Written epic literature (Gilgamesh)
Literatura épica escrita (ciclo de Gilgamesh)
- Date
- c. 2100 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Ur and Nippur (Sumerian version); Sippar and Babylon (Old Babylonian version), Iraq
- Credited to
- Poets of the Ur III court; Sin-leqi-unninni (standard version, c. 1200 BCE)
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh composed in Ur III and gathered into a unified Akkadian epic around 1800 BCE, dealing with friendship, death and the flood. It is the first great literary work of humanity, with a named author in its final version.
Enheduanna's hymns (c. 2300 BCE) predate it as a signed literary text; the 'Instructions of Shuruppak' (c. 2600 BCE) is the oldest surviving literary work.
What it led to
- Literature as a fixed work transmitted in writing, with variants, editions and an author
- Themes and motifs (flood, quest for immortality, hero and companion) that pass into the Bible and Homer
- The political use of epic to legitimise dynasties (Ur III claims descent from Gilgamesh)
- Enheduanna (c. 2300 BCE), the earliest known author, with signed hymns
Built on
Made possible
- Nineveh and the Library of Ashurbanipal1845-1851
- Homeric epic (indirect influence)
- Hymns of Enheduanna