Egyptian God Vs Gilgamesh Essay

Both Sumerian and Egyptian myths involve life stemming from a “watery abyss” or “Primal sea”.
A constant threat of retribution and a traumatic water experienced incorporated into this.All of the elements(water, air,etc) were separate deities. Humans were “Created” by the original “Sun” god. There is a creator and a destroyer. There is also a mediator.

The differences stem around the reasons the “gods” became angry with the humans or justification for the flood. The forms that the deity show themselves in, and the roles of characters actions in the story. Small cosmetic details(the coffin) exist also.

Gilgamesh was one part man and ⅔ God. He was a ruler who had been oppressing his subjects. When his subjects asked the Gods for a someone to contain Gilgamesh's inappropriate behavior, they created Enkidu, a hairy, savage beast-like creation. After having sex Enkidu loses his “special powers”. Gilgamesh and Enkidu end up fighting and then become friends and proceed to move on to participate in adventures that make them “heroic”. However, after Gilgamesh turns down the Goddess Ishtar’s advances, Ishtar sends the “Bull of Heaven” to slaughter him. However Enkidu and Gilgamesh kill the bull instead.
The Gods kill Enkidu in his part of killing the Bull of Heaven and Humbaba. This makes Gilgamesh realize he will
die, so he goes looking for a plant that can provide immortality. He finds Utnapishtim, the only person who has gained eternal life. Utnapishtim’s boatman's takes Gilgamesh to recover the plant. They succeed only to have it stolen by a snake shortly after. Gilgamesh then returns to his land and shows the boatman around.

In both Egyptian and Middle Eastern mythology, Disease and Death are a punishment for humans distributed by the Gods.

In Egyptian Mythology, after you die, you travel to the underworld to have your heart weighed on a scale in the throne room of Osiris to be judged. In front of 42 Judges a person would have their heated weighed on a pair of balance scales in comparison to a feather of the Goddess Maat. If a person had been a good person. Truthful and just, the scale would balance and the person would be allowed to move freely among the gods because of their purity. Those whose heart weighed more than the feather were devoured by the female monster called the Devourer of the Dead.

The Goddess Ishtar has to travel through each of the seven gates to get there and at each gate remove an article of clothing.
She ends up naked and powerless. She confronts her sister and the ruler of the underworld, the Goddess Ereshkigal. Ishtar tries to seize the throne but is deterred and sentenced to die and have her corpse hung on a nail. The vizier Ninshubur, goe sto the God Enki who takes dirt and creates 2 androgynous beings that received the plant and water of life. The go into the body of the Goddess Ishtar and revive her. Buy she has to provide a substitute for herself. So she offers up her husband and he and his sister split the time
equally.

Isis sets a great example for a mom. She went head to head with the man who killed her husband to protect her child. Most women will not or would not be so bold and I have yet to find that in any other common known tale. That in itself makes her a Goddess