CLASS 310 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Humbaba, Rais, Enkidu
Document Summary
First cities situated in area between euphrates and persian gulf: sumer: 3000 bc. Babylon: 2000 bc: mesopotamian (babylonian) creation myth: enuma elish (ca. 3000 bc: main theme: emergency of marduk as the king of the gods (like zeus) Main theme of heliopolis creation myth: emergency of horus as king of the gods (and osiris as the god of the underworld) Theogony (succession myth [vs. creation myth]: most famous king of babylon: hammurabi. Code of hammurabi (earliest extant complete law code) Not first law code but first extant (still existing) law code. Delivered to hammurabi by a god (cf. Commandments; vs. purely human agency of greek laws later on) Hammurabi notorious for unreasonably harsh penalties (execution for theft, etc. ) The sumerians at first were ruled by harsh, dictatorial kings (cf. Central to the theme of the epic of gilgamesh. Earliest epic poem of world literature (vs. wisdom literature of ancient egypt: features gilgamesh, the first hero of world literature.
