cohabit
with them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them sorcery and
spells and showed them the cutting of roots and herbs’ (I Enoch 7.1, Black [trans.]:
28); ‘When men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were
born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they
took to wife such of them as they chose’ (Genesis 6.1-2, Holy Bible. Revised Standard
Version).
22 Reeves 1992: 68.
23 ‘He will couple with the wife-to-be, / he first of all, the bridegroom after. /
By divine consent it is so ordained: / when his navel-cord was cut, for him she was
destined’ (OB II P 159-162, George [trans.] 1999: 15).
24 Jung 1974: 116.
25 Dalley 1997: 228.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 te Velde 2001: 269; on the sexuality of Seth, see also idem. 1977: 39ff and
Parkinson 1995: 65 ff. On the animosity between Horus and Seth, as well as that
between Osiris and Seth, see also Griffiths 1960.
30 On the complexity created by the co-extensiveness of Horus and Osiris as
see also Tobin 1993: 100. On Seth’s benevolent qualities notwithstanding his overall
negative reputation, see Griffiths 1980: 11.
35 Ibid.
36 te Velde 1977: 31.
37 Dumézil 1969: 68ff. One could especially compare Seth with the Greek hero
/ now fashion what Anu has thought of! / Let him be a match for the storm of his
heart, / let them vie with each other, so Uruk may be rested!’’ (SV I 94-98, George
1999: 4-5).
39 ‘The band of shepherds was gathered around him, / talking about him among
to lift it, but it is too heavy for him to handle. In relating this dream
to his mother, Gilgamesh says: ‘The stars of the heavens appeared
above me, / like a rock from the sky one fell down before me. / I
lifted it up, but it weighed too much for me, / I tried to roll it, but
I could not dislodge it.’41 As for the second object mentioned in the
second dream, it is an axe, and this time Gilgamesh is able to lift it,
and set it out at his mother’s feet: ‘[In a street] of Uruk-the-Town-
Square, / an axe was lying with a crowd gathered round. / The
land [of Uruk] was standing around it, / [the country was] gathered
about it. / A crowd was milling about before it, / [the menfolk were]
thronging around it. / I lifted it up and set it down at your feet.’42
Gilgamesh’s mother interprets these objects as manifestations of
a mighty comrade whom Gilgamesh will ‘love as a wife.’43 This image
of a wife has been understood in an early article by Jacobsen as an
indication of a homoerotic connection between Gilgamesh and
Enkidu.44 In fact, these prefigurations of Enkidu introduces at the
outset the paradoxical complementarity of the two heroes. If Gilgamesh
is superior to Enkidu, as most would agree, why is then Gilgamesh
the hyperactive oppressor of Uruk unable to lift the heavenly rock?45
Was not Enkidu, however, a primitive man, a lullû, made of clay?46
Clearly, in these dreams, especially in the first one, Gilgamesh en-
counters a special manifestation of Enkidu, a superior ineffable be-
ing of a heavenly nature which he cannot fully master.
Once again, we may turn to the ancient Egyptian myth of the
Contendings of Horus and Seth in relation to this particular episode in
The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Egyptian myth is preserved on a late twelfth-
will come to you, and be his friend’s saviour’ (SV I 267-268, George 1999: 10).
See also SV I 288ff.
44 Jacobsen 1930: 70. The change in Jacobsen’s interpretation of the relation-
ship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu in the author’s later years is noted by Coo-
per 2002: 74.
45 In fact, as noted by Foster, in the Old Babylonian Version Gilgamesh is
able to move the heavenly rock with the help of the young men of Uruk: ‘I tried
to bear it but it was too heavy for me, / I strained but I could not move it. / While
the land of Uruk was gathered around it, / The young men did it homage, / I
even bent my brow—/ They loaded me. / At last I could raise it and brought it
off to you’ (OB I P 8-14, Foster 1984: 26)
46 ‘The goddess Aruru, she washed her hands, / took a pinch of clay, threw it
down in the wild. / In the wild she created Enkidu, the hero, / offspring of si-
lence, knit strong by Ninurta’ (SV I 101-104, George 1999: 5).
the harlot! / When the herd comes down to the water-hole, / she should strip off
her raiment to reveal her charms. / He will see her, and will approach her, / his
herd will spurn him, though he grew up amongst it’ (SV I 162-166, George 1999:
7).
52 At the same time, however, research has also shown that a text from the
Kerényi: ‘Disorder belongs to the totality of life, and the spirit of this disorder is
the trickster. His function in an archaic society, or rather the function of his my-
thology, of the tales told about him, is to add disorder to order and so make a
whole, to render possible, within the fixed bounds of what is permitted, an expe-
rience of what is not permitted’ (Radin with commentaries by K. Kerényi and C.
G. Jung 1956: 185 cited in te Velde 1977: 56). Kerényi further called the trickster:
‘the spirit of disorder, the enemy of boundaries’ (ibid.). On Sophia as the female
trickster in Gnosticism, see Couliano 1992: 86.
54 The ‘abnormal’ erotic phenomena that characterized Greek heroes was
associated by Aristotle with the ‘melancholic syndrome.’ ‘The name of the syn-
drome is amor hereos or, Latinized, heroycus, as its etymology is still in doubt: it might
be derived from the Greek eros, corrupted heros (love), or directly from heros (hero),
for heroes represented, according to ancient tradition, evil aerial influences, simi-
lar to devils’ (Couliano 1987: 19). The medieval perception of this very phenom-
enon finds expression in a passage from St Hildegarde of Bingen’s Causae et curae
also quoted by Couliano: ‘Melancholics have big bones that contain little marrow,
like vipers… . They are excessively libidinous and, like donkeys, overdo it with
women. If they desisted from this depravity, madness would result… . Their love
is hateful, twisted and death-carrying, like the love of voracious wolves… . They
have intercourse with women but they hate them’ (ibid.). One can again remem-
ber from this standpoint Gilgamesh’s characterization as a ÉadÌ-å’a-am¿lu, ‘joy-woe
man’ in the Epic of Gilgamesh (SV I 234). Perhaps, what this rather obscure desig-
nation referes to is also an analogous understanding of melancholy that is both
exuberant and destructive. Finally, one can note how the Sumerian King List also
refers to Gilgamesh as the son of a lillû-demon: ‘divine Gilgames—/ his father
(was) a lillû demon / a high priest of Kullab / reigned 126 years’ (‘Critical Edition
of the Text,’ col. iii 17-20, Jacobsen 1973: 89).
55 Parkinson 1995: 67.
56 Ibid.
57 In one of the Nag Hammadi documents (NHC VI 2, 13, 16-22) she de-
clares: ‘I am the honored / and the despised. / I am the prostitute / and the re-
spectable woman’ (Rudolph 1983: 81).
58 Couliano 1992: 87. According to the cosmology of Gnosticism, which is a
modified version of the late antique cosmic system, the earth is at the center of the
cosmos, and is surrounded by the air and the eight heavenly spheres. These eight
spheres consist of those of the seven planets and the fixed stars which close them
off. Beyond them is the the realm of the ‘unknown God,’ the Pleroma, with its own
graduated worlds, aeons (Rudolph 1983: 67).
59 Rudolph 1983: 80.
60 Couliano 1992: 87. Ultimately, Sophia is saved and reintegrated into the
Pleroma (ibid., 71). Thus, she has a dual nature, on the one hand exclusively spiri-
tual, as she also takes part in the creation of man through the implanting of the
divine spark, and on the other lower and fallen.
61 Ibid., 83.
62 The opening verses of the Sumerian poem Inanna’s Descent read: ‘From the
‘great heaven’ she has set her mind on the ‘great below’ / From the ‘great heaven’
the goddess has [set] her mind on the ‘great below’ / [From] the ‘great heaven’
Inanna has [set] her mind [on the ‘great below’] / My mistress has abandoned
heaven, abandoned earth, and is descending to the netherworld / Inanna has
abandoned heaven, abandoned earth, and is descending to the netherworld’ (vv.
1-5, Sladek [trans.] 1974: 153).
63 SV III 121-124, George 1999: 27.
god, was set up a substitute. / Enkidu with his foot blocked the door of the wed-
ding house, / not allowing Gilgamesh to enter. / They seized each other at the
door of the wedding house, / in the street they joined combat, in the Square of
the Land’ (SV II 109-114, George 1999: 16).
66 ‘After he broke off from the fight, / said Enkidu to him, to Gilgamesh: / ‘As
one unique your mother bore you, / the wild cow of the fold, the goddess Ninsun!
/ High over warriors you are exalted, / to be king of the people Enlil made it your
destiny!’ (OB II P 231-240, George 1999: 16).
67 te Velde 2001: 269; Frankfort 1948: 21. A comparable instance of the merging
69 Supra 19, 20, 21. It has been suggested that the myth of the fallen angels
is also a symbol of Enki (Black and Green 1997, s.v. ‘turtle’). Moreover, another
symbol of Enki is a Mischwesen, the suhurmaàu, which is partly goat and partly fish
(ibid., s.v. ‘goat-fish’).
76 SV I 268, George 1999: 10.
77 SV I 272, ibid.
78 SV III 218-219, ibid., 28.
79 SV III 226-227, ibid., 29. On Enkidu’s salvificatory role in the Epic, and
his designation as muà¿zib ibri, ‘savior of the friend,’ see Parpola 1998: 319, n. 14.
80 dEa ina emqi libbiàu ibt§ni zikru / ibnima AßuàunamÌr lúassinnu (‘Ea conceived a
plan in his wise heart / He created AßuàunamÌr, the assinnu’) (Sladek 1974: 258).
81 Parpola 1998: 29. SV I 95-96 can be literally translated as: ‘You Aruru created
‘Man,’ / Now create his ‘zikru’ ’ (atti dAråru tabni LÚ / eninna bini zikiràu).
82 ‘I shall die, and shall I not then be as Enkidu? / Sorrow has entered my
well-understood nature and role of the fravarti, see Boyce 1975: 117ff.
gels the choice from which their entire destiny originates: ‘they
could either live in the celestial world sheltered from the ravages of
the evil god Ahriman, or else descend to the earth in order to be in-
carnated in material bodies and struggle against the counterpowers
of Ahriman in the material world.’85 They choose the latter track,
and this, according to the aforementioned view, gives the etymology
of their name, fravarti: those who have chosen.86
In the guise of a human being, the angel, on leaving the high
ramparts of heaven, is the terrestrial person himself.87 In pondering
these matters, the Islamicist Henry Corbin asks: ‘Does he not in his
turn need some guardian angel, a celestial reduplication of his be-
ing?’88 Corbin notes that Mazdean philosophy has in fact enter-
tained this question: ‘One solution might be in some way to con-
ceive of the earthly union of Fravarti and soul as one in which the
former remains immune from all Ahrimanian contamination.’89 In
the case of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, I believe that the analogy to this
view is clear in terms of these two heroes’ being one another’s sav-
iors and guardian angels. Less clear, however, is which one of them
corresponds to the being of purity, the ‘man of light,’ who has the
ultimate immunity. Even though one need not establish a one-to-
one correspondence between the Epic of Gilgamesh and Mazdean
angelology, one nevertheless cannot overlook the fact that it is
Gilgamesh who is immune to all the ordeals that he goes through,
whereas Enkidu, perhaps as a result of his initial contamination with
the material world, is not able to do so. In this regard, the paradox
is that even though Enkidu is potentially an angelic being who is in
charge of saving Gilgamesh from the latter’s descent to the material
85 Ibid.
86 Ibid.
87 Ibid.
88 Ibid.
89 Ibid. Corbin concludes that ‘the question is much too complex for a solu-
tion to be found in a mere philological inventory of existing texts’ (ibid., 30). This
paradox is precisely that of the ‘Redeemed Redeemer’ of Gnosticism where ‘the
redeemer (salvator) and the one to be redeemed (salvandus) belong closely together
and are sometimes hard to keep apart, since the point of view may swiftly change,
from ‘savior’ to ‘saved’ (salvandus) and vice versa. Behind this stands the concep-
tion, fundamental to gnostic soteriology, that both partners, Salvator and Salvandus,
are of one nature, i.e. from parts of the world of light. In the process redemption
they represent two poles which must indeed be kept apart, but through their
consubstantiality they have from the beginning removed or ‘unyoked’ the distinc-
tion between the two which otherwise is usual in the history of religion’ (Rudolph
1983: 122, 131).
90 This episode is in fact missing from the Standard Babylonian Version, and
126 ff.
93 In the Pyramid Texts, the ladders of both Horus and Seth are used by Osiris
94Abusch 1993: 2.
95Ibid.
96 Ibid.
97 Ibid., 7.
98 Comparable is Bilgames’ interrogating his servant Enkidu about the condi-
tions of the Netherworld in the Sumerian poem Bilgames and the Netherworld (vv.
255ff). Bilgames repeatedly asks his servant whom he has summoned from the dead
how the man with ‘n’ sons fare in the Netherworld, the number ranging from one
through seven. The more sons a man has, the better his condition is in the
Netherworld. For instance, while the man with one son bitterly laments, the one
with seven is seated on a throne among the minor gods, not unlike what Bilgames
himself is destined to attain after his own death (The Death of Bilgames M 120 ff).
The Sumerian mind cannot have been so naïve to think that the more children
one has generated in this life, the better one’s destiny will be in the afterlife. After
all, we know that Bilgames himself has not fathered any sons, and yet he is des-
tined to be among the junior deities. One should rather conceive of this question-
and-answer passage in the poem as a literary riddle which perhaps inverts its own
literal meaning.
Words of advice with the message ‘don’t worry be happy’ or ‘carpe diem’ ut-
tered by both Siduri and Utnapishtim to Gilgamesh can also be compared to maxims
of a similar tone in classical Persian poetry as can be encountered in the works of
poets such as Omar Khayyam, Rumi, and Hafiz. What is more, within the Her-
metic milieu of the Renaissance, such maxims also found their way into the works
of Marsilio Ficino: ‘All things are directed from goodness to goodness. Rejoice in
the present; set no value on property, seek no honors. Avoid excess; avoid activity.
Rejoice in the present’ (Ficino, Letters, vol. I, p. 32 [n.1]). Similarly, in the same
episode quoted above from the Old Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Siduri also
says: ‘But you, Gilgamesh, let your belly be full, / enjoy yourself always by day
and by night! / Make merry each day, / dance and play day and night!’ (Si iii 6-
9, George 1999: 124). Again along similar lines is the advice of Enki/Ea to
Utnapishtim before the Flood hits the world in the Standard Babylonian Version:
‘O man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Tutu, / demolish the house, and build a boat!
/ Abandon wealth, and seek survival! / Spurn property, save life!’ (SV XI 23-26,
George 1999: 89).
99 Coomaraswamy 1942: 48, n. 35.
selves solar creatures;106 follows the path of the Sun in the Nether-
world for twelve double hours until he reaches light;107 and finally
crosses a cosmic body of water that culminates in a ‘blessed’ land of
immortality.108 One need only to hearken to one of the spells from
the Pyramid Texts to see the parallel:
My father ascends to the sky among the gods who are in the sky; he stands at
the Great Polar Region and learns the speech of the sun-folk.
Re finds you on the banks of the sky as a waterway-traveller who is in the
sky: ‘Welcome, O you who have arrived,’ say the gods. He sets his hand on
you at the zenith(?) of the sky; ‘Welcome, O you who know your place,’ say
the Ennead.
Be pure; occupy your seat in the Bark of Re, row over the sky and mount
up to the distant ones; row with the Imperishable Stars, navigate with the
Unwearying Stars, receive the freight of the Night-bark.
May you become a spirit which is in the Netherworld, may you live of that
pleasant life whereof the Lord of the Horizon lives, (even) the Great Flood
which is in the sky. ‘Who has done this for you?’ Say the gods who serve
Atum. ‘It is one greater than I who has done this for me, (even) he who is
north of the waterway, the end of the sky. He has heard my appeal, he has
done what I said, and I have removed myself from the Tribunal of the Mag-
istrates of the Abyss at the head of the Great Ennead.109
In conclusion, I would like to stress that there is much more to The
Epic of Gilgamesh than a literal reading of the plot in terms of human
relationships, sexuality as a social construct, psychological queries
ranging from transition to a mature adult life to homoeroticism, and
even the fear and inevitability of death. Underlying the plot and the
individual episodes of the poem is a complex representational struc-
ture that reveals a system of soteriology, in essence very similar to
that found in ancient Egypt, one that is centered on the king and the
stages of his safe ascent to the circumpolar stars. Part of what both
the Old and the Standard Babylonian Versions may have done is
construct this configuration of soteriology and ascent by deploying
and combining in an erudite manner the independent Gilgamesh
stories that go back to remoter antiquity. Similar structures also
characterize in various forms and guises the later esoteric traditions
of the Near East, systems such as Gnosticism or the biblical Apoc-
rypha that have not made their way to mainstream religious texts.
The utilization of aspects of these systems in understanding the
References