From the Vaults - The Epic of Gilgamesh

In ancient Sumer, clay tablets were the medium used to record royal achievement, business & legal transactions, observations of the natural world, science, mathematics and much more. Over several thousand years, the writing system evolved from pictograms to a more abstract cuneiform. The writing system was so complex that scribes were usually required. Legal documents were signed using signature seals – attractive, cylinders inscribed with figurative designs. One of the great surviving works of classical literature comes down to us by way of the clay tablet. The Epic of Gilgamesh, no doubt, began in the oral tradition. Initially it recorded great accomplishments of an actual ruler, the building of a network of canals etc. Factual details were embellished with mythical tales of divine interaction. As with Homer’s Odyssey, details were likely added to the original stories through the ages. Versions of the Gilgamesh stories were inscribed on clay tablets and images representing its chief characters appeared on the signature seals. It was also one of the texts used in the temple schools to teach the written Sumerian. Examples of the story have been discovered throughout much of the Ancient Middle East. Today the epic survives in fragment form – the standard text is derived from tablets found at the site of the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh in 1853. Here’s a story by Osama S. M. Amin concerning the discovery of a new fragment. Today, the Gilgamesh stories have entered the popular culture in the form of fiction, plays, graphic novels, and movie adaptations.