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Lecture 3
The Epic of Gilgamesh memory — representation
HUM 101, September 30, 2019
—Edw. Mitchell
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2
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Major cities of the Sumerian–Akkadian-Assyrian eras
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Austen Henry LayardHormuzd Rassam
first to excavate ancient Nineveh
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Mesopotamian fashion
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Henry Moore 1931
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Barbara Hepworth 1929
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Alberto Giacometti ca. 1930
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decoding the tablets cuneiform
Rawlinson and the Behistun inscriptions
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1872 — George Smith discovers the story of the Great Flood
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the epic
epos — song-poem
poiesis — making / creating / bringing into being
epic poem — song-poem story (which brings something into being)
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Epic - Representation - Memory
I will proclaim to the world the deeds of Gilgamesh.
He was wise, he saw mysteries and knew secret things…
He went on a long journey … he engraved on a stone the whole story.
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He said to Enkidu, 'I have not established my name stamped on bricks as my destiny decreed;
I will go to the country where the cedar is felled.
I will set up my name in the place where the names of famous men are written …’
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Representing Totality
Inside the walls: food - shelter - authority order > civilization
In Uruk he built walls, a great rampart, and the temple of blessed Eanna. Look at it still
today… it has no equal.
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inside the walls: an ideal of order
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Outside the walls?
Otherness • mythic space
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outside the walls: disorder
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outside:
Liminal [threshold / eșik] space: where boundaries are crossed and re-crossed.
>> real or dream? god or monster? good or bad?
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Oppositions (mythic pre-conditions) in Gilgamesh:
• Nature < > Culture (beast < > human)
• Order < > Disorder (proper rule < > oppressive rule)
• Life < > Death (immortality / memory < > mortality / forgetting)
These oppositions are represented in 3 major transformations.
These transformations take place outside the city walls — in the liminal, threshold space.
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• Enkidu – wild man/beast transformed into a human (civilized). Raw ➞Cooked.
• Gilgamesh — god/king ➞ wild man. He leaves Uruk. Cooked➞Raw. Epic journey.
• Gilgamesh — wanderer / stranger ➞proper King. He accepts his mortality and returns to Uruk as king.
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He was innocent of mankind; he knew nothing of the cultivated land.
'Enkidu, eat bread, it is the staff of life; drink the wine, it is the custom of the land.'
the transformation of Enkidu
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knowledge / death / memory
Enkidu’s dream
There is the house whose people sit in darkness; dust is their food and clay their meat … … they see no light, they sit in darkness.
I entered the house of dust and I saw the kings of the earth,
their crowns put away for ever…
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I have wept for Enkidu day and night. I thought he would come back because of my weeping.
What my brother is now, that shall I be when I am dead.
… that is why I have travelled here in search of Utnapishtim.
I want to question him, concerning the living and the dead.
Epic Journey: from king to ?
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epic journey
land of Dilmun
garden of the sun
(and Utnapishtim)garden of the gods
and Siduri
waters of death
wearing the skins of beasts and eating their flesh
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Order (again)
Gilgamesh: ’Urshanabi, climb up on to the wall of Uruk, inspect its foundation terrace, and examine the brickwork; see if it is not of burnt bricks; and did not the seven wise men lay these foundations?'
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ReproachWorks2019