Classical Studies 2200 Lecture 9: Week 9
15 Dec 2016
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Important: across cultures, we get similar story patterns: some cultures are influenced by and emerge from other cultures, stories have universal appeal given similarities across cultures, gilgamesh: oldest story we know of. Mesopotamia to 2500 bce where gilgameshs" story takes place: flood plain between the two rivers was a very fertile land could grow a lot of things, we are looking at the city of uruk. Much earlier than any of the greek myths written down: the greeks didn"t have access to alphabet until much later, our surviving text comes from12 akkadian tablets ca. The epic of gilgamesh: legend, human hero with divine qualities subject to death, tames nature for human culture, a large part of his early adventure deals with taming nature to protect human culture. Shadow side: violent, arrogant: the things that make him great, also make him dangerous, he causes so much trouble in the place of uruk so the god"s make a friend for him.
