Das Gilgamesch-Epos: Der älteste überlieferte Mythos der Geschichte - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3865390803 ISBN 13: 9783865390806

Publisher: Marix Verlag, 2011

Synopsis

The first major epic of world literature. The first existentialist work of humanity was created around 2000 B.C. Carved on clay tablets by an anonymous Babylonian poet and entered the canon of world literature: the Gilgamesh epic. In a clear and powerful language, it tells the story of the god-like Gilgamesh, king of the Sumerian city of Uruk, who together with his animal-like friend Engidu sets out in search of the herb of eternal life, but in the end must realize that even for him, who is one third human and two-thirds God, life is finite. But it is precisely this experience that allows him to reach self-knowledge. The Sumerian city of Uruk, the centre of action of the Gilgamesh epic, is the birthplace of world literature, because the writing was first developed into a form that was able to express the totality of Sumerian languages. Over millennia, no one suspected of the existence of this Babylonian original text of literature. It was not until 1872 that some clay tablets of the Gilgamesh epic were discovered among thousands of pottery shards from the library of the Assyrian king Assurbanipal stored in London. The semi-mythical Gilgamesh embodies the "fist of antiquity". In his restless search for eternal life, human primal fears condense and find a selective redemption in this worldly action, because the Sumerian ruler arrives at the end of his long wandership, which leads him from the divine cedar mountain over the water of death to his human ancestor, to the realization that his name alone is due to the construction of the city wall. Uruk Unmortality.

Edition details

• Publisher: Marix Verlag
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: German
• ISBN 10: 3865390803
• ISBN 13: 9783865390806
• Binding: Hardcover