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Epic of Gilgamesh — The Death of Enkidu (c. 2100–1200 BCE)

Author: Anonymous (ancient Mesopotamian; written in Akkadian cuneiform) Type: Poetry · Epic (excerpts) Source: Public domain — multiple translations; George Smith translation (1876) and Andrew George (Penguin, 2003) recommended Era/Period: WH Era 1 — Ancient Mesopotamia (c. 2100–1200 BCE) WH Standards: WH.6_12.1 · WH.6_12.2 · WH.6_12.4 ELA Standards: 9-10.R.8 · 9-10.R.9

What This Text Is About

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest surviving work of literature — older than Homer by a thousand years, older than the Bible's earliest texts. It tells the story of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk (in modern-day Iraq), who is two-thirds god and one-third human. His best friend Enkidu dies, and Gilgamesh — confronting mortality for the first time — embarks on a quest for immortality. He fails. He returns home and understands that his legacy is his city, his works, and the story he leaves behind.

The excerpts below come from two moments: the opening of the epic (Tablet I), which frames the entire poem, and Gilgamesh's lament for Enkidu (Tablet VIII), which is one of the oldest expressions of grief in human literature.

Read It

Public domain — adapted from George Smith translation (1876) and standard scholarly editions.

Tablet I — Opening (the praise of Gilgamesh)

He who saw the deep, the foundation of the land, who knew the ways, was wise in all things: Gilgamesh, who saw the deep, the foundation of the land, who knew the ways, was wise in all things. He explored every mountain, He crossed the sea. He sought the secret of life. He went to the ends of the earth, and returned. He engraved all his toils on a tablet of stone. He built the walls of Uruk, the sheepfold. Look at its wall, its battlements like copper— Survey its foundations, examine its brickwork.

Tablet VIII — Gilgamesh mourns Enkidu

Hear me, O elders, and give ear to me! It is for Enkidu, my friend, that I weep, Mourning bitterly like a wailing woman. He was the axe at my side, in which my arm trusted, The sword in my belt, the shield in front of me, My festal robe, my richest garment. An evil fate has robbed me of him!

You, Enkidu, whom I loved so dearly, who went with me through every hardship— the fate of mankind has overtaken you. Six days I wept over you; I would not give you up for burial until a maggot fell from your nostril. Then I was afraid.

Why This Text Matters

The Epic of Gilgamesh was lost for roughly 2,000 years. The tablets were buried in the ruins of Nineveh (modern Iraq) and not excavated until the 1850s. In 1872, a British Museum scholar named George Smith recognized one tablet as a flood story — almost identical to the Biblical story of Noah, but written centuries earlier. The discovery caused a sensation: it suggested that the Bible's most famous stories had older predecessors in Mesopotamian literature.

For a student of world history, the Gilgamesh epic is irreplaceable. It is direct testimony from the civilization that invented writing, built the first cities, and created the legal codes that later civilizations (including Rome and modern democracies) descend from. Gilgamesh's grief for Enkidu is 4,000 years old and reads like something written last week. The question it raises — what do we do when the people we love die? — is as live now as it was in ancient Uruk.

The friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu is also notable: it is one of the oldest portraits of male friendship as emotional depth, loyalty, and grief — categories that many ancient cultures reserved only for family relationships.

ELA Standards Connection

Standard Connection
9-10.R.8 Epic conventions: the hero's journey, the companion, the quest for immortality; the catalogue of heroic deeds as literary form; how the lament functions as a genre
9-10.R.9 The epic as argument: what does Gilgamesh believe makes a life meaningful? How does the poem's structure — beginning with his legacy, ending with his failure to escape death — support that argument?
9-10.W.4 Argument: What does the Gilgamesh epic say about what makes a life worth living? Use evidence from the text

Social Studies Connection

WH.6_12.1 — Science and technology of ancient Mesopotamia: writing (cuneiform), the city (Uruk was among the world's first), monumental architecture ("the walls of Uruk, its battlements like copper").

WH.6_12.2 — Belief systems: polytheism; the relationship between humans and gods; the divine origin of kingship; the role of the gods in determining fate.

WH.6_12.4 — Social and cultural life: the friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu; grief as a universal human experience; the king's relationship to his people and his city.

Key Vocabulary

  • Uruk — one of the world's first cities, in ancient Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq); Gilgamesh's city
  • Enkidu — Gilgamesh's best friend; created by the gods from clay to humble the king; humanized through friendship
  • Cuneiform — the writing system of ancient Mesopotamia; wedge-shaped marks pressed into clay tablets; the world's oldest writing system
  • Tablet — a clay slab on which cuneiform was written; the "books" of the ancient Near East
  • The flood narrative (Tablet XI) — Gilgamesh meets Utnapishtim, the only mortal granted immortality by the gods, who tells him the story of the great flood — a story with striking parallels to Genesis

Studio Ideas

  1. The oldest grief — Gilgamesh's lament for Enkidu is 4,000 years old. Write an argument: what does it tell us that human grief looks the same across thousands of years and thousands of miles?

  2. Legacy vs. immortality — Gilgamesh fails to find immortality. At the end of the epic, he returns home and looks at the walls of Uruk. What does the poem suggest about the difference between living forever and being remembered? Use evidence from the text.

  3. Compare the flood — Research both the Gilgamesh flood narrative (Tablet XI) and the Genesis flood (Genesis 6–9). Write an argument: what does the existence of multiple flood narratives in ancient literature tell us about how ancient civilizations understood their history?

Why This Is Relevant Today?

In 2019, a cuneiform tablet containing a previously unknown portion of the Gilgamesh epic was returned to Iraq after it was stolen, sold illegally to a US museum (Hobby Lobby's Museum of the Bible), and identified by scholars. The legal battle over who owns ancient artifacts — the countries they came from, the museums that house them, or some broader "humanity" — is ongoing. The British Museum holds thousands of Mesopotamian artifacts excavated (some say looted) during the colonial era. The question of who owns the world's oldest story is itself a story about power, colonialism, and cultural memory.

Poetry Collection · SDA Commons Reading Library · South High School