The Importance Of Friendship In The Epic Of Gilgamesh

The Fertile Crescent, the area spanning from the iran-iraq border Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and turkey (McKay, p.16) and was believed to be the home of some of the earliest civilizations in known history (McKay, p.34).Out of these civilizations, the city of Uruk is considered one of the most important civilizations in Mesopotamia at the time (Mark, Definition). Believed to have been founded by the king Enmerkar sometime around 4500 BCE (Mark, Definition), this great city was a pioneer for many things including; writing, irrigation, building of the ziggurat and the development of the cylinder seal (Mark, Definition). During the Uruk Period, between 4100 and 2900 BCE, several villages started to grow and become much larger and complex with Uruk
being one of the most influential as it grew significantly at around 3800 BCE. (Mark, the Uruk Period). One of the most famous kings of Uruk and the protagonist of his own epic is the fifth king after the flood (Sanders, p. 122) at around 2700 BC (Ohio U, What, When and Where) or 2100 BC (Sanders, p.17) depending on what sources you look at. The discovery of the tablets began with Austen Henry Layard In an excavation on Nineveh at around 1839 but the cuneiform tablets were not discovered until 1853 when his successor, Rassam excavated the part of the library in Nineveh that contained the epic (Sanders, p.9-10).Even then its wasn’t until 20 years later, in the December of1872 when George smith announced an account of the biblical flood and shortly after, the overall outline of the epic of Gilgamesh (sanders, p.10). This epic poem whose oldest recovered versions are dated to around 2000 BCE (Ohio U, What, When and Where) found in Sumerian cuneiform on clay tablets (Sander, p.9) touch on many subject that are still relevant and contemplated in even in today’s modern culture such as; life and death, immortality, friendship, and mankind relationship with the divine. Although this epic is considered ancient, and thus also has some differences between its culture and ours, it does share many similarities with our culture like the concept of friendship as well as it provides a great examples of their own culture and day to day life of the ancient city of Uruk all those millennia ago. Throughout the epic, there is a multitude of various examples to show the concept of friendship between the king Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the man from the wild, created by Aruru, the goddess of creation from a pinch of clay to become Gilgamesh’s equal (The Epic of Gilgamesh, p.2).
After some time, Enkidu confronts Gilgamesh at the night when he is about to “visit” a bride before her wedding and after a wrestling match and Gilgamesh admits that Enkidu is his equal, they immediately become inseparable friends (The Epic of Gilgamesh, p.9). They become so close friends that even Gilgameshes mother accepts Enkidu as his son and trust him to protect him on their journey to the forest to slay Humbaba and collect the cedar trees form his forest (The Epic of Gilgamesh, p.10, 15). Even when the people tell them of the horrible creature that is Humbaba, Gilgamesh is confident in his friend to protect him throughout the adventure. Gilgamesh even plans all this out on what seems to be a whim when Enkidu becomes bored of everyday life in Uruk although Gilgamesh was planning on doing something to Immortalize his name, Enkidu’s want for excitement was the catalyst for the adventure (The Epic of Gilgamesh, p.10). A final example of the importance of their friendship would be in the death of Enkidu beginning on page 25 of the epic. When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh falls into deep depression (and even rage in the beginning on pg.35) puling his hair out and throwing of his noble clothing like it
discussed him (The Epic of Gilgamesh, p.35). He calls for the entire city to weep for Him, commands the smiths to create a magnificent statue of him and offers many gifts to the sun for what could be assumed to be an offering hoping that the sun god could protect Enkidu in the next life remembering the horrid dream of the afterlife that Enkidu had before he died (The Epic of Gilgamesh, p.35-36, 32). and regrets all the actions that led to his demise, he evens goes so far to abandon his life of luxury beginning with his robes and eventually goes into the forest to live almost like Enkidu did before they met, perhaps to show that he was sorry for what he did and to maybe even honor his dead friend (The Epic of Gilgamesh, p.37). This over all concept of friendship has remained relatively unchanged between societies. Friendship has remained an important part of life in any culture albeit not to the same extent as shown in the epic. People hold their companions with the upmost regard however; a bond shown in the epic might be misinterpreted as something much more than platonic in today’s society. Friendships are important in both societies but not at the same extent in modern times since it would be very unlikely that a friend would be able to calm or convince the other to go to a dangerous and maybe even deadly campaign like Gilgamesh did (The Epic of Gilgamesh, p.11). Also, friendships are not as close as they were as depicted in the epic (The Epic of Gilgamesh, p.10, 35) as friends that would cover each other’s back and stay with their companion no matter what are rare and few between in modern society. These examples form the epic of Gilgamesh do portray some peeks into the culture and lifestyle of ancient summer at the time.
As shown with the lineage for kings with Gilgamesh, their culture does show a hierarchy instead of a theocracy or oligarchy like other similar civilizations, also, it is obvious that the ancient culture had polytheistic views of the world as they are constantly sacrificing and communing with multiple gods all throughout the epic compared to today’s rather semi religious and monotheistic views. Ancient Mesopotamia does also indicate a patriarchy however, it does not seem uncommon that woman can hold a high socials class as with the example of Ninsun, Gilgamesh’s mother. Some insight can also be gained on the resources that were desired. During the death of Enkidu, Gilgamesh command smiths of every field to create a marvelous statue made with resources like lapis lazuli and gold and some hard wood (The Epic of Gilgamesh, p.36). Cedar wood was also so valuable that Gilgamesh and Enkidu would go out and risk their lives for it! Unfortunately, not much can be inferred on gender roles except that society was most likely a patriarchy. Things like food, technology, and architecture cannot be accurately depicted from what was provided in the epic as
well. With the exception of some views like gender roles, religious views and technology, not much has changed between modern and ancient times in any shape or form. Religions and names of places may have changed things like friendships, life and death and the presence of an omnipotent being or beings or constantly in the minds in any person, regardless of time and civilization. It only goes to show that with mankind, the apple truly never really falls far from the tree.