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The Sumerian term amaru, here used for the flood and rendered as "rain-storm" by Dr. The word abûbu is often conventionally rendered "deluge", but should be more accurately translated "flood". It is true that the tempests of the Sumerian Version probably imply rain; and in the Gilgamesh Epic heavy rain in the evening begins the flood and is followed at dawn by a thunderstorm and hurricane.
Shamash and Gilgamesh promise Eabani royal honors if he will join friendship with them. Come, and on a great couch, On a fine couch he will place thee. He will give thee a seat to the left. The rulers of the earth will kiss thy feet. All the people of Uruk will crouch before thee. Eabani consents, and in company with Gilgamesh proceeds to the fortress of Khumbaba.
On many seal cylinders and on monuments, Gilgamesh is pictured in the act of fighting with or strangling a lion. In the preserved portions of the epic no reference to this contest has been found. We should look for it at this point of the narrative. The following lines contain a reference to weapons, ax and sword, and in so far justify the supposition that some contest takes place.
As in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus, here too the god's warning is conveyed in a dream; and the accompanying reference to conjuring by the Name of Heaven and Earth probably represents the means by which Ziusudu was enabled to verify its apparent meaning.
Finally, scholastic speculation takes hold of Gilgamesh, and makes him the medium for illustrating another and more advanced problem that is of intense interest to mankind, the secret of death. Death is inevitable, but what does death mean? The problem is not solved. The close of the eleventh tablet suggests that Gilgamesh will die. The twelfth tablet adds nothing to the situation except a moral.
Among them are the "Gilgamesh legends," in which is contained a story of the flood that resembles in essential features the account in Genesis. GROWTH OF ITS POWER. Assyria was even greater, as a conquering power, than Babylon.
Now the tablets from the Royal Library at Nineveh inscribed with the Gilgamesh Epic do not date from an earlier period than the seventh century B.C. But archaeological evidence has long shown that the traditions themselves were current during all periods of Babylonian history; for Gilgamesh and his half-human friend Enkidu were favourite subjects for the seal-engraver, whether he lived in Sumerian times or under the Achaemenian kings of Persia.
Popular belief makes her responsible for decay and death, since life and fertility appear to be in her hand. Gilgamesh, as a popular hero, is brought into association by popular traditions with Ishtar, as he is brought into relationships with Eabani and Ukhat. A factor in this association was the necessity of accounting for Gilgamesh's death.
The passages in the Gilgamesh Epic are not really contradictory, for they can be interpreted as implying that, while Enlil forced his will upon the other gods against Bêlit-ili's protest, the goddess at first reproached herself with her concurrence, and later stigmatized Enlil as the real author of the catastrophe.
Most curious as illustrating the continued popularity of the Gilgamesh story in the Orient is the incorporation of portions of the epic in the career of Alexander the Great.
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