United States or Russia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Gilgamesh spoke to the hunter: Go, hunter mine, and take with thee Ukhat When the cattle comes to the trough, Let her tear off her dress and disclose her nakedness. He will see her and approach her. His cattle, which grew up on his field, will forsake him. Ukhatu is a name for a harlot devoted to the worship of Ishtar. Other names for such devotees are Kharimtu and Kizritu.
Where the cult of Dibbarra centered we do not know, but that he presided over a district that must have played a prominent part at some period of Babylonian history is shown by the elaborate legend of his deeds for which, as in the case of Gilgamesh and Etana, we are justified in assuming an historical background.
Gilgamesh is terrified at the sight of these scorpion-men but the latter have received notice of his coming and permit him to pass through the gate. A scorpion-man addresses his wife: "He who comes to us is of divine appearance." The wife of the scorpion-man agrees that Gilgamesh is in part divine, but she adds that in part he is human.
To be left unburied was the greatest misfortune that could happen to a dead person. With this sentiment the epic closes. Gilgamesh must rest content with the unsatisfactory consolation that Eabani offers him. Man must die, and Gilgamesh cannot escape the universal fate. Let him hope for and, if possible, provide for proper burial when death does overtake him.
We shall have occasion to revert to the traditions here recorded concerning the parentage of Meskingasher, the founder of this line of kings, and that of its most famous member, Gilgamesh. Meanwhile we may note that the closing rulers of the "Kingdom of Eanna" are wanting. In Ur Mesannipada became king and ruled for eighty years. Meskiagunna, son of Mesannipada, ruled for thirty years.
Jeremias translates 'seeks a friend, and refers the words to Gilgamesh, but there is nothing in the narrative to justify us in assuming that Eabani was thinking of the hero. It is used as a synonym of tappu 'associate, Delitzsch, Handwörterbuch, p. 10. Ideographically, it is composed of two elements, 'strength' and 'acquire. 'Companion in arms' is the fellowship originally meant.
Still, since Etana appears to be a phonetic reading and can be explained etymologically in a satisfactory manner, the presumption is in favor of connecting Gilgamesh with the hero of the great epic. For the present, therefore, we may accept the identification and assume that in Aelian, as well as in the sources whence he drew his information, Izdubar-Gilgamesh has been confused with Etana.
The vessel in Berossus measures five stadia by two, and thus had a length of over three thousand feet and a breadth of more than twelve hundred. We will now return to the text and resume the comparison we were making between it and the Gilgamesh Epic. In the latter no direct reference is made to the appearance of the Sun-god after the storm, nor is Ut-napishtim represented as praying to him.
We may expect to come across a god Hammurabi some day. Gilgamesh is, as we have seen, a historical personage whose career has been so thoroughly amalgamated with nature-myths that he ends by becoming a solar deity who is invoked in incantations. The tendency to connect legendary and mythical incidents with ancient rulers is part and parcel of this process of deification.
The description evidently recalls man living in a savage state, and, to judge from illustrations of Eabani on seal cylinders, the mythological fancy of the period when strange monsters existed of hybrid formation, half-man, half-beast, has influenced the conception of this strange creature who is to combat the invincible Gilgamesh. But Gilgamesh frustrates the plan.
Word Of The Day