Epic of Gilgamesh: myths and heroes in ancient Mesopotamia

Summary

Podcast Summary: You're Dead To Me – Epic of Gilgamesh: Myths and Heroes in Ancient Mesopotamia

Host: Greg Jenner
Guests: Dr. Moody Al Rashid (historian), Mary Elaine Robertson (comedian/actor)
Date: March 13, 2026
Length: ~1 hour

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Greg Jenner takes listeners on an entertaining yet deeply informative journey into the ancient Mesopotamian masterpiece, the Epic of Gilgamesh. Alongside Mesopotamian historian Dr. Moody Al Rashid and comedian (and archaeology degree-holder) Mary Elaine Robertson, the trio explores the oldest recorded epic in human history. They dissect its myths, real historical context, wild plot turns, and its lasting wisdom about power, mortality, love, and civilization—with plenty of laughs and a sharply modern, accessible tone.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introducing Gilgamesh and the Epic

[03:56–06:36]

• What is the Epic of Gilgamesh?
  • A long poem from ancient Mesopotamia (~3,000 lines, 12 clay cuneiform tablets), recounting the transformative journey of King Gilgamesh of Uruk.
  • Cuneiform is a script, not a language; it was used across several unrelated ancient Near Eastern languages.
  • The region: present-day Iraq, Syria, Turkey; home to Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians.

“Cuneiform was a writing system like the letters we used to write. English also get used to write, like, French, German with some variations.”
— Dr. Moody Al Rashid (05:57)

2. Origins: Myth, Oral Tradition, and History

[06:36–11:54]

• Gilgamesh narrative has roots in oral tales, probably recited in royal courts (~2100–2000 BCE).
• Old Babylonian versions, and the “standard” version written by Sin-leqi-unninni (c. 1100 BCE).
• Authorship in ancient Mesopotamia was viewed as a chain of tradition, not individual creativity.
• Gilgamesh appears on the Sumerian King List (a pseudo-historical document), said to rule 126 years—emphasizing mythic, legitimizing power.

“The tale itself, the story itself is more important than the author, as well as the kind of div. Origins, the perceived divine origins of everything that gets written down...”
— Dr. Moody Al Rashid (07:02)

3. The Character of Gilgamesh

[11:54–16:23]

• Possibly inspired by a real king; over time, blended into folklore and myth.
• Claims to be two-thirds god, one third human (via goddess Ninsun & mortal father).
• Notable divine trait: height—varies by translation (9 feet to 18 feet!).

"I know people want tall men on Tinder, but, like, nine feet’s too tall. Oh, my God."
— Greg Jenner (15:41)

4. The Story Begins: Tyrant King Seeks a Match

[16:23–20:43]

• Gilgamesh is a tyrant: abuses subjects, violates brides, overworks citizens.
• The people beg the gods for his equal—a friend or rival to “calm him down.”
• The gods create Enkidu, a wild, hairy man living among animals who foils hunters and embodies nature.

5. Enkidu’s Civilization: Seduction and Transformation

[17:41–22:59]

• Shamhat, a temple sex worker/priestess, “civilizes” Enkidu with a seven-day sex marathon.
• Afterward, animals reject Enkidu—he’s now humanized.

“He forgot the wild where he was born. For seven days and seven nights, Enkidu was erect. And he coupled with Shamchat. More literally, he poured out with Shamchat.”
— Dr. Moody Al Rashid (22:32)

• Listeners and hosts note strong echoes with the Adam & Eve myth.

6. Epic Friendship (and More): Gilgamesh & Enkidu

[20:19–22:59]

• Enkidu challenges Gilgamesh’s abuse, and they become fast friends (and possibly romantic partners).
• Text is explicit about affection, even using phrases like, "they caress each other," paralleling language for marriage.

“There’s definitely a romantic love. And they tell us this with a lot of language, like, he's gonna love him like a Bride. They caress each other, they kiss.”
— Dr. Moody Al Rashid (21:11)

7. Questing for Glory: Humbaba the Forest Guardian

[23:18–25:45]

• The two, seeking glory and adventure, travel to Lebanon's cedar forest to confront the monstrous guardian Humbaba (part-dragon/lion/human).
• They kill Humbaba, but display unexpected regret; the text suggests environmental and moral reflection.

“During and after the battle, Enkidu and Gilgamesh are not sure why they've done it, ...kind of unexpected for an epic dragon battle.”
— Dr. Moody Al Rashid (25:22)

8. Sex, Gods, and the Bull of Heaven

[27:06–30:32]

• The goddess Ishtar/Love & War propositions Gilgamesh; he rejects her, insulting her previous lovers.
• She sends the Bull of Heaven (constellation Taurus) in vengeance. Gilgamesh and Enkidu dispatch the bull—offering its heart to Anu, and (very childishly) hurling the bull’s penis at Ishtar.

“Then they throw its penis at Ishtar... It’s quite the move.”
— Dr. Moody Al Rashid (29:12)

9. Tragedy and Grief: Enkidu’s Death

[30:40–32:27]

• The gods punish them for killing the divine bull; Enkidu is sentenced to death.
• Gilgamesh is devastated, lingering over Enkidu’s corpse until decomposition becomes undeniable.

10. The Search for Immortality

[32:27–40:42]

• Gilgamesh, driven by grief and fear of mortality, journeys to find Utnapishtim (or Atrahasis), a flood survivor granted immortality.
• The flood narrative (Tablet XI) is explicitly discussed; many parallels to the Genesis (Noah) story are highlighted.

11. Epic Journey & Its Lessons

[36:55–46:37]

• Gilgamesh journeys past scorpion-men, through darkness, to a gemstone forest, meeting the wise innkeeper Shiduri.
• Utnapishtim challenges Gilgamesh to stay awake 7 days (he immediately fails), showing that mortality is inescapable and that true immortality is in communal memory and civilization, not endless life.
• Gilgamesh is offered a magical “plant of heartbeat” from the depths below. A snake steals it—a “yoink” moment, referencing yet another mythic motif.

12. Resolution: Realizing Mortality

[46:42–48:14]

• Gilgamesh finally returns home, wiser—admiring his city, realizing his real legacy is civic, communal, and enduring.
• The Epic concludes as "wisdom literature," emphasizing collective memory, architecture, and stories over individual immortality.

“Life can end in an instant. You should make the most of what time that you do... eternal life is not an individual survival... but the survival of the whole community.”
— Dr. Moody Al Rashid (41:22, 41:52)

13. Rediscovery and Modern History of the Epic

[48:35–51:04]

• Tablets rediscovered in Nineveh (1840s, by Austen Henry Layard).
• Cuneiform deciphered; George Smith (British Museum, 1870s) first translates the flood tablet—so thrilled he reportedly ran naked through the museum.

“He ran naked through the—was it the British Museum?— Stripped off his clothes and just ran screaming naked through shouting, I did it, I did it.’”
— Greg Jenner (50:13)

• The Epic may have influenced later works like Arabian Nights and even Qur'anic figures.
• Key recommended translations: Andrew George (critical edition), Sophus Helle (poetic, accessible).

14. The Nuance Window – Modern Resonance of Gilgamesh

[52:58–55:14]

• Dr. Moody Al Rashid interprets Humbaba, the slaying of the forest guardian, and the Epic as warnings about environmental destruction and misplaced values—advocating for cherishing and sustaining communities and resources, not seeking outsized individual legacy.

“Instead of trying to live impossibly long lives, let us do more with the short time that we have... our well being is tied to the well being of those around us and to the places that sustain us.”
— Dr. Moody Al Rashid (54:30)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Gilgamesh’s height:
  “He’s nine feet tall in the sun. Yeah. In one translation... he’s 18ft tall, which would be more of an inconvenience probably than anything else, but I know people want tall men on Tinder, but, like, nine feet’s too tall.”
  — Dr. Moody Al Rashid & Greg Jenner (15:28, 15:41)

• On Gilgamesh & Enkidu’s relationship:
  “There’s definitely a romantic love... They caress each other, they kiss. Later in the story, it gets reprised in different ways.”
  — Dr. Moody Al Rashid (21:11)

• On the theft of immortality:
  “A snake steals the plant of heart.” / “It’s a yoink moment, as Mary Lane said.”
  — Dr. Moody Al Rashid & Greg Jenner (44:38, 44:55)

• On the message of the Epic:
  “The survival of each successive generation confers immortality on the whole. Our well being is tied to the well being of those around us and to the places that sustain us.”
  — Dr. Moody Al Rashid (54:30)

• On discovering the tablets:
  “He ran naked through the—was it the British Museum?... shouting, I did it, I did it.”
  — Greg Jenner (50:13)

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Timeline of Key Segments

• 03:56 – 06:36: The Epic of Gilgamesh – What is it?
• 06:36 – 11:54: Mesopotamian literary tradition; Gilgamesh in history & myth
• 11:54 – 16:23: Gilgamesh the character: divine parentage, impossible height
• 16:23 – 20:43: Introduction of Enkidu; “civilizing” seduction
• 20:43 – 22:59: Gilgamesh & Enkidu meet; deep friendship (potential romance)
• 23:18 – 25:45: Quest to kill Humbaba, moral ambiguity
• 27:06 – 30:32: Ishtar, the Bull of Heaven, and retribution
• 30:40 – 32:27: Death of Enkidu, Gilgamesh’s grief
• 32:27 – 40:42: Gilgamesh’s journey for immortality, the flood myth
• 41:22 – 46:37: Lessons from Utnapishtim; losing and learning from “eternal life”
• 48:35 – 51:04: Rediscovery in the modern era, George Smith’s wild celebration
• 52:58 – 55:14: Nuance Window: environmental/procommunal message
• 55:47 – 58:54: Quickfire quiz summarizing main facts

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Takeaways and Core Messages

• The Epic of Gilgamesh is the world's oldest surviving epic, blending myth, oral history, and genuine archaeology.
• Its themes—friendship, loss, striving for immortality, and the real value of memory and community—feel surprisingly modern.
• The story provides unexpected reflection on environmental responsibility, heroism, and learning from the flawed, very human protagonist.
• Its rediscovery in the 19th century was itself an epic, with resounding impact on understanding ancient literature and myth.

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Further Reading/Listening Recommendations

• Translations:

  • Andrew George’s critical edition
  • Sophus Helle’s accessible, poetic version

• Related Podcast Episodes:

  • You're Dead To Me: Ancient Babylonians, Cuneiform, King Arthur, Robert Bruce

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Final Thought

“I think the crux of Utnapishtim’s message is: instead of trying to live impossibly long lives, let us do more with the short time that we have.”
— Dr. Moody Al Rashid (Nuance Window, 54:30)

Transcript

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[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

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[Greg Jenner]

Hello and welcome to youo're Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name's Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And and today we are grabbing our bestie and gallivanting back to ancient Mesopotamia to learn all about the epic of Gilgamesh. And to help us on this daunting quest, we have two very special guides in History Corner. She's an honorary fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, where she researches and teaches on the history of Mesopotamia, cuneiform and the Akkadian language. You might have read her wonderful recent book Between Two Rivers, Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History. It is glorious. And you'll remember her from our episodes on the ancient Babylonians and cuneiform in it's Dr. Moody Al Rashid. Welcome Moody.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's awesome to be back.

[Greg Jenner]

We love having you back. And in Comedy Corner, she's an award winning comedian, actor and storyteller. You might have seen her sell out Edinburgh Fringe show or caught her on Breaking the News or Rosie Jones Disability Comedy Extravaganza or her new Radio 4 show Human Watch. And you'll definitely remember her from our episode on Scottish hero Robert Bruce. Not Robert the Bruce, it's Mary Lane Robertson. Welcome back, Mary Lane. Hey.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Thank you for having me back to teach me more stuff.

[Greg Jenner]

Marielay, last time you let slip that you have a degree in archaeology.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

And we immediately went, uh, oh, this is interesting. How much will she know?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Well, that's the thing, because I did not know much about Robert Bruce at all. But I did do my dissertation on the Epic of Gilgamesh. But I did my dissertation on how has the imagery from the Epic of Gilgamesh changed according to different power struggles across Bronze Age. And it was so bad that I almost failed my entire degree because of it. And I thought, oh, Gilgamesh, I remember this. And then I thought in my brain, and I don't. So what's. Really. I can't even remember which one's the Tigris and which one's the Euphrates. I'm really rusty.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so a refresher course for you.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

It will be. It'll also be like me bringing shame to university. I don't know if I should even name the university I went to at this point, because when you said about it, I was like, I'd love to hear about this again, but I don't remember anything about it.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, well, we can fix that.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I remember Bronze Age.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so we have two Bronze Age experts in the room.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I wouldn't call myself that.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, we have two people who know roughly when it was. You still look worried.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yes, well, because also, I get confused because Shetland, our Bronze Age, was probably

[Greg Jenner]

what everyone else was already a bit later. Yeah, okay. All right.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I am a bit behind on both aspects of the show.

[Greg Jenner]

Well, today on the podcast, we're gonna explore all sorts about Gilgames, and by the end, you will be an expert, too. Okay, fabulous. Right, let's get cracking then.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

It's something my university couldn't do.

[Greg Jenner]

So, what do you know? Okay, this is the. So, what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And you might have heard that the Epic of Gilgamesh features a Great Flood narrative similar to the biblical story of Noah. Or maybe you've encountered Gilgamesh as the king of heroes from the Fate anime series. Or if you've read Elif Shafak's 2024 novel There Are Rivers in the SK sky, or listen to Johnny Flynn and Robert McFarlane's Gilgamesh inspired album, Lost in the Cedar Wood. But if you're a movie buff like me, you're plain out of luck, because no one's done any kind of movies about Gilgamesh, which is very disappointing. So who exactly was Gilgamesh? Was he really that epic? And how do bull penises fit into our story?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Oh, I'm already lost.

[Greg Jenner]

Let's find out. Right, Dr. Moody, we'll start with some basics for my benefit and perhaps Mary Elaine's benefit, although I'm sure it will come floating back to you. What exactly is the Epic of Gilgamesh?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

So it's a long poem from ancient Mesopotamia that tells a transformative journey of a king called Gilgamesh who ruled the city of Uruk. It's originally about 3,000 or 3,100 lines long, but only about 2,400 or 2500 remain, compared to, for example, 15,000 in the Iliad. It's written in cuneiform on 12 tablets. And we have to remember that cuneiform was a script, not a language, used in ancient Mesopotamia, which is the region between and around the Tigris and Euphrates in what is now Iraq, Syria, and parts of Turkey, which was home to a succession of civilizations like the Sumerians, the Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians.

[Greg Jenner]

Well, that's a very good summary. Well done.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I already have a question.

[Greg Jenner]

Go for it.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yeah, sorry, you say the tablets were a script, not a language. Sorry if that's really obvious to all the listeners, but no, it's fine. This is for their benefit and mostly mine.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Well, it's not obvious at all. So cuneiform was a writing system like the letters we used to write. English also get used to write, like, French, German with some variations. And it was used in antiquity to write a bunch of languages that were all mostly unrelated to each other, including Hittite, which is an Indo European language related to English, but primarily Sumerian and Akkadian and the various dialects of Akkadian and the tablet. So cuneiform is impressed. So it's kind of hard to actually write out with ink. Very easy to impress with a reed stylus into clay. So the story of Gilgamesh is recorded on these beautiful clay tablets in the cuneiform script.

[Greg Jenner]

We do have an episod on cuneiform, which Moody very sort of very brilliantly guided us through with Phil Wang as well. Okay, Mary, Elaine, you've already said Bronze Age. How long ago do you think the Epic of Gilgamesh was first written down?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I should know that the Bronze age was around 3000 BC.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Is that right?

[Greg Jenner]

That's about right, yeah. But we probably go a little later with our first recording of the actual story.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah. So we don't actually know how old this story itself is because it has these oral roots that we have hints of in the land, language and in other references. So it was probably recited, for example, in the courts of kings, including the kings of ur, around 20, 100, 2000 BCE, but it's probably older than that. And then some of the earliest tablets written, kind of records of versions of this story come from around that time period, the third millennium BCE or the 2000s BCE. And then there's a standard version, there's an old Babylonian version, and then there's a kind of standard Babylonian version, which is the one that gets copied over and over and over and over again. That from around probably 1100 BCE, written by a scholar named Sin Lekki Unini. He named in a. In a later literary catalog. So we're not too sure to what degree we can call him the author. Does he just establish the most popular version? This raises fun, in the nerdy sense, questions about authorship in ancient Mesopotamia, where it's more like people are links in a chain in the life story of a story. The tale itself, the story itself is more important than the author, as well as the kind of div. Origins, the perceived divine origins of everything that gets written down, all knowledge, wisdom and literature.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Is that like the Homeric amalgamation of storytellers? They're like, homer wrote this, or it's lots of stories gathered up and recited over the years.

[Greg Jenner]

Absolutely, yeah. So the story of the. Sorry, the story of. You put the Iliad in my head. Now, the story of gilgamesh is possibly 5,6000 years old, but our earliest records are about 4000. I think we probably should say this is important, actually. Gilgamesh was not always the name of the character.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

What?

[Greg Jenner]

Do you want to guess what his original name was?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Steven.

[Greg Jenner]

Stephen. Stephen King of Uruk. King of Uruk.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

It wasn't Gilgamesh.

[Greg Jenner]

No. Would he. What was his name?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

It was Gilgamesh.

[Greg Jenner]

Gilgamesh.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

No, that's funnier than Steven.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Gilgamesh is basically a late variation of, like, the signs used to write Gilgamesh. And there are around five Sumerian poems that tell distinct stories about Bill Gmesh, but they're not strung together as one narrative until the later Akkadian or Babylonian version that we talked about.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, it's adorable. Bill Gmech. He just sounds like a sort of like a slightly disappointing brother.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, he does.

[Greg Jenner]

You know, there's Bill Gamache and Will Gamache and Gilgamesh the French cousin. You know, there's a whole family of Them. And of course, there's Phil Gamache, who sang in the Air tonight.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yeah. And Lee D? Gmech, little one like Smurfette.

[Greg Jenner]

The boring question you probably get asked a lot is Gilgamesh a real guy who then gets turned into a literary folk hero, or is this pure speculation, pure fantasy?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Nobody really knows the answer to that. He's on what we would. He's referenced in what we would consider a semi historical document, which is called, we call it the Sumerian King List, basically a list of kings in what is now southern Iraq, what we would call Sumer. But it begins with these mythical primordial kings like Alulim, who ruled for 30,000 years, or Atana, who ruled for 400 years. So we know that these are probably not real people, or maybe they are based on real people, but these are not their real reigns. And Gilgamesh is referenced on this, having ruled for 126 years, which maybe if it's lunar months, is potentially doable.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, really?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Possibly also not. There are real kings on the list, though, that we know existed that are corroborated from other sources, like King Sargon, who ruled for a couple of decades around 2300 BCE. He's referenced, we know him from other documents and there are a whole bunch like that. So is he a literary character who moved into the history books, or is he a historical figure who took on legendary proportions?

[Greg Jenner]

That's interesting.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I remember looking at the list and some Kings last for 3,000 years, some seven.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

And then I was like, instead of changing politicians, but I was like, could it be that 3,000 years was a family name that then got listed as one royal member?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

That's a really interesting possibility.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Thank you.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah. Because it's such a formulaic thing and each king is. And one queen actually named Kubao is given a number of years that they reign for. It's probably years. But I think that the impossible lengths speak a little bit to this ideology of kingship that they're trying to establish in the same document, saying, look how old kingship the existence of a ruler like this is. And if something is old, it's obviously important and legitimate. In ancient Mesopotamia, they really revered their ancient history. So I think these impossible reigns feed into that ideology. And then with that setup, they can go on to list the real kings who ruled for seven years or 50 years.

[Greg Jenner]

So Gilgamesh maybe is real. He certainly becomes a model for what a king should be. Is that fair?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes, absolutely. There are kings that model themselves on him, like Shulgi who rules around 2100 BCE and who even claims to have the same mom as Gilgamesh.

[Greg Jenner]

That can't happen. If Gilgamesh ruled 126, you can't have the same mum as the next person.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Surely she has found a way to defeat menopause. I want what she's having.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, exactly those pills. Okay, so Gilgamesh, common estrogen sign. Yeah, yeah. So Gilgamesh, she's sort of King Arthur Y, but maybe realish. It's okay. We're sort of in that sort of territory. Mary, Elaine. Hercules in Greek myth is half mortal, half God.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

Gilgamesh, he's slightly more complicated. He's 2/3 God, 1 third human, which feels weirder somehow. I don't know why the ratio feels off.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

That's polyamorous parenting. Oh, how would that happen? How could it be thirds of a creation?

[Greg Jenner]

Maybe you're right.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Is that like a sewn into Zeus's thigh kind of situation?

[Greg Jenner]

That's a good question. Yeah. Moody, how do you get a one third mortal to gods? Yeah, how do you do 0.66 God?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

I think he do that because in the background of the Gilgamesh epic there is this deity called Ea, who's the God of wisdom. He's quite a mischievous God. He's never really front and center. He's kind of like interwoven into the story. The number that represents him is 2/3 of 60. Forgetting what that number is now. 15. Is that right? I don't know.

[Greg Jenner]

2/3.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

40. 40 something. I don't know, I'm not a mathematician.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

I remember the number itself. I just remember the ratio and that. That might be what's built into Gilgamesh here as a reference to eh. The mischievous God of Wis. Oh, okay.

[Greg Jenner]

This is harking back. So he's. Yeah. Okay.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Is he meant to be the father so that.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

No. So Ninsun, the mother of Gilgamesh, is the goddess. That's the divine being and it's a mortal dad.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, so godly mom. Mortal dad.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

And then somehow Ea pops into the mix.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

That makes him only one third God.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, I mean that's what. Sorry. It's all right.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Maths is my weakest point.

[Greg Jenner]

I think we can all agree none of us are particularly good on the math.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Two gods and one mortal makes one.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean the obvious question, Mary Lane, if you could have a godly body part, what would you choose? If you could be one third God or two thirds God, what would you go for?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Oh, two thirds God. But Like, I would go for. We have a goddess and Shannon called Sea Mither, the mother of the sea. I'd go for her so I could swim a boot and breathe with the seals.

[Greg Jenner]

So you go kind of mermaid. That's the. You'd want sort of fishy body.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Top half fish.

[Greg Jenner]

Top, top arfish.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Why not just a fish Head and legs. They're gonna have eyes on either side.

[Greg Jenner]

The one thing that we can see as a divine physical attribute Gilgamesh has is height. How tall is our king? Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Well, I always feel like when they want to make themselves grandoise, if that's the word, in how you pronounce it in French.

[Greg Jenner]

Sorry, you're saying grandiose there?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

No, I'm saying grandoise, as in very large and grand.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, I like it.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

They want to make themselves super tall, but also I feel like back then they were just shorter anyway, so I think he went for the lofty height of 5:11.

[Greg Jenner]

5:11? Yeah. Like a giant among men.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yeah, Back then, surely would be. You go by the Shetland diet of Picts. They're all tiny.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, Moody, how tall is Gilgamesh according to the story?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

So he is nine feet tall in the sun. Yeah. And in one translation by Sopha Sal, which is a gorgeous translation, he's 18ft tall, which would be more of an inconvenience probably than anything else, but I

[Greg Jenner]

know people want tall men on Tinder, but, like, nine feet's too tall. Oh, my God.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

You can't buy many clothes for Christmas.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, I mean, the shoe size alone. Come on.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

9 foot or 11 foot or 18, you say 18.

[Greg Jenner]

18.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

So they're like, let's double it. No, you'll notice by the time we hit nine, we might as well double it.

[Greg Jenner]

18ft. Okay, so he's basically as big as a bus.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

So when you see those statues of them from back in the day, they're like, oh, no, that's to scale life size.

[Greg Jenner]

Gilgamesh. So our main character is two thirds divine. He has a minor name change from Gilgamesh to Gilgamesh. He is adjusting his palace doorways to 18ft, possibly. Moody, how does our story of Gilgamesh begin? Is it, do we meet him in adulthood? Do we meet him as a king?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

We do. He's the tyrannical king of Uruk. He violates brides on their wedding nights. He exhausts the men and boys by forcing them to build a humongous wall, which is an archaeological wall, and play violent sports. And finally, the women beg the Gods and goddesses to create a match or an equal for Gilgamesh to challenge him and just calm this guy down really.

[Greg Jenner]

Right. Is it an opponent or a friend they're trying to create?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

So the word can be translated as equal or match. But there's a lovely children's version of this. I don't know how you write a children's version of the horrifying tale where it's basically like, he's lonely and miserable and so he needs a friend. Yeah. So who.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

So I studied this at university, and the version I learned was, he's lonely, needs a friend. Which makes me question what source I used. But I'll tell you this, when I did my course on Romans, I used to use rotten Romans.

[Greg Jenner]

You do the Horrible Histories books?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yes. And my professor said, how did you know that? Because I used to come out with facts that the professors didn't know. And I'd have to be like Terry Derry. And you see my references.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so he needs a friend or he needs an equal to sort of match him in the ring who is created or, you know, who is sent down to match or fight or play with Gilgamesh.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

So the gods create Enkidu from clay and divine blood. There's a really beautiful description. He's born in silence, in other words, not with the cries of childbirth. He's at first a wild man. He's described as being very hairy and almost animal like. And he lives among the animals, the gazelles, and he causes grief to hunters because he's constantly foiling their traps and rescuing the animals. Oh, yeah. So Gilgamesh learns about this when the hunters complain effectively. He learns about Enkidu from the complaints.

[Greg Jenner]

So he's an animal rights activist. He's going along sabotaging traps and things.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Exactly.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay. And Gilgamesh is like, this guy's ruining my hunting. Okay, I'm gonna go sword in mount. Okay. How do you think tyrannical Gilgamesh addresses this new threat?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

This is the one time I think I'll get this bit right. This is the one thing I remember from this story which take from that what you will. They get a really attractive lady.

[Greg Jenner]

They do, yes, yes.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

They cover her nice smelling oils and they're like, show him why he wants to enter society. And she seduces him. And Ankidu is like, I'd rather be with humans than animals. And thus ends my knowledge.

[Greg Jenner]

Beautifully put and suitable for Radio 4. So well done, Moody. I mean, Mary Lane did a very beautiful elegance description. It's a bit more Julie Cooper Novel, isn't it? It's a bit more sort of racy than that. It's not love, it's sort of romping in your ear.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

But they're not married.

[Greg Jenner]

No, no. So who is the woman who is sent along?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah. So he sends Gilgamesh, sends a woman called Shamchat to seduce Enkidu, effectively. She's a temple worker, maybe a sex worker, A priestess of Ishtar. We're not really sure how to translate the word that's used to describe her. Ishtar being the goddess of. And they have sex for seven days and seven nights, possibly more. After which he becomes civilized and the animals actually reject him after this.

[Greg Jenner]

No way.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah. So they're just like, no, we can smell that you've changed.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh my God.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

What?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, so you were spot on, actually.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Does that have any kind of similarities to the Garden of Eden story? And Adam and Eve living in harmony with nature and then getting this knowledge and then being outcast from the garden? So that's an interesting question.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, it is sort of similar, isn't it? It is a man who lives with nature and then a woman comes along and ruins it.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I'm sorry, Gave him the best seven nights ever.

[Greg Jenner]

I was gonna say it ruins it or vastly improves his life, let's be honest. And then Gilgamesh sort of shows up.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, or Enkidu sort of shows up to Uruk.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, he's the other way around, isn't he?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

So Enkidu's told that Gilgamesh is kind of demanding this right to sleep with brides on their wedding night. And they meet on the threshold of one of these brides houses and start wrestling the verb isabtu. They take hold over, they seize each other, which is the same phrase used later when they embrace. And it's also a phrase used for marriage in other sources.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, really?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Seize someone in marriage, which is very romantic. And they turn out to be equally matched. They kiss and make friends and Gilgamesh caresses Enkidu like a woman. There's some really interesting imagery being used and, you know, quite direct, I would say.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so the obvious question there, you say match. You know, we've had this idea of Enkidu being sent down to be a match for him. But it sounds like there's an almost more than romantic, almost, you know, platonic love, but there's also like an attraction maybe.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, I think there's definitely a romantic love. And they tell us this with a lot of language, like, he's gonna love him like a Bride. They caress each other, they kiss. Later in the story, it gets reprised in different ways, so I think matches. Maybe it's. I don't know if it was deliberately vague, but I think our translation is nicely vague because it covers all the bases, really, of what their relationship takes on.

[Greg Jenner]

It's quite modern, the polyamory here, isn't it? Cause we've got Gilgamesh sending along a lady to seduce his future boyfriend. It's quite open.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, this feels like a love between two men.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah. And I think it absolutely is. Even if kind of earlier translators were reticent to say that the Victorians were

[Greg Jenner]

like, they're just good friends.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes, exactly.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

They were just flatmates.

[Greg Jenner]

They're just flatmates.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

They just lived together.

[Greg Jenner]

They're just bros. Okay. They're just bros. And they just like watching rugby.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

A beautiful story of love.

[Greg Jenner]

Moody. Could we hear some of this beautiful Arcadian poetry, then?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Kelgame shunatam I pashar enkidu washar I waldu umi sebet usebe mushiatem en kidu tabim shamchatam irhi.

[Greg Jenner]

That's beautiful.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

It's a really beautiful language.

[Greg Jenner]

It is really beautiful. And in English then. Would you mind translating that for us?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes. So as Gilgamesh was relating the dream, Enkidu was sitting before the temple woman. The two of them were making love together. He forgot the wild where he was born. For seven days and seven nights, Enkidu was erect. And he coupled with Shamchat. More literally, he poured out with Shamchat.

[Greg Jenner]

Right?

[LinkedIn Ads Narrator]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay. This is pretty spicy stuff.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, it's quite graphic. They did not mince their words. They wanted it to be quite clear what was happening.

[Greg Jenner]

Very clear what's happening. Okay. Seven days and seven nights of being erect. Well done for him. So we have that sort of beautiful poetry and we have Gilgamesh meeting his match in Enkidu. So what is the first adventure they go on and what spurs the adventure? Why do they need to go on a quest?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

So we have this scene where Enkidu is feeling sad and keeping in mind that lots of bits are missing from the epic, we're not 100% sure why, and to cheer him up, decides they need to make a name. He needs to make a name for himself. But Enkidu's not so keen. They go on a quest, effectively, to kill the guardian of the cedar forest, Humbaba. So these forests are in what is now Lebanon, and Devastatingly, less than 1% of the original cedar forest remains. And real kings did Go into these forests and get timber to build their palaces, to build their thrones, etc. So that is their first side quest.

[Greg Jenner]

The first side quest is let's go kill a forest guardian.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

To cheer you because your friend's feeling sad. What do we do when your friend is sad? Let's go kill some sort of God.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Wow, we've been too loving. Let's balance that out by being friends. Could that be the forest that Enkidu is estranged from, or is it a different forest?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

It's a different one. This one they have to travel to and takes them quite a while to get there, although they cover huge distances in the matter of days.

[Greg Jenner]

Well, he's 18 foot tall. He's got a very long stride pattern.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Enkidu as tall as Gilgamesh?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Well, I mean, he is described as equal, so. But they don't give his proportions, they just say he is big and dazzling and all these other things.

[Greg Jenner]

Big and dazzling?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

That's a great tinder profile. Hello, Enkidu. Big, dazzling, open to anything. Okay. I mean, so they're going off to go and cut down a famous tree.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

Moody. What is Humbaba's physical vibe? What's he look like?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

He's terrifying. So he's quite dragony. He is a mix of things that's spot on. There's fire that comes from his lips. From an earlier Sumerian version of this exact same story. They write, his pugnacious mouth is a dragon's maw, his face is a lion's grimace, his chest is like a raging flood. No one dare approach his brow which devours the reed beds. So during and after the battle, Enkidu and Gilgamesh are not sure why they've done it, why they've taken on this monster and killed him. It's really weirdly reflective and almost regretful and sensitive.

[Greg Jenner]

So in the battle, they're going like, why are we doing this?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

I don't know exactly. And then they do it anyway, even though they're having these moments of reflection along the way, which is kind of unexpected for an epic dragon battle. Humbaba pleads for mercy, Gilgamesh refuses. And afterwards, Enkidu questions why they've done this. Why have they gone and destroyed the guardian of the forest and cut down so many of the trees? So it's a really interesting scene.

[Greg Jenner]

I feel for Enkidu. He's made his first friend and his first friend is a bad influence.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Dragging him on these stupid quests. He just wants to hang out in the forest.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

But no.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, okay, okay. So Enkidu and Gilgamesh primarily has killed an important forest guardian, one of the gods. I mean, is he a God? Is he of that level? Is he created by the gods?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

I think his name is written with a defined determinative. I don't know if he's a God, but he's definitely not a mortal. An easy to kill figure. He's quite a.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so he's important, right? He's defending the forest. What do you think of the repercussions for Gilgamesh having committed this crime?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I just feel like Gilgamesh has shown no remorse so far, that I just don't see him showing remorse now. Also, I feel like Gilgamesh, if he's real or not, has had a real hand in writing this tale. So I'm like, Gilgamesh isn't anything bad, but he's still great.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, you think he authors his own quest narrative?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

For sure.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, okay. And you think he's going, no, put that. I was really tall. 18ft 18.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Make me tall, make me older. My name start with a G. I defeated the forest monster. I don't know. Do they fall out? Does Enkidu fall out of Gilgamesh?

[Greg Jenner]

That's an interesting one.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I don't want them to break up, though. I want Gilgamesh to grow and learn and go to therapy like I was promised. But maybe they have to break up.

[Greg Jenner]

Well, that's how rom coms work. So is it a rom com? Moody. What happens next?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Not quite. Although there is a third party who enters the scene who is quite a powerful one. So after the fight, the goddess Ishtar, who's again the goddess of love and war, violence.

[Greg Jenner]

Those two things don't seem like the same.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

No, she's quite. She's a very volatile goddess.

[Greg Jenner]

Sure.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

So, yeah, she takes the same pleasure in lovemaking and murder, I guess. Yeah, she's an interesting figure, sure. And she sees Gilgamesh and falls in love and proposes marriage. But Gilgamesh rejects her, listing all her dead or otherwise diminished former lovers, one of whom gets turned into like an earwig or something like that. And she gets pretty angry and calls on her father, Anu, the sky girl, to send down the Bull of Heaven, which is the constellation Taurus, to kill Gilgamesh.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

That's me. I'm Taurus.

[Greg Jenner]

Are you?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, well, you might not like what happens next in this story then. Why? Well, because the Bull of Heaven is sent down to kill Gilgamesh. To Gilgamesh, and Gilgamesh he's not being punished for slaughtering the innocent forest guardian. He's being punished for rejecting a sex God.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

I feel like he's learned nothing, but he's gonna fight now. A celestial boy. Marie Lane, how would you go about defeating a celestial bull?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

You take it to a celestial abattoir in the heavens around killing time.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Humane gun on the head.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay. Spoken like a true farmer. Yeah, yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

It's a good old bolt.

[Greg Jenner]

Well, I mean, into the skull.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

How does.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, I don't know if they've got the old bolt gun back then. I mean. Moody, can you give us the gory details of the goring?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes. So they work together, essentially, because the bull of heaven is quite a destructive creature. And as he approaches Uruk, everything he does essentially ends up killing huge amounts of people. Every. You know, every time he breathes, a huge gulf opens up in the ground and swallows people up, et cetera, from memory. Enkidu grabs him, and then Gilgamesh stabs him in the head between the horns.

[Greg Jenner]

Bolt gun's pretty accurate then.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah. Just a sword in this one or a blade of some kind would be

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

a very good one.

[Greg Jenner]

They cut out the hunter.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes. They cut out the heart. They offer it to Anu, the sky God, and then they throw its penis at Ishtar.

[Greg Jenner]

I mean, that feels like a very childish move.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, yeah, it's quite the move.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

And she's the goddess of, like, love and desire and stuff.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Does that have an effect on her?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

You know, I'm trying to remember the scene, but I think there is, like, a worship scene of this penis in the temple to some degree, where she gathers temple worshippers, and they're like, sorry, penis.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

It just reminded me of Aphrodite's conception.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

When she's born from the actual testes of Kronos.

[Greg Jenner]

That's right. Yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

But then this is very much not her being born from it, but having it thrown at her.

[Greg Jenner]

But this bull had been sent down by Anu because Ishtar had been rejected. And then they killed the hand, the heart, back to Anyu and go. There you go. That's what happens to your ball. And meanwhile, chuck a bull's penis at the woman who proposed marriage. And narrative. It's very. It's very petty.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

It is.

[Greg Jenner]

There's no growth here emotionally, is there?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Definitely not. It takes a while for that to happen.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

So I think I was right. He doesn't learn anything.

[Greg Jenner]

He learns nothing. Okay.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

But to be honest, I suppose here he's just defending himself from A bull that is attacking him. But he did really shame Ishtar for that to happen.

[Greg Jenner]

He did. And throwing the penis is not a. It's not a very grown up move. Come on. No, let's all be adult. So then what happens to Gilgamesh and Enkidu?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

So the gods are pretty angry. I mean, they've filled a whole constellation, which is bad. They sentence Enkidu to death and he actually dreams of being in the underworld.

[Greg Jenner]

So why not Gilgamesh? Yeah, no, Kazengidu's just like the guy who's been dragged along.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, he's sort of like, Gilgamesh is sort of like that typical entitled guy that just never has to face consequences for anything he does. But he's about to face the ultimate consequence in a way because. Because Enkidu does die. He dreams that he's in the underworld and he dies. And Gilgamesh is utterly grief stricken to the point where he won't even let them take the body away. And there's all this imagery of him of him mourning and some of it compares him to like a lioness. So there's like some women, like a woman mourning her cubs, I mean, a female lion mourning her cubs. So it's such a loss, he won't let them take the body away until a maggot crawls out of Enkidu's nose and he's finally like, okay, yes, you are dead and I have to let go. And he arranges this huge funeral and lists, you know, tons of gifts given in Enkidu's memory.

[Greg Jenner]

Wow. So a very powerful scene. So Gilgamesh has been punished by having the one thing he loves taken from him.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Mary Lane, what do you think Gilgamesh, a grieving Gilgamesh, does after the funeral?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I mean, I still don't think he's learned anything.

[Greg Jenner]

You don't think he's grown from this?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

No.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I think he wants revenge.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, so you think he's gonna go John Wick?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Would he go after Anu?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Wow, that would be a power move.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I mean, I wouldn't put it past this guy.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so Mary Lane thinks that it's sort of revenge mission. He's gonna.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I mean, to be honest, if he did go for a revenge mission, that would probably be the most like, coherent, structural journey thing he's done so far in the story. So maybe he doesn't, but coherently he'd go for revenge.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, interesting.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah. I mean, you're right that there's no growth in that. He then instead of I should be less horrible and calm down. He becomes really anxious about death and he embarks on this new quest to attain immortality. So it's quite a self evolved anxious reaction.

[Greg Jenner]

He turns into a tech billionaire. He's like, I don't want to die. I'm going to live forever.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Going to download my consciousness, I'm going

[Greg Jenner]

to get my son to give me his blood so I can live forever. Okay. So he goes on a quest for immortality.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes. And he seeks out the wisdom from one of the sole survivors of the Great flood, the only immortal living man. There is an immortal living woman alongside him that doesn't really. But she's not yet mentioned, unfortunately.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

She's just his wife and bird pretty much.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

So he goes in search of a man called Uttanapisti, who is in an earlier version of the flood story called Atrahasis, a name that means he is very wise from the word watrum, which means huge or exceeding, and Hasas, which means to understand. So he's huge of understanding. And Uttanapisti is his name in this story.

[Greg Jenner]

So his new name is Uttanapishti. But he used to be Atrahasis in the older myths.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Exactly.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay. It's all coming back to us. The flood myths will sort of. We might know vaguely from Noah in the book of Genesis. The obvious question I suppose is, is, is that book just ripping off the Gilgamesh narrative or are they. Are they both sort of speaking of similar, similar events or, you know, is there a kind of literary connection?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, I mean, I know there's a literary connection between the Atrahasis earlier Atrahasis myth. And there is also a Sumerian flood story that's even earlier. And the tablet in this Gilgamesh epic, which is tablet 11, that reprises this whole story. And it tells us that, you know, in broad brush strokes, the gods forgot basically to build death into human DNA. And so population just explodes.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

What are you doing?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, and it's just too loud. And they're like, we can't sleep. We gotta get rid of these people. So Enlil tries. He sends down famines and plagues. But Ea, well, he's called Enki in this earlier one. But in this story he's Ea again, the mischievous God of wisdom who we've already talked about. He thwarts all these attempts. So they decide to send down a deluge that will wipe out all life on Earth. And they make all the gods and goddesses swear an oath that they will not tell anybody about this. They will not so. So Eya finds a workaround in that he, instead of telling Atrohasis in the old myth or Uttanapisti in this one directly, he's talking to a wall, which is sort of how I feel when I'm talking to my children. And so it's through the wall that this man hears a warning that this is to come. And he builds a boat and fills it with the seed of all life.

[Greg Jenner]

He's the lone survivor of the flood, and because his software doesn't have death built in, he's just living forever with his wife.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Mm.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yeah.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

And Gilgamesh is like, he must know how to live forever. So I'm gonna go find him so that I don't have to suffer the way Enkidu did.

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[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews.

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everyday life and all the bizarre ways people are using the Internet.

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[Greg Jenner]

Okay, so the flood myth's really important. One person is saved. Gilgamesh is desperately trying to sort of get the secret of knowledge. Does he sink or swim in his. His quest to live forever?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, I mean, it's quite a quest he has to go through. You know, he basically has to journey beyond the edge of the known world. He goes to Mount Mashu, the twin mountains, which is where the sun rises and sets, which is guarded by these half scorpion, half human guardians.

[Greg Jenner]

Awesome.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Then he has to which. Who take one look at him and they're like, you look terrible, dude. Like, we'll just let you through.

[Greg Jenner]

No way.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yeah. You look exhausted. Oh, terrible. As in, like, he's broken, man.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, exactly.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, really?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes. Yeah. They're like, you're not gonna put up a fight. I just go ahead.

[Greg Jenner]

They feel sorry for him. Yeah, effectively. That's kind of embarrassing, actually.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

You come to a nightclub and then, like, you don't look like you pose a problem here.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, yeah, just come in. It's fine. Yeah, you just sit in the corner and be sad.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Exactly.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

So here's maybe the dumbest question I'll ask all time, because you said the sun both rises and sets there. Is it a real mountain that we know of Geographically, we think it might

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

be the Zagros Mountains.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, really?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Sort of bounding kind of the heartland of what we call ancient Mesopotamian. Yeah, but you know, and there are expressions like when someone dies, they go to the mountain. And the netherworld underworld may begin in the mountains. So it's kind of this, like, unknown region.

[Greg Jenner]

Sure.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

That makes its way into mythology in all sorts of interesting ways.

[Greg Jenner]

So he doesn't have to fight the scorpion men because they just look at him and go, you look depressed. Gone. In you go. You look like you do with a night out.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

And then it doesn't sort of get better. He then has to walk through a pitch black tunnel. I can't remember if it's 12 hours or 12 double hours. And then he exits onto this fantastical supranatural world where the trees are studded with gemstones.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, wow.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

And he reaches the sea and speaks to an innkeeper named Shidouri, who also says, wow, you look like you're in a bad way.

[Greg Jenner]

I love that there are pubs in the gemstone forest.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

You know, it's just nice to know that there are pubs everywhere.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Not to be stereotypical about it, but this is the man's equivalent to if I was to go out without makeup on. And other people are like, why am I alone? You look really ill. You look so ill. What's wrong with your face? Just haven't covered in foundation.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay. So he speaks to the innkeeper called Shidori.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Shidori, yeah. And she directs him to what are called the waters of death that you have to cross with a specific ferryman called Ur Shanabi, I think is his name, to reach Uttanapisht.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay. So that's kind of river stick stuff. Right. So people who know the Greek myths are kind of going, I've heard this before. So these myths are sort of interfolded and they keep echoing each other. But this is a much older myth than the Greek ones, I suppose.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes. Yeah, I would say. I mean, I don't know when the Greek ones were forever.

[Greg Jenner]

They're later. They're later. Definitely. Yeah. Okay, so he's crossing the waters of death. That sounds scary. All that to be immortal. It sounds like a. It's quite a palaver. Marie Lane. I mean, would you bother to live forever? Yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

No.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Okay.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Well, I don't know if you could go on that journey and then you'd have forever to think of about it. I mean, it makes me live forever of Anki do, which I find really strange because he's so sad by his friends dying. He's like, I don't want to meet my friend on the next plane of existence or under the mountains where you think we go next. I want to live forever without my best friend.

[Greg Jenner]

That's true. Yeah, that's true.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

But then to go on a magical quest like that, it's all I've always wanted. You know when you like Lord of the Rings.

[Greg Jenner]

I'm. I'm not bothered. I'm not bothered. I'm all right at home. Yeah. Quite happy on heels. Yeah. Quite happy on the sofa.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I'd love a big old quest, to be honest.

[Greg Jenner]

No, I've just watched Netflix. It's fine.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

It feels like when you go out in bairns and we're working the sheep and then the sheepdog would invariably run away and you spend the rest of the day looking for the sheepdog. But try not to tell mam that the dog ran away.

[Greg Jenner]

Is that a quest or is that just not trying to get in trouble?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Same thing.

[Greg Jenner]

Same thing. Okay, so having crossed the waters of death, having gone through the gemstone forest, walked through the tunnel of Darkness, having not fought the scorpion man. Cause they took pity on him. Does Gilgamesh get it over final life?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

No.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, What? Got it.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Almost, but not quite. So Uttanabishti basically takes one look at him and says, you're on the wrong quest. He recounts the whole flood story, explains that Gilgamesh can't and shouldn't follow this path to immortality. And he challenges Gilgamesh to stay awake for seven nights, which is incidentally the sort of length of el. Various elements of the flood story. The sex marathon.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

You know, seven days and seven nights is quite a big theme. This conquering sleep is sort of like conquering death. And Gilgamesh fails. And I think he wakes up to seven loaves of bread that have been baked each day.

[Greg Jenner]

Just to prove just seven breakfast that he hasn't eaten.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, exactly. And so Uttanapishti explains that eternal life is not an individual survival. It's not the survival of Enkidu, it's not Gilgamesh, it's not even his own survival, but the survival of the whole community. Because life can end in an immigrant instant. You should make the most of what time that you do. Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

So this guy who's. Who's got huge wisdom, that's his name, his wisdom is the. The survival of community, of memory, of passing on is more important than your own life.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Exactly.

[Greg Jenner]

And the tech billionaires are like, no, I want to live forever.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

That's really beautiful.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Will Gilgamesh see the beauty?

[Greg Jenner]

You're worried he's not going to learn?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Throw a willie at someone else.

[Greg Jenner]

It's a good point. Does our scarily tall, violent, sad king finally go, oh, I've been chasing the wrong thing all along?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Nope.

[Greg Jenner]

Gilgamesh, come on.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

I know. So he's.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I don't remember it because I blocked him.

[Greg Jenner]

He was just so disappointed in this guy.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Relentless.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, he's so. He's just so refusing to grow as a person.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Exactly. Okay, not yet. Not yet.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay. All right.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

So Uttanaphirshti is like, well, okay, fine. There is something called the plant of heartbeat, which you can find at the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the ocean, basically in the Apsu, with this sort of subterranean lake or freshwater source, which is a mythical source of kind of nourishment of groundwater, but also of wisdom in ancient Mesopotamia, because it's the home of Ea. Again, we keep coming back to Ea.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Or Enki in Sumerian. So there's this connection between water, wisdom and memory, as we know. So Frozen 2.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes, yes, that famous documentary. Yes, yes, Frozen 2, exactly. Very important film in my life. With a six year old daughter.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Water has memory.

[Greg Jenner]

Water has memory. Yes.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

This story is like Babylonian, so it's very, very far away from the Hittites.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

They had versions of it though.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

So it traveled because in a Hittite in Hattusali. Is that right? Hattusa, yeah, Hattusa, sorry. Their capital there was the bit beside it. They called it like a liminal space where they had this like water going into this tunnel and they thought it was something to do with like a passage into another realm or that kind of wisdom.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Interesting.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Is an interpretation in archaeology which is the classic. We don't know.

[Greg Jenner]

We don't know.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Ritual.

[Greg Jenner]

Could be. Could be ritual.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Like that's where we Washed our hands.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

So strike that from my notes.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

That's lovely.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes. Because the Hittites would come along later, I suppose. The Hittites are.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

They're around the same time. Yeah. And they are using cuneiform as well. So the myth does travel, and they have versions of the Gilgamesh epic, although I don't know when they date.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

When they're dated, they were like, he was 3 foot 5

[Greg Jenner]

and his name was Steven. Okay, so the water and wisdom, the kind of plant of heartbeat. Gilgamesh knows where to get it. Does he pop on his scuba gear and go diving? How does you know he does?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah. He ties these heavy stones and he goes and retrieves the plant of heartbeat and then resurfaces and he takes a shower. And a snake steals the plant of heart.

[Greg Jenner]

Don't you hate it when that happens?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

It's like, yoink goes straight over to Eden. It's like, yo, Eve, try some of this apple.

[Greg Jenner]

It is another apple frump.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Don't think.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

I mean, snakes are quite. You know, they have. They're good and bad in mythology of ancient Mesopotamia, so they're ambiguous.

[Greg Jenner]

It's a cheeky snake.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

It's a very cheeky snake.

[Greg Jenner]

It's a yoink moment, as Mary Lane said. Okay, so the snake has stolen his eternal life. Gutting. Does Gilgamesh now get the memo and go, okay, I'll give up on the whole living forever thing.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

At long last.

[Greg Jenner]

Hooray. Personal development.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Is that personal development or just fatigue? I mean, everyone's like, man, you look terrible.

[Greg Jenner]

I feel like he should just, I don't know, join a book club. He just needs, like, you know, just.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I mean, maybe he did, and that's when he wrote this.

[Greg Jenner]

That's it.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

At the book club. They're like, the theme this week was longing. And he's like, and I wrote about myself another chapter about me.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, Moody, tell us about Gilgamesh's personal growth.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah. So he finally returns to Uruk, and we have this scene that reprises the very beginning of the myth where he's looking, he's surveying the city, and he seems far more aware now of what's at stake. He looks at the different elements that make up the city, civilization, human life, and sees that it's more important than his own ego and individual success. And he is wiser. He finally brings that wisdom back to Uruk and will ideally incorporate it into how he rules. And this kind of personal growth narrative has led some scholars to call it wisdom literature. But who knows? Exactly. It kind of has everything.

[Greg Jenner]

Ah, yeah. It's quite a beautiful low key ending to a story that's involved scorpion men, magical ball penises, a seven day sex marathon, a snake stealing stuff out of a bath. Like we've had like real kind of wild stuff. And in the end it's just one man and going, oh, we should all die. That's what humans should experience.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, that's part of it. But as a group, we can still live.

[Greg Jenner]

Right? Memory lives on as a community.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I would like to point out that he went through this adventure where he killed special forest guardian. His best friend died, Killed bull of heaven. Offended so many gods. Find this a rare fruit that got stolen. Troubled all these different people. And it feels like when he got out of city, he decided, you know what, guys, let's be peaceful. And the women of the city were like, this is what we said from day one. The women were like, we were always like, let's be peaceful.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes. It is like a celebrity being. Like, I've been on a journey of acceptance and I've learned that I have faults and I accept those faults. And it's like, you are a dickhead.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

YouTube apology video.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. We have known for a long time. You are.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I do remember the end bit this time. Was it? The secrets that he learns is to build structures that stand for all time. Have a lineage of offspring that carry on your bloodline and have great stories that are told forevermore.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah. So he writes his quests down on a. I think it's a lapis lazuli tablet. And he buries it somewhere in the wall and he says, someone will find this someday and remember me. And lo and behold, here we. We are remembering Gilgamesh because those walls of Uruk. Yeah, Uruk.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Are still standing.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

They are, yeah. And they're like 9km long and they're very thick and they're very real. Like, I think archaeologists estimate 300 million bricks.

[Greg Jenner]

Wow.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

In this thing.

[Greg Jenner]

So he did it. Eternal life. He nailed it.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Did he build those walls before or after the adventure? Because it sounded like before. He's working the men and the boys to the bone.

[Greg Jenner]

I was going to say. Yeah.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

So once again, has he learned?

[Greg Jenner]

Yes. My lasting memory is this thing where I forced everyone to do slave labor. We should talk about how the story of Gilgamesh, the Epic of Gilgamesh, was rediscovered in modern times. This is how the ancient world understood it. This is how it was passed down through their generations. But I guess we then received it much later on. Could you talk us through the Modern texts, history.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes. So the first Akkadian texts were found in 1849 by Austin Henry Layard in Nineveh in the library of Usurbanipal. And these, these were ones that were copied down by scribes. And obviously with the death of scribal training, no one copied them down anymore. So they just get buried. But there are strands of the story that may have survived into other forms of literature. So, for example, some have argued that Gilgamesh is in the Arabian Nights under a different name, Buluqiya. Some disagree with that. So, you know, take it with a grain of salt. And there's even, there's even an argument that the green man in the Quran, alchemy, who is this wise man who guards the sea and teaches knowledge, he might be Atrahasis. So there are some elements that have survived. Once cuneiform was deciphered, parts of it got translated. And in the 1870s, a self taught working class Londoner called George Smith, who was studying clay tablets at the British Museum, he was the first to translate the epic into English, producing a translation of this flood tablet, tablet 11, that was quite an exciting discovery at the time.

[Greg Jenner]

And Mary Lane George Smith, working class, self taught Londoner, he was so thrilled to have, you know, produced this translation. How did he celebrate?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Oh, did he do it Gilgamesh style

[Greg Jenner]

or go on a killing spree?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Oh no, he didn't like have too much to drink, did he?

[Greg Jenner]

He certainly let go of his inhibitions.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Oh no. Did he, did he just like an anky do and get naked and like run through Covent Garden?

[Greg Jenner]

He literally did. Really?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Really?

[Greg Jenner]

He ran naked through the. Was it the British Museum?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

That's right, yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

Stripped off his clothes and just ran screaming naked through shouting, I did it, I did it.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

That might be the one I'd have got right this whole time. And it was a total stab in the dark. He got naked and shot through the museum.

[Greg Jenner]

That's what Victorians really were up to. You know, we think of them as prim and proper, but no, they're getting naked, they're running around celebrating traveling tablet.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

That's amazing.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. So George Smith celebrated naked, his translation in 1870 of tablet 11. Since then we have other translations that people can go and read. Which ones would you recommend?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, so in English, there's a wonderful critical edition by Andrew George, if you want to get really into the nitty gritty of the language. But I think the most beautiful translation I've read is by Sophis Hell, a very accessible translation with some Wonderful essays as well.

[Greg Jenner]

So fabulous. And there was a new scene discovered, is that right?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes, from Tablet five, about five or six years ago, maybe a bit longer.

[Greg Jenner]

So we're still finding bits of Gilgamesh's story?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, I think it was the sex scene, actually. Was it filled some blanks in?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Yeah, someone had sent seven days. You find more of just the most gratuitous parts. It doesn't add any more plot or character development, just. It's real saucy. Was it by the original authors or. That sounds like fanfic to me.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, it does a bit, doesn't it? What else did they do? Well, that's amazing. Okay, so that is the story of Gilgamesh. Marielaine, you studied it at university. You've studied it a second time. How do you feel about Gilgamesh now? You could put some of this into your next show. Perhaps some of this storytelling tropes.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Well, I do like it because I do like how. Because I remembered the end in the beginning, but because I think it's a really sweet thing that the lesson in it is for, like, to carry on is you have these great deeds or these stories written about you or these structures or like, he's inadvertently done the things to have immortality, because as the innkeeper. No, Uttanapishti said was like, kun, community. Community is what lasts. If you have a strong community and they carry on the stories and it kind of falls in with that beautiful belief in, like, lots of, like, indigenous tribes and, like, in Turtle island, like, North America, where telling a story of how someone earned their name is telling their true character, which means they're never forgotten. So, I mean. I mean, we had a lot of laughs about Gilgamesh, but you don't forget him. And I like the idea that then thus telling stories, which is what I want to do, is like, what stories can you tell to remember other people or other things that have happen?

[Greg Jenner]

Beautiful.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Nice.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

That is nice.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

It's really nice.

[Greg Jenner]

Well done, us.

[Misha Glennie]

Yeah.

[Greg Jenner]

The nuance window. Time now for the nuance window. This is the part of the show where Marianne and I sit silently to contemplate our mortality for two minutes while Dr. Moody regales us with something we need to know about the Epic of Gilgamesh. My stopwatch is ready, so take it away, Dr. Moody.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

The epic of Gilgamesh has meant and will mean different things to me throughout my life. It's about power, grief, community, death, love. But right now, as we watch one interconnected crisis after another unfold, I want to tell you what I think it could mean in this moment, Humbaba was the guardian of the cedar forest, appointed by the God Enlil to keep the ancient cedars safe. He had the face of a raging lion. He breathed fire. His cry was a deluge. In ancient Mesopotamia, people sometimes used sheep entrails to predict the future. And one omen says that intestines shaped like Humbaba's face foretell the arrival of a usurper king. Imagine the face of this monster like the coiled intestines of a dying animal. Slippery, bloody, palpitating. I used to wonder, why create such a terrifying creature to guard trees? Like many of you, I bear witness daily to the destruction of a once thriving world. To line the pockets of a handful of people with already full pockets. It has helped me understand the mythology of Humbaba. But the Gilgamesh who slayed Humbaba and chopped down trees as tall as the sky was not the same broken man who clawed his way to Uttanapishti, the oldest man in the world. He was looking for the key to eternal life, but he found instead a lesson in how to live. I think the crux of Uttanapishti's message is instead of trying to live impossibly long lives, let us do more with the short time that we have. For Gilgamesh, this means acting as a shepherd to the people in his care and by extension, the places they rely on. When he returns to Uruk and surveys the city, he sees people's homes, the date orchards, the clay pits and the temple which represent domestic life, agriculture, crafts and religion. This is worth fighting for. He realizes the survival of each successive generation confers immortality. On the whole, our well being is tied to the well being of those around us and to the places that sustain us. To the waters that give us life, to the trees that give us air. The land that Humbaba gave his life the to guard. I think there is a timeless lesson in these 12 tablets and their unexpectedly flawed hero. Selfish, cowardly, violent, vulnerable, relentless and eventually enlightened. What are the chances that this story has survived from its earliest oral tellings to a fragmentary translation over 4,000 years later? And what are the chances that it might contain just the call to survival, community and care that we need?

[Greg Jenner]

Amazing. Beautiful. Thank you so much.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Thank you.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

So nice. That's such a nice way to take a message. Well, make it hopeful. I think that's what you need, is hope.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yeah, I think so too. I hope so anyway.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, absolutely. Definitely need more of the humanity and less of the monsters. So what do you know now? It's time now for the so what do you know now this is our quickfire quiz for Mary Elaine to see how much she has learned, remembered, second time around. How are you feeling, Martin Marielayne?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Less confident than when I had in my dissertation. That was for those spelling mistakes.

[Greg Jenner]

You've got some beautiful notes, some of them illustrated. There's some words too. It's mostly illustrations.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I only did three pages this time,

[Greg Jenner]

but they are very, they're very dainty and delicate.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Okay, thank you.

[Greg Jenner]

We've got 10 questions for you. 10, 10.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Jeez Louise, here we go.

[Greg Jenner]

Okay, question one. In the epic, what proportion of Gilgamesh is human to go?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

I remember this. It's one third of. Well, I wrote here that he's one third God. Even though there's two gods and one human involved.

[Greg Jenner]

Other way around. One third human, two thirds God. But I'll let you have it because you remember the ratio.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Okay, thank you. That was very kind of you, Greg.

[Greg Jenner]

Question 2. What event tames the wild man Enkidu,

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

his lover for seven days?

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, absolutely. A week long sex marathon.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

He said it.

[Greg Jenner]

Question 3. 3. Ishtar was the goddess of two things. Can you name what they were?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Love.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. And violence. Yes. The two things that somehow go together, apparently.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Well, it's like they're embraced, isn't it?

[Greg Jenner]

Yes. She does sound quite scary.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Yes.

[Greg Jenner]

Dominatrix, maybe. Maybe.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Sorry.

[Greg Jenner]

Question 4. Who is Humbaba and what happens to him?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Humbaba is a guardian in the forest. Great serpent like, dragony creature. And he is killed by Gilgamesh. Well, Enkidu's holy mountain.

[Greg Jenner]

That's right. Absolutely well remembered. Question 5. How long does Gilgamesh wait before ending his mourning period for Enkidu?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Oh, geez Louise, they're so busy. Drunk and dead. Enkidu. But they love us. Seven days.

[Greg Jenner]

That's right. So seven. It's always seven days, isn't it? The answer is well done. The maggot comes out of his nose and he's like, okay, time for a funeral. Question 6. Do you remember who was sin lekui unini and why is he important in our story?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Lequi unini.

[Greg Jenner]

Yes. Sin lequi unini Sine le CRE leonini. Isn't he's not in the story? He gives us the story.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Oh, he's the, he's the Homeric kind of author. Is he the author or is he an amalgamation of many people or like folk people who carried the stories. They went to court. Like I'VE written this. Yeah, that French author.

[Greg Jenner]

That's right.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Red Riding Hood.

[Greg Jenner]

That's. Yes, he is the sort of. He gives us the official standard version. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. Well done. Question 7. What was Gilgamesh's original Sumerian name?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Gilgamesh.

[Greg Jenner]

I Love it. Question 8. Why does Gilgamesh seek out a man named Uttar Napishti?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Because he is. He doesn't die. He's immortal. And he wants to figure out how he's immortal. And he's like, I just wasn't programmed that way, bro.

[Greg Jenner]

That's right. Question 9. What wisdom does Gilgamesh gain at the end of the epic story?

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

That it's about living through communities as a whole. That immortality is about our communities continuing to live and thrive.

[Greg Jenner]

Absolutely. And question 10. Due Smith, the scholar who first translated the ethic in English, But I know

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

the answer notoriously did. What?

[Greg Jenner]

At the British Museum.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Race naked through in celebration.

[Greg Jenner]

Absolutely. As we all should. Fantastic. Mary Lane. 10 out of 10 there because you got the ratio right. So well done. A perfect score.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Thank you. That makes up for my dissertation.

[Greg Jenner]

I was gonna say you get a first class degree. Congratulations. Thank you.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

And if you want, email me and I'll send you the dissertation. And you're gonna be disappointed in me. Like. Like my professors were.

[Greg Jenner]

Well, I'm not disappointed. Moody, are you disappointed?

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Not at all.

[Greg Jenner]

Good. See? Well, thank you so much, Mary Elaine. Thank you so much, Dr. Moody and Listener. If you want more Ancient History with Dr. Moody, check out our episodes on the Babylonians and the one on the histri cuneiform, which people loved. People really, really loved that episode. It's one of our most popular ever.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

That's amazing.

[Greg Jenner]

It's lovely. For more epic myths, we've got one on King Arthur, of course. And for more Mary Elaine, we have the episode on Robert Bruce, not Robert the Bruce. If you enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with friends. Subscribe to your Dead to me on BBC Sounds to hear new episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. If you're outside the UK, you can [e-mail] or wherever you get the podcasts. And yeah, I just like to say

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

a huge thank you to our guests.

[Greg Jenner]

In History Corner, we have the magnificent Dr. Moody Al Rashid from the University of Oxford. Thank you, Moody.

[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

Thank you for having me.

[Greg Jenner]

Always a pleasure. And in comedy Corner, we have the marvelous Mary Elaine Robertson. Thank you, Marielle. Mary Elaine.

[Mary Elaine Robertson]

Cheers very much. Thank you.

[Greg Jenner]

And to you, lovely listener. Join me next time as we delve into another dramatic historical epic. But for now, I'm off to go and grab a mate to help me beat up a tree. Bye. You're dead to Me is a BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4. This episode was researched by Katherine Russell. It was written by Katherine Russell, Dr. Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Dr. Emma Nagus and me the audio producer for Steve Hanke and our production coordinator was Jill Huggett. It was produced by Dr. Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Senior Producer, Dr. Emma Nagus and our executive editor was Philip Sellars.

[Misha Glennie]

Hello, I'm Misha Glennie, the new presenter of In Our Time. If you enjoyed that episode about the Epic of Gilgamesh, you might be interested in learning about another ancient work from Mesopotam 4,000 years ago. It's the Code of Hammurabi, a great black pillar that's now in the louvre, carved with 300 laws on anything from an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, to proving your innocence by swimming across the River Euphrates while weighed down with stones. And Gilgamesh gets a mention too. That's in our time on BBC Sounds.

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[Dr. Moody Al Rashid]

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