7 - IN SEARCH OF IMMORTALITY

Circa 2900 B.C. Gilgamesh, a Sumerian king, refused to die.

Five hundred years before him Etana, king of Kish, sought to achieve Immortality by preserving his seed - his DNA - by having a son. (According to the Sumerian King Lists he was followed on the throne by "Balih, the son of Etana"; but whether this was a child by his official spouse or by a concubine, the records do not say).

Five hundred years after Gilgamesh, Egyptian Pharaohs sought to achieve Immortality by joining the Gods in an Afterlife. But to embark on the journey that would translate them to an Everlastingness, they had first to die.

Gilgamesh sought to achieve Immortality by refusing to die... The result was an adventure-filled search for Immortality whose tale became one of the most famous epics of the ancient world, known to us primarily from an Akkadian recension written on twelve clay tablets.

In the course of this search Gilgamesh - and with him the readers of the Epic of Gilgamesh - meet a robotic man, an artificial guardian, the Bull of Heaven, Gods and Goddesses, and the still-living hero of the Deluge. With Gilgamesh we arrive at the Landing Place and witness the launch of a rocketship, and go to the Spaceport in the forbidden region. With him we climb the Cedar Mountains, go under in a sinking boat, traverse a desert where lions roam, cross the Sea of Death, reach the Gates of Heaven.

All along Divine Encounters dominate the saga, omens and dreams determine its course, visions fill its dramatic stages. Indeed, as the Epic’s opening lines state,

He saw everything to the ends of Earth, All things experienced, gained complete wisdom. Secret things he saw, the mysteries he laid hare. He brought hack a tale of times before the Flood.

According to the Sumerian King Lists, after the reign of twenty-three kings in Kish, "Kingship was removed to the Eanna." The E.ANNA was the House (temple-ziggurat) of Anu in the sacred precinct of Uruk (the biblical Erech). There a semidivine dynasty began with Meskiaggasher, "the son of the God Utu," who was the high priest of the Eanna temple and became king as well. He was followed on the royal throne by his son Enmerkar ("He who built Uruk," the great city beside the sacred precinct) and his grandson Lugal-banda - both rulers of whom heroic tales were written down.

After a brief interregnum by the divine Dumuzi (whose life, loves, and death are a tale by themselves), Gilgamesh (Fig. 39) ascended the throne. His name was sometimes written with the "Dingir" prefix, to indicate his divinity: for his mother was a full-fledged Goddess, the Goddess Ninsun; and that, as the great and long Epic of Gilgamesh explained, made him "two-thirds divine." (His father, Lugalbanda, was apparently only the High Priest when Gilgamesh was born.)

Figure 39
 

At the beginning of his reign Gilgamesh was a benevolent king, enlarging and reinforcing his city and caring for its citizens. But as the years passed (he ruled, according to the King Lists, 126 years which, reduced by a factor of six, would have really been only twenty-one), his aging began to bother him and he was seized with the issues of Life and Death.

Appealing to his Godfather Utu/Shamash, he said:

In my city man dies; oppressed is my heart.

Man perishes;

heavy is my heart . . .

Man, the tallest, cannot stretch to heaven;

Man, the widest, cannot cover the earth.

"I peered over the wall, saw the dead bodies," Gilgamesh said to Shamash, referring perhaps to a cemetery. "Will I too ‘peer over the wall,’ will I too be fated thus?" But his Godfather’s answer was not reassuring.

"When the Gods created Mankind," Shamash responded, "death for Mankind they allotted; life they retained in their own keeping."

Therefore, Shamash advised, live day by day, enjoy life while you can -

"Let full be thy belly, make thou merry day and night! On each day make thou a feast of rejoicing, day and night dance thou and play!"

Though the God’s admonition concluded with the advice that Gilgamesh let his spouse "delight in thy bosom," Gilgamesh read into the words of Shamash a different meaning. "Make merry day and night," he was told in reply to his concerns about aging and looming death; and he took it as a hint that "joyful sex" would keep him young. He thus made it a habit of roaming the streets of Uruk by night, and when he came upon a just-married couple, he demanded the right to have the first sex with the bride.

As the people’s outcry reached the Gods, "the Gods hearkened to the plaint" and decided to create an artificial man who would be a match for Gilgamesh, wrestling him to exhaustion and distracting him from his sexual escapades. Given the task, Ninmah, using the "essence" of several Gods and guided by Enki, created in the steppe a "savage man" with copper sinews. He was called ENKI.DU - "Enki’s Creature" - and given by Enki "wisdom and broad understanding" in addition to immense strength.

A cylinder seal, now in the British Museum, depicts Enkidu and his creators, as well as Gilgamesh and his mother, the Goddess Ninsun (Fig. 40).

Figure 40
 

Many verses in the epic tale are devoted to the process by which this artificial creature was humanized, by having unceasing sex with a harlot. When that was achieved, Enkidu was instructed by the Gods what his task was: to wrestle, subdue, calm, and then befriend Gilgamesh. So that Gilgamesh should not be overcome by surprise, the Gods informed Enkidu, Gilgamesh would be forewarned by means of dreams.

That dreams would be used by the Gods in such a premeditated manner is made unmistakenly clear by the text (Tablet I, column v, lines 23-24):

Before thou comest down from the hills,

Gilgamesh will see thee in dreams in Uruk.

No sooner was this planned than Gilgamesh did have a dream. He went to his mother, "beloved and wise Ninsun who is versed in all knowledge," and told her of his dream:

My mother, I saw a dream last night.
There appeared stars in the heavens.
Something from the heavens kept coming at me.
I tried to lift it; it was too heavy for me.
I tried to turn it over, but could not budge it.
The people of Uruk were standing about it,
the nobles thronged around it,
my companions were kissing its feet.
I was drawn to it as to a woman;
I placed it at your feet; you made it vie with me.

 

"That which was coming toward you from the heavens,"

Ninsun told Gilgamesh, is a rival:

"A stout comrade who rescues a friend is come to thee."

He will wrestle you with his might, but he will never forsake you.

Gilgamesh then had a second omen-dream. "On the ramparts of Uruk there lay an axe." The populace was gathered around it. After some difficulty Gilgamesh managed to bring the axe to his mother, and she made him vie with it. Again Ninsun interpreted the dream: "The copper axe that you saw is a man," one equal to you in strength. "A strong partner will come to you, one who can save the life of a comrade." He was created on the steppe, and he will soon arrive in Uruk.

Accepting the omens, Gilgamesh said: "Let it fall then, according to the will of Enlil."

And then, one night, as Gilgamesh went out to have his sexual joys, Enkidu barred his way and would not allow Gilgamesh to enter the house where newlyweds were about to go to bed. A struggle ensued; "they grappled each other, holding fast like bulls." Walls shook, doorposts shattered as the two wrestled. At last, "Gilgamesh bent the knee." He lost the match to a stranger, and "bitterly he was weeping." Enkidu stood perplexed.

Then "the wise mother of Gilgamesh spoke" to both of them: it was all meant to be, and from now on the two were to be comrades, with ‘Enkidu acting as the protector of Gilgamesh. Foreseeing future dangers - for well she knew that there was more to the dream-omen than she had told Gilgamesh - she beseeched Enkidu always to go ahead of Gilgamesh and be a shield unto him.

As the two settled into a friendship, Gilgamesh began to tell his comrade of his troubled heart. Recalling his first omen-dream, the "something from the heaven" was now described by him as "the handiwork of Anu," an object that became embedded in the ground as it fell from the skies. When he was finally able to dislodge it, it was because the strongmen of Uruk "grabbed its lower part" as he, Gilgamesh, "pulled it up by the forepart." The dreamlike recollection became a vividly remembered vision as Giigamesh described his efforts to open up the object’s top:

I pressed strongly its upper part; I could neither remove its covering nor raise its Ascender.

Retelling his dream-vision, unsure no more of whether it was a recollection of an obscured reality or a nighttime fantasy, Gilgamesh was now describing an Ascender that had crashed to Earth, the "handiwork of Anu," a mechanical contraption with an upper part that served as a covering. Determined to see what was inside, Gilgamesh continued,

With a destroying fire its top I then broke off and moved into its depth.

Once inside the Ascender, "its movable That-which-pulls-forward" - its engine - "I lifted, and brought it to my mother." Now, he wondered out loud, was it not a sign that Anu himself was summoning him to the Divine Abode? It was undoubtedly an omen, an invitation. But how could he answer the call? "Who, my friend, can scale heaven?" Gilgamesh asked Enkidu, and gave his own answer: "Only the Gods, by going to the underground place of Shamash" - the Spaceport in the forbidden region.

But here Enkidu had a surprising bit of information. There is a Landing Place in the Cedar Mountain, he said. He discovered it while he was roaming the land, and he can show Gilgamesh where it is! There is, though, a problem: The place is guarded by a guardian artfully created by Enlil, a "siege engine" whose "mouth is fire, whose breath is death, whose roaring is a flood-storm." The monster’s name is Huwawa, "as a terror to mortals Enlil has appointed him." And no one can even come near him, for "at sixty leagues he can hear the wild cows of the forest."

The danger only encouraged Gilgamesh to try and reach the Landing Place. If he succeeds, he will attain immortality; and if he fails, his heroism will be forever remembered: "Should I fall," he told Enkidu, " ‘Gilgamesh against fierce Huwawa had fallen’ they will say long after my offspring will be born."

Determined to go, Gilgamesh prayed to Shamash, his Godfather and commander of the Eaglemen, for help and protection. "Let me go, O Shamash!" he intoned, "my hands are raised in prayer ... to the Landing Place give command ... establish over me your protection!" Receiving no favorable response, Gilgamesh revealed his plan to his mother, seeking her intercession with Shamash. "A far journey I have boldly undertaken," he said, "to the place of Huwawa; an uncertain battle I am about to face; unknown pathways I am about to tread. O my mother, pray thou to Shamash on my behalf!"

Heeding her son’s entreating, Ninsun donned the garb of a priestess, "a smoke-offering set up, and to Shamash raised her hands." "Why, having given me Gilgamesh for a son, with a restless heart didst thou endow him? And now thou didst affect him to go on a far journey, to the place of Huwawa, to face an uncertain battle." Give him your protection, she asked Shamash, "Until he reaches the Cedar Forest, until he has slain the fierce Huwawa, until the day mat he goes and returns."

Turning to Enkidu, Ninsun announced that she had adopted him as a son, "though not from the same womb as Gilgamesh" he was, thus "putting an obligation on Enkidu’s shoulders." Let Enkidu go in front, she told the comrades, "for he who goes in front saves his comrade."

And so, with newly made weapons, the comrades were off on their perilous journey to the Landing Place in the Cedar Mountains.

The fourth tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh begins with the journey to the Cedar Mountains. Moving as fast as they could, the comrades "at twenty leagues ate their ration, at thirty leagues they stopped for the night," covering thus fifty leagues during a day. "The distance took them from the new moon to the full moon then three days more" - a total of seventeen days. "Then they came to Lebanon," in whose mountains the unique cedars of biblical fame have been growing.

When the two arrived at the green mountain, the comrades were awestruck.

"Their words were silenced ... they stood still and gazed at the forest. They looked at the height of the cedars; they looked at the entrance to the forest: where Hu-wawa was wont to move was a path: straight were the tracks, a fiery channel. They beheld the Cedar Mountain, abode of the Gods, the crossroads of Ishtar."

They had indeed arrived at their destination, and the sight was awesome.

Gilgamesh made an offering to Shamash and asked for an omen. Facing the mountain, he called out: "Bring me a dream, a favorable dream!"

For the first time we learn here that a ritual had been practiced for bringing about such requested omen-dreams. The six verses describing the rite are partly damaged, but the undamaged portions give an idea of what had taken place:

Enkidu arranged it for him, for Gilgamesh.
With dust he fixed
He made him lie down inside the circle and
like wild barley
blood

Gilgamesh sat with his chin on his knees.

The ritual, it appears, called for the making of a circle with dust, the use of wild barley and blood in some magical way, and the sitting of the subject inside the circle with knees pulled up and the chin touching the knees. The rite worked, for next we read that "sleep, which spills out over people, overcame Gilgamesh; in the middle of the watch sleep departed from him; a dream he tells to Enkidu."

In the dream, "which was extremely upsetting," Gilgamesh saw the two of them at the foot of the high mountain; suddenly the mountain toppled, and the two of them "were like flies" (meaning unclear). Reassuring Gilgamesh that the dream was favorable and that its meaning will become clear at dawn, Enkidu urged Gilgamesh to go back to sleep.

This time Gilgamesh awoke with a start. "Did you arouse me?" he asked Enkidu, "Did you touch me, did you call my name?"No, said Enkidu. Then perhaps it was a God who had passed by, Gilgamesh said, for in his second dream he again saw a mountain topple; "it laid me low, trapped my feet."

There was an overpowering glare and a man appeared;

"the fairest in the land was he. From under the toppled ground he pulled me out; he gave me water to drink, my heart quieted; on the ground he set my feet."

Again Enkidu reassured Gilgamesh. The "mountain" that toppled was the slain Huwawa, he explained. "Your dream is favorable!" he said to Gilgamesh, urging him to go back to sleep.

As they both fell asleep, the tranquility of the night was shattered by a thunderous noise and a blinding light, and Gilgamesh was not sure whether he was dreaming or seeing a true vision. This is how the text quotes Gilgamesh:

The vision that I saw was wholly awesome! The heavens shrieked, the earth boomed! Though daylight was dawning, darkness came. Lightning flashed, a flame shot up. The clouds swelled, it rained death! Then the glow vanished; the fire went out. And all that had fallen was turned to ashes.

Did Gilgamesh realize, right then and there, that he had witnessed the launching of a Shem, a skyrocket - the shaking of the ground as the engines ignited and roared, the clouds of smoke and "raining death," darkening the dawn sky; the brilliance of the engine’s flames seen through the thick cloud, as the skyrocket rose up; and then the vanishing glow, and the burnt ashes falling back to Earth as the only final evidence of the rocket’s launch.

Did Gilgamesh realize that he had indeed arrived at the "Landing Place," where he could find the Shem that would make him immortal? Apparently he did, for in spite of cautionary words by Enkidu, he was certain that it was all a good omen, a signal from Shamash that he ought to press on.

But before the Cedar Forest could be penetrated and the Landing Place be reached, the terrifying guardian, Huwawa, had to be overcome. Enkidu knew where a gate was, and in the morning the comrades made their way toward it, careful to avoid "weapon-trees that kill." Reaching the gate, Enkidu tried to open it. An unseen force threw him back, and for twelve days he lay paralyzed. The narrative reveals that Enkidu rubbed himself with plants, creating a "double mantle of radiance" that made "paralysis leave the arms, impotence leave the loins."

While Enkidu was lying immobilized, Gilgamesh made a discovery: he found a tunnel that led into the forest. Its entrance was overgrown with trees and bushes and it was blocked by rocks and soil. "While Gilgamesh cut down the trees, Enkidu dug up" the rocks and soil. After a while they found themselves inside the forest, and saw ahead a path - the path "where Huwawa made tracks as he went to and fro."

For a while the comrades stood awestruck. Motionless "they beheld the Cedar Mountain, the dwelling place of the Gods, shrine-place of Inanna."

They,

"gazed and gazed at the height of the cedars, gazed and gazed at the pathway into the forest. The path was well trodden, the road was excellent. The cedars held up their luxuriance all upon the mountain, their shade was pleasant; it filled one with happiness."

Just as the two were feeling so good, terror struck: "Huwawa made his voice heard." Somehow alerted to the presence of the two inside the forest, Huwawa’s voice boomed death and doom for the intruders. In a scene that brings to mind the much later encounter between the boy David and the giant Goliath, when the latter felt insulted by the uneven match and threatened to "give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the field," so did Huwawa belittle and threaten the twosome:

"You are so very small that I regard you as a turtle and a tortoise," his voice announced; "were I to swallow you, I would not satisfy my stomach... So I shall bite your windpipe and neck, Gilgamesh, and leave your body for the birds of the forest and for the roaring beasts."

Seized with fear, the comrades now saw the monster appear. He was "mighty, his teeth as the teeth of a dragon, his face the face of a lion, his coming like the onrushing floodwaters." From his forehead there emanated a "radiant beam; it devoured trees and bushes." From this weapon’s "killing force, none could escape."

A Sumerian cylinder seal which depicts a mechanical monster (Fig. 41) might have had Huwawa in mind.

Figure 41
 

It shows the monster, the heroic king, Enkidu (on the right) and a God (on the left), the latter representing Shamash who, according to the epic tale, came at this crucial moment to the rescue. "Down from the skies divine Shamash spoke to them," revealing a weakness in Huwawa’s armor and devising a strategy for the comrades’ attack. Huwawa, the deity explained, usually protects himself with "seven cloaks," but now "only one he had donned, six are still off."

They could therefore slay Huwawa with the weapons they had, if only they could approach him closely enough; and to make that possible, Shamash said, he would create a whirlwind that "would beat against the eyes of Huwawa" and neutralize his death-beam.

Soon the ground began to shake; "white clouds grew black." "Shamash summoned up great tempests against Huwawa" from all directions, creating a massive whirlwind. " Huwawa’s face grew dark; he could not charge forward, nor could he move backward." The two then attacked the incapacitated monster. "Enkidu struck the guardian, Huwawa, to the ground. For two leagues the cedars resounded" with the monster’s fall.

Wounded but not dead, Huwawa spoke up, wondering why he had not slain Enkidu as soon as he had discovered his entering the forest. Turning to Gilgamesh, Huwawa offered him all the wood he wished from the luxuriant cedars - undoubtedly a most precious prize.

But Enkidu urged Gilgamesh not to listen to the enticements.

"Finish him off, slay him!" he shouted to Gilgamesh.

"Do it before the leader Enlil hears it in Nippur!"

And seeing Gilgamesh hesitate, "Enkidu Huwawa put to death."
"Lest the Gods be filled with fury at them," and as a way to "set up an eternal memorial,"

the comrades cut down one of the cedar trees,

made poles of it, and formed of them a raft with a cabin on it.

In the cabin they put the head of Huwawa,

and pushed the raft down a stream.

"Let the Euphrates carry it to Nippur," they said.

And thus rid of the monstrous guardian of the path to the Landing Place, the two stopped to rest at the stream. Gilgamesh "washed his filthy hair, he cleaned his gear, shook his locks over his back, threw away his dirty clothes, put on fresh ones. He clothed himself in robes and tied on a sash." There was no need to rush; the way to the "secret abode of the Anunnaki" was no longer blocked.

He totally forgot that the place was also "the crossroads of Ishtar."

Using the Landing Place for her sky-roaming, Ishtar was watching Gilgamesh from her skychamber (Fig. 42). Whether or not she had witnessed the battle with Huwawa is not reported. But she was certainly watching Gilgamesh take off his clothes, bathe and groom himself, clothe himself in fine robes. And "glorious Ishtar raised an eye at the beauty of Gilgamesh." Wasting no time, she directly addressed Gilgamesh: "Come, Gilgamesh, be thou my lover! Grant me the fruit of thy love!"

Figure 42
 

If he were to become her lover, Ishtar promised, kings, princes, and nobles would bow to him; he shall be given a chariot adorned with lapis and gold; his flocks would double and quadruple; the produce of field and mountain shall be his fill ... But, to her surprise, Gilgamesh turned down her invitation. Listing only the few worldly possessions that he could offer her, he foresaw her quick tiring of him and his lovemaking. Sooner or later, he said, she would get rid of him as of "a shoe that pinches the foot of its owner."

I will obtain for you eternal life, Ishtar announced. But that, too, could not convince Gilgamesh. Listing all her known lovers, whom she used and discarded, "which of your lovers lasted forever?" Gilgamesh asked, "which of your masterful paramours went to heaven?" And, he concluded, "if you will love me, you shall treat me just like them."

"When Ishtar heard this, Ishtar was enraged, and to the skies flew off.’" In her fury at being rejected, she appealed to Anu to punish Gilgamesh, who "had disgraced me." She asked Anu for the Bull of Heaven so that it might smite Gilgamesh. At first Anu refused, but in the end he yielded to the pleas and threats of Ishtar, and "put the reins of the Bull of Heaven in her hands."

(GUD.ANNA, the Sumerian term employed in the ancient texts, is commonly translated "Bull of Heaven," but it could also be understood to more literally mean the "Bull of Anu." The term was also the Sumerian name for the celestial constellation of the Bull (Taurus), which was associated with Enlil. The "Bull of Heaven" that was kept in the Cedar Forest guarded by Enlil’s monster could have been a specially selected bull, or the "prototype" bull seeded from Nibiru to create bulls on Earth. Its counterpart in Egypt was the sacred Apis Bull.)

Attacked by the Bull of Heaven, the comrades forgot all about the Landing Place and the search for Immortality, and fled for their lives. Aided by Shamash, the "distance of a month and fifteen days in three days they traversed." Arriving in Uruk, Gilgamesh sought protection behind its ramparts while Enkidu waited outside, to face the attacker.

Hundreds of the city’s warriors came out too; but the snorts of the Bull of Heaven opened up pits in the earth into which the warriors fell. Seeing an opportunity when the sky monster turned, Enkidu leapt on its back and seized it by the horns. With all us might and whipping its tail, the Bull of Heaven fought Enkidu off. Desperate, Enkidu called out to Gilgamesh: Plunge your sword in, between the base of the horns and the neck tendons!

It was a call that has echoed in bullfighting arenas to this very day ...

In this first-ever recorded bullfight,

"Enkidu seized the Bull of Heaven by us thick tail and spun it around. Then Gilgamesh like a butcher, between neck and horns thrust his sword. The heavenly creature was defeated, and Gilgamesh ordered celebrations in Uruk. But "Ishtar, in her abode, set up a wailing; she arranged a weeping over the Bull of Heaven"

Among the numerous cylinder seals that have been unearthed throughout the Near East that depict scenes from the Epic of Gilgamesh, one (found in a Hittite trading outpost on the border with Assyria, Fig. 43) shows Ishtar addressing Gilgamesh with the seminaked Enkidu watching; in the space between the Goddess and Gilgamesh the severed head of Hu-wawa as well as that of the Bull of Heaven, are shown.

Figure 43
 

And so it was that while Gilgamesh was celebrating in Uruk the Gods held a council. Ami said: "Because they have slain the Bull of Heaven and Huwawa, the two of them must die." Enlil said: "Enkidu shall die, let Gilgamesh not die." But Shamash, accepting part of the blame, said: "Why should innocent Enkidu die?"

While the Gods discussed his fate, Enkidu was struck with a coma. Hallucinating, he envisioned being sentenced to death. But the final decision was to commute his death sentence to hard labor in the "Land of Mines," a place where copper and turquoise were obtained by backbreaking toil in dark tunnels.

Here the saga, already filled with more dramatic and unexpected twists and turns than the best of thrillers, took yet another unforeseen turn. The "Land of Mines" was located in the Fourth Region, the Sinai peninsula; and it dawned on Gilgamesh that here was a second chance for him to join the Gods and attain immortality, for the "Land of Living" - the Spaceport where the Shem rocketships were based, commanded by Shamash - was also diere, in the Fourth Region.

So, if Shamash could arrange for him to accompany Enkidu, he (Gilgamesh) would reach the Land of Living! Seeing this unique opportunity, Gilgamesh appealed to Shamash:

O Shamash,
The Land I wish to enter;
he thou my ally!
The Land which with the cool cedars is aligned,
I wish to enter; be thou my ally!
In the places where the Shems have been raised,

Let me set up my Shem/

When Shamash responded by describing to Gilgamesh the hazards and difficulties of the land route, Gilgamesh had a bright idea: He and Enkidu would sail there by boat! A Magan boat - a "ship of Egypt" - was outfitted. And, accompanied by fifty heroes as sailors and protectors, the two comrades sailed away. The route, by all indications, was down the Persian Gulf, around the Arabian peninsula, and up the Red Sea until the Sinai coast was to be reached. But the planned voyage was not to be.

When Enlil demanded that "Enkidu shall die," and the death sentence was commuted to hard labor in the Land of Mines, it was decreed by the Gods that two emissaries, "domed like birds, with wings for garments," shall take Enkidu by the hand and carry him thereto (Fig. 44a). The sea voyage contradicted that, and the wrath of Enlil was yet to come. Now, as the ship sailed close to the Arabian coast and the sun was setting, those on board could see someone - "if a man he be, or a God he be" - standing on a mound "like a bull," equipped with a ray-emitting device (Fig. 44b).

Figures 44a and 44b
 

As if by an unseen hand, the "three ply cloth" that was the ship’s sail suddenly tore apart. Next, the ship itself was thrust on its side and capsized. It sank fast, like a stone in water, and all aboard with it, except Gilgamesh and Enkidu. As Gilgamesh swam out of the ship and up, dragging Enkidu along, he could see the others seated where they were, "as though living creatures." In the sudden death, they just froze in whatever position they were.

The two sole survivors reached the shore and spent the night on an unknown coast discussing what to do. Gilgamesh was undeterred in his desire to reach the Land of Living; Enkidu advised that they seek the way back to Uruk. But the the was already cast for Enkidu; his limbs became numb, his insides were disintegrating. Gilgamesh exhorted his comrade to hold on to life, but to no avail.

For six days and seven nights Gilgamesh mourned Enkidu; then he walked away, roaming the wilderness aimlessly, wondering not when but how he too shall die: "When I die, shall I not be like Enkidu?"

Little did he know that after all the previous adventures, after the diverse Divine Encounters, after the dreams and visions, the real and the imagined, the fights and the flights, and now all alone - that only now his most memorable saga was about to begin.

How long Gilgamesh roamed aimlessly in the wilderness, the ancient epic does not tell. He trod unbeaten paths encountering no man, hunting for food. "What mountains he had climbed, what streams he had crossed, no man can know," the ancient scribes noted. Finally he took hold of himself. "Must I lay my head inside the earth and sleep through all the years?" he asked himself, and join his comrade in death, or would the Gods "let mine eyes behold the sun?" Again he was filled with determination to avoid a mortal’s fate by reaching the Land of Living.

Guided by the rising and setting sun - the celestial counterpart of Shamash - Gilgamesh trekked in a purposeful manner. As day followed day, the terrain began to change: the flat desert wilderness, home of lizards and scorpions, was ending and he could see mountains in the distance. The wildlife was also changing. "When at night he arrived at the mountain pass, Gilgamesh saw lions and grew afraid."

He lifted his head to Sin and prayed: "To the place where the Gods rejuvenate my steps are directed ... Preserve thou me!"
The change from Shamash to Sin (the father of Shamash) as the protecting deity to whom the prayer is addressed is made in the text without pause or comment; and we are left to presume that somehow Gilgamesh had realized that he had reached a region dedicated to Sin.

Gilgamesh "went to sleep and awoke from a dream," in which he saw himself "rejoice with life." He took it as a favorable omen from Sin, that he would manage to cross the mountain pass despite the lions roaming there. Gathering his weapons, "Gilgamesh like an arrow descended among the lions," striking the beasts with all his strength: "He smote them, he hacked away at them." But by midday his weapons shattered and Gilgamesh threw them away. Two lions were still left facing him; and Gilgamesh now had to fight them with his bare hands.

The fight with the lions, in which Gilgamesh was the victor, was commemorated by artists throughout the ancient Near East, and not only in Mesopotamia (Fig. 45a). It was depicted by the Hittites (Fig. 45b) to the north, the Cassites in Luristan to the east (Fig. 45c), even in ancient Egypt (Fig. 45d). In later times such a feat - vanquishing lions with bare hands - was attributed in the Bible only to Samson, he of the God-given superhuman power (Judges 14:5-6).

Fig. 45a, b, c, d

Clad in the skin of one of the lions, Gilgamesh traversed the mountain pass. In the distance he saw a body of water, like a vast lake. In the plain beyond the inland sea he could see a city "closed-up about," a city surrounded by a fortified wall. It was, the epic text explains, a city where "the temple to Sin was dedicated." Outside the city, "down by the low-lying sea," Gilgamesh could see an inn.

As he approached the inn, he could see inside "Siduri, the ale-woman." There were vat stands, fermentation vats, inside; and the ale-woman, Siduri, was holding a jug of ale and a bowl of yellow porridge. Gilgamesh paced around, seeking a way to enter; but Siduri, seeing an unkempt man wearing a lion’s skin, "his belly shrunk, his face like that of a wayfarer from afar," was frightened and bolted the door. With great difficulty Gilgamesh managed to convince her of his true identity.

Fed and rested, Gilgamesh told Siduri all about his adventures, from the first journey to the Cedar Forest, the slaying of Huwawa and of the Bull of Heaven, the second voyage and the death of Enkidu, followed by his wanderings and the slaying of the lions. His destination, he explained, was the Land of Living; Immortality could be attained there, for Utnapishtim of Deluge fame was still living there. What is the way to the Land of Living? Gilgamesh asked Siduri. Must he go the long and hazardous way around the sea, or could he sail across it? "Now, ale-woman, which is the way to Utnapishtim? Give me the directions!"

Crossing the sea, the ale-woman answered, was not possible, for its waters are "the Waters of Death:"

Never, Gilgamesh, has there been a crossing;
From days of long ago,
no one arrived from across the sea.
Valiant Shamash did cross the sea,
but other than Shamash, who can cross it?

As Gilgamesh fell silent, Siduri revealed to him that there could be a way, after all, to cross the Waters of Death: Utnapishtim has a boatman; his name is Urshanabi. Urshanabi can cross the Waters of Death because "with him are the Stone Things." He comes across to pick up Urnu (meaning unclear) in the woods. Go and wait for him, Siduri said to Gilgamesh, "let him see your face." If it suits him, he will take you across. So advised, Gilgamesh went to the shore to await the boatman Urshanabi.

When Urshanabi saw him, he wondered who Gilgamesh was, and Gilgamesh told him the long story. Convinced of the true identity of Gilgamesh and his legitimate wish to reach the Land of Living, Urshanabi took Gilgamesh aboard. But no sooner than this was done, Urshanabi accused Gilgamesh of smashing the "Stone Things" required for the crossing. Reprimanding Gilgamesh, Urshanabi told him to go back to the forest, cut to shape 120 poles; and use up the poles in groups of twelve as they sailed across. After three days, they reached the other side.

Where shall I go now? Gilgamesh asked Urshanabi. Urshanabi told him to go straight ahead until he reached "a regular  way" that leads toward "the Great Sea." He was to follow that road until he reached two stone columns that serve as markers. Turning there, he would come to a town named (in the Hittite recension of the epic) Itla, sacred to the God Ullu-Yah. That God’s permission was needed in order to cross into the Forbidden Region where Mount Mashu was; that, Urshanabi said, is your destination.

Itla proved a mixed blessing for Gilgamesh. Arriving there he ate and drank, washed and changed to proper attire. On the advice of Shamash, he offered sacrifices to UIlu-Yah (meaning, perhaps, "He of the Peaks"). But the Great God, learning of the king’s wish for a Shem, vetoed the idea. Seeking the intercession of Shamash, Gilgamesh then pleaded with the Gods for an alternative: "Let me take the road to Utnapishtim, the son of Ubar-Tutu!"

And that, after some deliberation, was permitted.

After a journey of six days, Gilgamesh could see the sacred mountain of which Urshanabi the boatman had spoken:

The name of the mountain is Mashu.
At the mountain of Mashu he arrived,
where daily the Shems he watched
as they depart and come in.
On high, to the Celestial Band it is connected;
below, to the Lower World it is hound.

There was a way to go inside the mountain, but the entrance was guarded by awesome "Rocket-men:"

Rocket-men guard its gate.
Their terror is awesome, their glance is death.
Their dreaded spotlight sweeps the mountains.
They watch over Shamash as he ascends and descends.

Caught in the sweep of the deadly spotlight, Gilgamesh shielded his face; unharmed, he paced toward the Rocket-men (a scene depicted on a cylinder seal might have illustrated this episode - Fig. 46). They were astounded to see that the death rays did not affect Gilgamesh, and realized that "he who comes, the flesh of the Gods is his body." Allowed to approach, they questioned Gilgamesh; and he told them who he was and that he was indeed two-thirds divine.

Figure 46

"On account of Utnapishtim, my forefather, have I come," he told the guards,

"he who the congregation of the Gods has joined; about Death and Life I wish to ask him."
"No mortal has passed through the mountain’s inaccessible tract!" the guards told Gilgamesh.

However, recognizing that he was not a mere mortal, they let him through.

"The gate of the Mount is open to thee!" they announced.

The "inaccessible tract" was a subterranean "path of Shamash." The passage through it lasted twelve double-hours. "The darkness was dense, there was no light." Gilgamesh could not see "ahead or behind." In the eighth double-hour something made him scream with fear. In the ninth double-hour "he felt a north wind fanning his face" - he was Hearing an opening to the sky. In the eleventh double-hour he could see dawn breaking. Finally, in the twelfth double-hour, "it had grown bright; he came out in front of the sun."

Out of the subterranean passage through the sacred mountain, in sunlight, Gilgamesh came upon an incredible sight. He saw "an enclosure of the Gods" wherein there was a garden; but the "garden" was made up entirely of artificially carved precious stones:

"All kinds of thorny Prickly Bushes were visible, blooming with gemstones; Carnelian bore fruit hanging in clusters, its vines too beautiful to behold. The foliage was of lapis lazuli; and grapes, too lush to look at, of ... stones were made."

The partly damaged verses go on to list other kinds of fruit-bearing trees and the variety of precious stones - white and red and green - of which they were made. Pure water ran through the garden, and in its midst he saw "like a Tree of Life and a Tree of ... that of Angug stones were made."

Enthralled and amazed. Gilgamesh walked about the garden. Clearly, he found himself in a simulated Garden of Eden!
Unbeknown to him, he was being watched by Utnapishtim.

"Utnapishtim was looking from a distance, pondered and spoke to himself, took counsel with himself:" who is this man and how did he show up here? he wondered; "he who comes here is not one of my men" - no one who has been with him on the ark ...

As he approached Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh was astounded: the hero of the Deluge from thousands of years ago was not at all older than he, Gilgamesh, was!

"He said to him, to Utnapishtim, the Far-Distant: As I look upon thee, Utnapishtim, thou art no different at all; even as I art thou!"

But who are you, why and how did you get here? Utnapishtim wanted to know. And, as he had done with Siduri and the boatman, Gilgamesh related the whole story of his Kingship, ancestry, comradeship with Enkidu, and the adventures in search of Immortality, including the latest ones. "So I thought of going to see Utnapishtim, the Far-Distant, of whom people speak," Gilgamesh concluded. Now, he told Utnapishtim, tell me the secret of your Immortality! Tell me "how you came to join the congregation of the Gods, and attained eternal life?"

Utnapishtim spoke to him, to Gilgamesh: I will reveal to thee, Gilgamesh, a hidden matter, a secret of the Gods I will tell thee.

And then followed the story of the Deluge reported in the first person by Utnapishtim, in all its details from beginning to end, until Enlil, on the Mount of Salvation where the ark came to rest,

"holding me by the hand, took me aboard the ship; he took my wife aboard and made her kneel by my side. Standing between us, he touched our foreheads to bless us. Hitherto Utnapishtim has been mortal (Enlil said), henceforth Utnapishtim and his wife shall be as we Gods are; Utnapishtim shall reside far away, at the mouth of the rivers. Thus they took me and made me reside far away, at the mouth of the rivers."

That, Unapishtim concluded, is the whole truth about his escaping a mortal’s fate.

"But now, who will for thy sake call the Gods to Assembly, that the Life which thou seekest thou mayest find?"

Realizing that only a decree of the Gods meeting in Assembly could give him Immortality, and not his own searches, Gilgamesh passed out; for a week he lay unconscious. When he came to, Utnapishtim called upon Urshanabi the boatman to take Gilgamesh back, "that he may return safe on the way by which he came."

But as Gilgamesh was ready to depart, Utnapishtim, pitying him, decided to disclose to him yet another secret: Everlasting life is attained not by being immortal - it is attained by staying forever young!

Utnapishtim said to him, to Gilgamesh:
Thou hast come hither, toiling and straining.
What shall I give thee to take back to your land?
Let me disclose, Gilgamesh,
a closely-guarded hidden matter -
a secret of the Gods I will tell thee:
A plant there is,
like a prickly berrybush is its root.
Its thorns are like a brier-vine’s;
thine hands the thorns will prick.
[But] if with thine own hands the plant
you could obtain,
Rejuvenation you will find.

The plant grew underwater, perhaps in the well or spring in the splendid garden. Some kind of a pipe led to the source or depths of these Waters of Life. No sooner did Gilgamesh hear the secret, than he "opened the water-pipe, tied heavy stones to his feet; they dragged him down to the abyss." And there he saw the plant.

He took the plant himself
though it pricked his hands.
He cut the heavy stones from his feet;
the second one cast him back
to where he had come from.

Urshanabi, who had been summoned by Utnapishtim, was waiting for him. Triumphant and exhilarated, Gilgamesh showed him the Plant of Rejuvenation. Overcome with excitement, he said to the boatman:

Urshanabi,
This plant of all plants is unique:
By it a man can regain the breath of life!
I will take it to ramparted Uruk,
there the plant to cut and eat.
Let its name be called
"Man becomes young in old age."
Of this plant I shall eat
and to my youthful state shall I return.

With these high hopes for rejuvenation the two started on the way back.

"At thirty leagues they stopped for the night. Gilgamesh saw a well whose water was cool. He went down into it to bathe in the water. A snake smelt the fragrance of the plant; it came up silently and carried off the plant. As it took it away, the snake shed its scaly skin."

It was indeed a rejuvenating plant; but it was the snake, not Gilgamesh, who ended up rejuvenated ...

Thereupon Gilgamesh sits down and weeps,
his tears running down his face.
He took the hand of Urshanabi the boatman.
"For whom" (he asked) "have my hands toiled?
For whom is spent the blood of my heart?
For myself I have not obtained a boon;
For a snake the boon I affected."

Brooding over his misfortune, Gilgamesh recalled an incident during his dive for the plant "which must have been an omen." "While I was opening the pipe, arranging the gear," he told Urshanabi, "I found a door seal; it must have been placed as an omen for me - a sign to withdraw, to give up." Now Gilgamesh realized that he was not fated to obtain the Plant of Rejuvenation; and having plucked it out of its waters, he was fated to lose it.

When he finally returned to ramparted Uruk, Gilgamesh sat down and had the scribes write down his odyssey. "Let me make known to the country him who the Tunnel had seen; of him who knows the waters let me the full story tell." And it was with those introductory words that the Epic of Gilgamesh was recorded, to be read, translated, rewritten, illustrated, and read again for generations thereafter - for all to know that Man, even if two-thirds divine, cannot change his fate.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is replete with geographical markers that enhance its authenticity and identify the targets of that ancient search for Immortality.

The first destination was the Landing Place in the Cedar Forest, in the Cedar Mountains. There was only one such place in the whole of the ancient Near East, renowned for its unique cedars: Lebanon (whose national emblem, to this very day, is the cedar tree). Lebanon is specifically mentioned by name as the land the two comrades reached after the journey of seventeen days from Uruk.

In another verse, describing how the earth shook as the skyrocket was launched, the facing peaks "Sirara and Lebanon" are described as "splitting apart." In the Bible (Psalms 27) the majestic Voice of the Lord is described as "breaking the cedars of Lebanon" and making "Lebanon and Sirion skip like a calf." There is no doubt that Sirion is Hebrew for Sirara in the Mesopotamian text.

There is also no doubt that a Landing Place had existed mere, for the simple reason that that vast platform is still there to this very day. Located at a place nowadays called Baalbek, the immense stone platform, some five million square feet in area, rests upon massive stone blocks that weigh hundreds of tons; three stone blocks, weighing more than one thousand tons each and known as the Trilithons (Fig. 47), were quarried in a valley miles away, where one of the colossal stones still sticks out of the ground, its quarrying not having been completed (Fig. 48).

Figure 47
 

Figure 48
 

There is no modern equipment that can lift such weight; yet in bygone days "someone" - local lore says "the giants" - quarried, lifted, and emplaced these stone blocks with great precision.

Greeks and Romans followed Canaanites and others before them in deeming the platform a sacred site, on which to build and rebuild temples to the great Gods. We have no picture of what had stood there in the days of Gilgamesh; but we do know what had been there afterward, in Phoenician times. We know, because the platform, with an enclosure, held a skyrocket poised upon a crossbeamed pedestal - as depicted on a coin from Byblos (Fig. 49).

Figure 49
 

The most telling geographical detail in the second journey of Gilgamesh is the body of water he had reached after crossing the wilderness. It is described as a "low-lying sea," a sea that looked like "a vast lake." It was called the sea of the "Waters of Death." These are all identifying features of the landlocked sea that is still called the Dead Sea, which is indeed the lowest-lying sea in the world.

In the distance Gilgamesh could see a city that was "closed-up about," a city surrounded by a wall, whose temple was dedicated to Sin. Such a city - one of the oldest in me worlds - is still there; it is known as Jericho, which in Hebrew (Yeriho) means "City of me Moon God," who indeed was Sin; the city was famous for its walls, whose miraculous toppling is recounted in the Bible. (One must also wonder to what extent the biblical tale of the spies of Joshua who hid in the inn of Rahab in Jericho, reflects the brief stay of Gilgamesh at Siduri’s inn).

Having crossed the Sea of Death, Gilgamesh followed a way that led "toward the Great Sea." This term too is found in the Bible (e.g. Numbers. 34, Joshua 1) and indisputably referred to the Mediterranean Sea. Gilgamesh, however, stopped short of going all the way and instead stopped at the town called Itla in the Hittite recension. Based on archaeological discoveries and the biblical narrative of the Exodus, Itla was the same place that the bible called Kadesh-Barnea; it was an ancient caravan town situated at the border of the restricted Fourth Region in the Sinai peninsula.

One can only speculate whether the mountain to which Gilgamesh was directed. Mount Mashu, bore a name that is almost identical to the Hebrew name of Moses, Moshe. The subterranean journey of Gilgamesh inside this sacred mountain, lasting twelve double-hours, is clearly paralleled by the description in the Egyptian Book of the Dead of the Pharaoh’s subterranean journey through twelve hour-zones.

The Pharaohs, like Gilgamesh, asked for a Shem - a rocketship - with which to ascend heavenward and join the Gods in an eternal abode. Like Gilgamesh before them, the Pharaohs had to cross a body of water and be assisted by a Divine Boatman. There is no doubt that both the Sumerian king’s and Egyptian Pharaoh’s destination was one and the same, except that they went there from opposite starting points. The destination was the Spaceport in the Sinai peninsula, where the Shems, in their underground silos (see Fig. 31) were.

As in pre-Diluvial times (Fig. 25), the post-Diluvial Spaceport (Fig. 50) was also anchored on the peaks of Ararat. But with the plain of Mesopotamia totally covered by muddy waters, the Spaceport was shifted to the firm ground of the Sinai peninsula.

Mission Control Center shifted from Nippur to where Jerusalem (JM) is now located.

Figure 50
 

The new landing corridor, anchored at its end on two artificial mountains that are still standing as the two great pyramids of Giza (GZ) and the high peaks in southern Sinai (KT and US), incorporated the immense pre-Diluvial platform of Baalbek in the Cedar Mountains (BK).

It was to the platform at Baalbek and toward the Spaceport (SP) that Gilgamesh had journeyed.

Back to Contents