Sumer

The Death of Bilgames

the death of Gilgamesh

Anonymous / tradition · c. 18th century BC (Old Babylonian copies, principally from Me-Turan, of an older Sumerian composition) · Nippur (Iraq) · epic

Even the king who was two-thirds god cannot buy his way out of death, so the poem argues that mortality's only real answer is to become a judge in the netherworld and be remembered on earth.

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ETCSL 1.8.1.3 - The death of Bilgames (translation)

Descends from

Gilgamesh and Huwawa · c. 18th century BC (Old Babylonian copies, versions A and B, of an older Sumerian composition)

Fed into

Old Babylonian Gilgamesh (Pennsylvania and Yale Tablets) · c. 18th century BC (Old Babylonian period; findspots for most tablets unrecorded, acquired via the antiquities trade)

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