Epic Of Gilgamesh Research Paper
Myth is from the Greek word mythos, or story. Yet it’s not just any story, for it is a special or sacred story, as in how the world was created, who the gods are, why a grove is sacred, why a trickster gets the last laugh, or why a hero triumphed with volition and divine assistance. “Myth is about the unknown; it is about that for which initially we have no words. Myth therefore looks into the heart of the great silence,” wrote Karen Armstrong (2005, p. 4).
In the modern world, myth lives and, in the USA, it lives more than most places. There’s the continuing “city upon a hill” saga (from John Winthrop’s 1630 speech), Founding Fathers, manifest destiny, the cowboy motif in all its manifestations, urban myths, car obsession, art and science …show more content…
A scribe named Sin-liqe-unninni is credited with editing the standard version. The Epic of Gilgamesh was lost for centuries, but in 1853, it was rediscovered by Austen Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam on baked clay tablets in the Library of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian king whose martial images grace museums around the world. The puzzle of Gilgamesh is still being completed as more is discovered and holes are filled. One place, among others, that archaeologists find the tablets is in the homes of teachers where diligent students, long ago, pressed a stylus on clay tablets to form cuneiform, perhaps the world’s first written language, which was invented around 3,200 BC (George, 1999. p. …show more content…
They largely go unquestioned—such as myths of economic and political systems, myths about science and nuclear energy, the myth of the car, the myth of the new, as well as unquestioned assumptions about good and evil, to name a few. During my studies at New York University, I got the chance to interview E. L. Doctorow, author of Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, and many other books. Doctorow mentioned how important it is to uncover myths and write about them: “If myths aren’t examined and questioned and dealt with constantly they harden and become dangerous. They become a structured belief and they make people insane. Society becomes monolithic and despotic, in one way or another” (Marranca, 1999 p. 211). Doctorow has an important message here about how myths can manipulate people and harden into the bedrock of society. The 20th century saw how insane myths, woven into Nazism and Communism, distorted truth and unleashed demonic energies.
And so, it’s good to know what urges us on one journey and not another–the gifts of insight and maturity. Heroes such as Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Aeneas, Arjuna, and Dante search the underworld (the one below filled with shades, or the daylight one we, at times, inhabit) in order to reach their real
In the modern world, myth lives and, in the USA, it lives more than most places. There’s the continuing “city upon a hill” saga (from John Winthrop’s 1630 speech), Founding Fathers, manifest destiny, the cowboy motif in all its manifestations, urban myths, car obsession, art and science …show more content…
A scribe named Sin-liqe-unninni is credited with editing the standard version. The Epic of Gilgamesh was lost for centuries, but in 1853, it was rediscovered by Austen Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam on baked clay tablets in the Library of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian king whose martial images grace museums around the world. The puzzle of Gilgamesh is still being completed as more is discovered and holes are filled. One place, among others, that archaeologists find the tablets is in the homes of teachers where diligent students, long ago, pressed a stylus on clay tablets to form cuneiform, perhaps the world’s first written language, which was invented around 3,200 BC (George, 1999. p. …show more content…
They largely go unquestioned—such as myths of economic and political systems, myths about science and nuclear energy, the myth of the car, the myth of the new, as well as unquestioned assumptions about good and evil, to name a few. During my studies at New York University, I got the chance to interview E. L. Doctorow, author of Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, and many other books. Doctorow mentioned how important it is to uncover myths and write about them: “If myths aren’t examined and questioned and dealt with constantly they harden and become dangerous. They become a structured belief and they make people insane. Society becomes monolithic and despotic, in one way or another” (Marranca, 1999 p. 211). Doctorow has an important message here about how myths can manipulate people and harden into the bedrock of society. The 20th century saw how insane myths, woven into Nazism and Communism, distorted truth and unleashed demonic energies.
And so, it’s good to know what urges us on one journey and not another–the gifts of insight and maturity. Heroes such as Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Aeneas, Arjuna, and Dante search the underworld (the one below filled with shades, or the daylight one we, at times, inhabit) in order to reach their real