DEPARTMENTS  |
OCTOBER 2007 – NO. 18
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Assyriology
by David Damrosch
How the Epic of Gilgamesh Moved a City
The Epic of Gilgamesh may have played a role in the shift of Assyria's
capital to Nineveh. The epic ends with Gilgamesh's return to Uruk at the
close of the eleventh tablet, but the full "Series of Gilgamesh"
consists of twelve tablets. The final tablet is a direct translation of portions
of one of the Sumerian poems about Bilgamesh, known in ancient times by its
first line, "In those days, in those distant days," and now often
called "Bilgamesh and the Netherworld." Attached to the epic as
a kind of appendix, the twelfth tablet came to be read as providing important
information about the underworld, and it was consulted at the time the decision
was made to establish Nineveh as Assyria's capital.
In the twelfth tablet, Enkidu descends into the underworld to retrieve some
wooden implements, apparently a ball and mallet, which Gilgamesh has dropped
into a fissure in the ground. Enkidu, here portrayed as Gilgamesh's servant,
offers to bring them back. Gilgamesh gives Enkidu detailed instructions about
how to behave so as not to arouse the notice and the anger of the beings of
the underworld; rashly, Enkidu disobeys all his instructions, drawing attention
to himself with his beautiful clothing, perfume, and active behavior not befitting
a dead person. Realizing that he is an intruder, the underworld forces seize
him.
Weeping, Gilgamesh approaches a series of gods to ask for their aid; turned
down by two gods, he is pitied by Enki, god of fresh water and of wisdom. Enki
conjures Enkidu in the form of a phantom, so that Gilgamesh can see his friend
and learn about life in the underworld. Enkidu informs him that people who die
childless fare poorly, while the more sons they have the better off they are,
thanks to the offerings their sons make for them on earth. The poem breaks off
with the sobering information that unburied corpses find no rest in the netherworld,
while "the one whose shade has no one to make funerary offerings ... eats
scrapings from the pot and crusts of bread thrown away in the street."
Sin-leqe-unninni, or another editor in the late second millennium, included
a translation of this tale as an appendix to Gilgamesh, though it is clearly
not a continuation of the epic. Enkidu is alive as the episode begins and is
Gilgamesh's servant rather than the wild man and intimate friend shown
in the epic. Moreover, Sin-leqe-unninni created the standard version of the
epic by expanding the Old Babylonian version, not by direct translation from
the still older Sumerian poems. The tablet's readers were surely aware
of all these differences, but it was not uncommon for ancient texts to conclude
with some miscellaneous matter at the close of the main story.
The tale of Enkidu's underworld descent had a particular utility, moreover,
greater even than the association of Gilgamesh with well digging early in the
epic, for the story gave important clues as to how to behave and thrive in the
underworld. At least for some readers, the twelfth tablet had a usefulness that
overshadowed literary interest. On the twenty-seventh day of the fourth month
of 705 BCE, a scribe in the Assyrian city of Kalah wrote out a careful copy
of the twelfth tablet. He did this soon after his king, Sargon II, had been
killed in battle in Anatolia. As the Assyriologist Eckart Frahm has argued,
news of Sargon's death had probably just reached Kalah, an important scribal
center and former capital of Assyria.
It has long been known that Sargon's son Sennacherib was so shocked by
his father's death that he shunned his father's memory, abandoned
his father's capital, Dur-Sharrakun, and established a new capital at
Nineveh. Yet death in battle was generally regarded as a glorious sacrifice,
not as a disgraceful death for a king. It might cause succession conflicts among
his heirs, but it appears not to have been an issue for Sennacherib, who quickly
and decisively assumed power shortly after his father's death. What was
shocking was the manner of Sargon's demise: he had been overwhelmed by
the enemy and his army had been routed, unable even to retrieve his body and
bring it home for burial. This was a serious matter indeed, for unburied phantoms
were likely to haunt their old homes, increasingly restless and malevolent.
If not appeased, they could render a home unlivable — a motif that survives
to this day in horror movies centered on nightmarish haunted houses.
Nabû-zuqup-kenu was acting in his official capacity when he copied the
twelfth tablets. It closes with its description of the fate of the unburied
and the unattended. As the next to last couplet says: "'Did you
see the one whose corpse was left lying on the plain?' 'I saw him.
/ His shade is not at rest in the Netherworld.'" Nabû-zuqup-kenu,
then, was studying the tablet in the same way he would study an omen text: to
gain insight on what would happen in a situation that could be dangerous not
only for the new king but for the entire kingdom. In copying the tablet, he
was making it available for consultation by the new king and other priests,
no doubt along with other relevant omen texts in his possession. Perhaps the
tablets would also be used in rituals designed to appease Sargon's angry
shade.
Evidently the prognosis was unfavorable and the rituals were unavailing. Certainly
the Gilgamesh tablet could not have been reassuring to Nabû-zuqup-kenuor
to Sennacherib, since it speaks of the deprived phantom's restlessness
as a permanent condition. In the end, Sennacherib decided to undertake the huge
expense and disruption of moving his capital to Nineveh rather than stay in
the haunted palace of his doomed and unresting father. The twelfth tablet of
Gilgamesh is regarded today as an expendable appendix, often not included
in translations of the epic; yet its presence may be a prime reason why Sennacherib's
grandson Ashurbanipal kept copies of the epic in his library.
Preserved in part through its advice on dealing with the dead, the epic has
once again become, as it was for Sin-leqe-unninni, its own best answer to the
problem of death and the transience of human life. Kings and heroes die, and
even the greatest of cities can become a flood-swept mound; yet the buried book
waits, reposing in darkness, for the distant day when it will be recovered,
telling a new era's readers about the quest for immortality, the perils
of advising headstrong monarchs, and the pleasures of beer and fresh-baked bread.
From the book The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic
of Gilgamesh by David Damrosch. Reprinted by arrangement with Henry Holt
and Company, LLC. Copyright © 2006 by David Damrosch. All rights reserved.
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AUTHOR BIO:
David Damrosch is a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. He is the author of books on the Bible and on world literature and is the general editor of The Longman Anthology of World Literature. He lives in New York City.
Buy David Damrosch's books through Amazon at the LOST Store.
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