Gilgamesh and the End of the World
Humanity has grappled with mortality issues since the beginning of time itself
By Mavretta Anogiati
The epos of Gilgamesh
A retrospective analysis of the year that passed could make it appear as if apocalyptic scenarios have unfolded at last. As we struggle with our own and our beloved’s mortality, reciprocations between existential nihilism and eternal life strike our thoughts. But keep the faith you are not the only one; humanity has grappled with mortality issues since the beginning of time itself. The expulsion from the Garden of Eden has left us with traumatic memories of ephemerality imprinted in our DNA. This painful reminiscence of our mortality with a twist of (typo)graphic artistic endeavour will be the departure point for this article. Travelling back in time, we can see how scenarios of life and death evolved in a culture’s conception of its past. Indeed, the human desire to escape the shackles of mortality and achieve godly status of eternal life has created poems of epic dimensions that have survived in inscriptions thousands of years old. Diving deep in the ocean of time, we grasp glimpses of blurry epigraphs decorating walls, pillars, and tombs as if they were mazes of secrets untold. An inscription, which has achieved the status as the earliest known surviving work of literature, dating back to ca. 2100 BC, narrates the Epic of Gilgamesh, the story of the legendary king of Uruk who sought eternal life. This inscription is invaluable to us not just for its literary context but because it exhibits the very first stages towards a developed form of written communication and graphic design.
Besides its fascinating context, particular attention needs to be given to its function, form, and design. After all, it is 2K’s ambition as a type foundry to trace the origins of graphic design, research the very first advancements of written communication and create new designs informed by ancient writing systems.
Adam and Eve driven out of Eden by Gustave Doré from La Grande Bible de Tours, 1866
The Form
The epos was written in cuneiform Akkadian, the earliest attested spoken Semitic language of ancient Mesopotamia. Akkadian was named after the city of Akkad, a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the period of Uruk (ca. 4000 to 3100 BC). This period deserves a privileged place in the history of writing systems because it is here that advances in forming, recording, storing, and distributing written communication evolved. The script was invented for bureaucratic purposes, mainly for keeping accounting records. Later, the written tablets started to cover other social activities such as myths, prayers, and kings' inscriptions. The invention of visually representing verbal communication and its achievement through the evolution of pictographic characters led to the emergence and advancement of the cuneiform script. This script is distinguished by the wedged-shaped impressions forming its characters, usually written on clay tablets with a stylus, a writing utensil similar to nowadays pens. It is fascinating how geometrically perfect the characters are distributed in lines on the clay, thus forming a script pleasant for the eye to see.
Assyrian cuneiform script
Cuneiform had an extensive lifespan of nearly three millennia and, therefore, inevitably underwent considerable changes evolving from simple pictographic representations into a fully developed writing system of syllabograms. Initially, it was created to write the Sumerian language, but later got adapted first by Akkadians and other Near Eastern civilizations producing an estimated half a million tablets, which are presently held in museums around the world. Unfortunately, very few of them were published as literary works, and therefore the Epic of Gilgamesh is considered a rare gem of ancient literature. Particular attention needs to be paid to how these tablets were produced, inscribed, and eventually recycled.
The cuneiform characters were imprinted on wet clay tablets that were either left in the sun to dry and subsequently recycled by soaking them again into the water or being fired in kilns to give them a permanent form. Scribes used the latter to hold written records, thus creating the first archives of sophisticated accounting systems. On these clay tablets, we meet the very first advances in graphic communication.
In Enmekar and the Lord of Aratta, an ancient Sumerian poem dated 1800 BC, we find the story about the creation of writing: “Because the messenger’s mouth was heavy and he couldn’t repeat [the message], the lord of Kulaba patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet. Until then, there had been no putting words on clay.”
Possible representation of Gilgamesh as Master of Animals, grasping a lion in his left arm and snake in his right hand, in an Assyrian palace relief (713–706 BC), from Dur-Sharrukin, now held in the Louvre.
The Context
The Gilgamesh epos had initially been discovered in fragments in diverse clay tablets that date back from different periods. Fortunately, the epos was assembled, rewritten, and edited by Sîn-lēqi-unninni, somewhere between 1300 and 1000 BC, resulting in a twelve-tablet version of great historical, literal, and (typo)graphical value. His version is the one that has been passed down to us, known by the incipit He Who Saw Life or The Man to Whom All Things Were Known. The pioneer English assyriologist George Smith achieved worldwide fame back in 1872 for transliterating and translating the Great Flood account that was inscribed on tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The deluge tablet XI narrates how Utnapishtim, whose name is usually translated as He Who Saw Life, was forewarned by the god of wisdom Ea to build an ark, and take up in it a pair of all living beings to escape the flood. When the waters finally receded, the gods regretted what they had done and agreed that they would never try to destroy humankind again. Utnapishtim and his wife were the only two humans rewarded with eternal life while the rest of the men would stay mortal. When Gilgamesh got distressed from the sudden loss of his friend, Enkidu, he became afraid of death, and he went in search of Utnapishtim to learn the secrets of eternal life. Suddenly kingship was not enough, and immortality became the goal. Utnapishtim gave Gilgamesh a task to stay awake for a week, but he immediately fell asleep. Then Utnapishtim’s wife felt sorry for Gilgamesh and convinced her man to at least give him the miraculous fruit that restores youth. Gilgamesh took the fruit with him back to Uruk, but on the way, a snake stole it, and ate it. The snake shed its skin and became young again.
Gilgamesh could have saved the trouble if he just had listened to goddess Siduri’s advice at the beginning of his travel:
Gilgamesh, where are you hurrying to? You will never find that life for which you are looking. When the gods created man, they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping. As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man.
Paradoxically, he ignored her advice as his obsession to learn the secrets of inextinguishable life had taken him over, leading him to additional suffering. Despite its perennial life of approximately 4000 years, the Epic of Gilgamesh is relevant to this day. Not because it incorporates end-of-the-world scenarios, but mostly because it reminds us of our continuous – but ultimately futile – struggle to overcome our predestined fate through personal endeavours, technological innovations, and medical achievements that extend our lifespan.
George Smith (born 1840 in London, died 1876 in Aleppo) was a pioneering English Assyriologist who first discovered the Epic of Gilgamesh. In 1872, Smith achieved worldwide fame by his translation of this story, which is considered the earliest known work of literature.
Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh
Mavretta Anogiati has a Master of Arts in Religious Studies and Communication. She has specialized in archaic and indigenous religions, with particular emphasis on translating Biblical texts from Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek to several modern languages. She enjoys spending her free time deepening her knowledge on subjects such as astronomy, linguistics, and mathematics.