Search Results: Enkidu

Sometimes it is the smallest discoveries that have the largest impact. When Alexandra Kleinerman and Alhena Gadotti found a new fragment of the Epic of Gilgamesh in 2015 CE, it did not seem to be particularly impressive. The broken tablet...

Gilgamesh is the semi-mythic King of Uruk best known as the hero of The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2150-1400 BCE) the great Babylonian poem that predates Homer's Iliad and Odyssey by 1500 years and, therefore, stands as the oldest piece of epic...

Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld is a Sumerian poem pre-dating The Epic of Gilgamesh and featuring its central characters. It is sometimes included in modern-day translations as Book 12 but is usually omitted as it does not fit the...

Gilgamesh and Huwawa is a Sumerian poem relating the expedition of Gilgamesh and Enkidu to the Cedar Forest and the slaying of the monster-demon Huwawa. The work predates and informs The Epic of Gilgamesh in which the death of the monster...

Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven is a Sumerian poem relating the event, now famous from The Epic of Gilgamesh, in which the goddess Inanna/Ishtar sends the celestial bull to attack Gilgamesh after he has rejected her advances. The epic changes...

The Epic of Gilgamesh is among the most popular works of literature in the present day and has influenced countless numbers of readers but, for the greater part of its history, it was lost. The Assyrian Empire fell to a coalition of Babylonians...

Inanna is the ancient Sumerian goddess of love, sensuality, fertility, procreation, and also of war. She later became identified by the Akkadians and Assyrians as the goddess Ishtar, and further with the Hittite Sauska, the Phoenician Astarte...

Enki (also known as Ea, Enkig, Nudimmud, Ninsiku, Nissiku) was the Sumerian god of wisdom, fresh water, intelligence, trickery and mischief, crafts, magic, exorcism, healing, creation, virility, fertility, and art. Iconography depicts him...

Ereshkigal (also known as Irkalla and Allatu) is the Mesopotamian Queen of the Dead who rules the underworld. Her name translates as 'Queen of the Great Below' or 'Lady of the Great Place.' She was responsible for both keeping the dead within...

Utu (also known as Shamash, Samas, and Babbar) is the Sumerian god of the sun and divine justice. He is the son of the moon god Nanna and the fertility goddess Ningal in the Sumerian tradition but was known as Shamash (Samas) to the Akkadians...