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Recursion

(56,582 posts)
Tue Oct 6, 2015, 04:59 AM Oct 2015

20 new lines of Gilgamesh discovered

http://www.openculture.com/2015/10/20-new-lines-from-the-epic-of-gilgamesh-discovered-in-iraq-adding-new-dimensions-to-the-story.html

Wow.


The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest narratives in the world, got a surprise update last month when the Sulaymaniyah Museum in the Kurdistan region of Iraq announced that it had discovered 20 new lines of the Babylonian-Era poem of gods, mortals, and monsters. Since the poem has existed in fragments since the 18th century BC, there has always been the possibility that more would turn up. And yet the version we’re familiar with — the one discovered in 1853 in Nineveh — hasn’t changed very much over recent decades. The text remained fairly fixed — that is, until the fall of Baghdad in 2003 and the intense looting that followed yielded something new.

Since that time, the History Blog notes:

the museum has a matter of policy paid smugglers to keep artifacts from leaving the country, no questions asked. The tablet was acquired by the museum in late 2011 as part of a collection of 80-90 tablets sold by an unnamed shady character. Professor Farouk Al-Rawi examined the collection while the seller haggled with museum official Abdullah Hashim. When Al-Rawi saw this tablet, he told Hashim to pay whatever the seller wanted: $800.

That’s a pretty good deal for these extra lines that not only add to the poem’s length, but have now cleared up some of the mysteries in the other chapters. These lines come from Chapter Five of the epic and cast the main characters in a new light. Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu are shown to feel guilt over killing Humbaba, the guardian of the cedar forest, who is now seen as less a monster and more a king. Just like a good director’s cut, these extra scenes clear up some muddy character motivation, and add an environmental moral to the tale.
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hobbit709

(41,694 posts)
1. The Gilgamesh story is interesting.
Tue Oct 6, 2015, 07:06 AM
Oct 2015

Especially the part involving Utnapishtim, which the ancient Hebrews filed off the serial numbers and wrote down as the story of Noah.

1939

(1,683 posts)
5. I read a book on biblical fantastic events
Tue Oct 6, 2015, 09:56 AM
Oct 2015

The book postulated that the Israelis lived along the southern shore of the Black Sea at the time of the flood. The world was coming out of the ice age. There was a plug at the Turkish straits that held back the rising oceans from the Black Sea. The plug sudden ly burst from the rising ocean pressure forming the Bosporous and the Dardanelles and causing the Black Sea to suddenly rise providing the origin of flood histories among all of the peoples of the Middle East

.

LWolf

(46,179 posts)
3. There are all kinds of ancient flood myths.
Tue Oct 6, 2015, 09:36 AM
Oct 2015

The Gilgamesh version is one of the oldest, and, in that location, certainly was taken on by the ancient Hebrews.

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