Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The semidivine king of Erech, a city of southern Babylonia, and hero of an epic collection of mythic tales, one of which tells of a flood that covered the earth.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- proper noun (Sumerian mythology) A legendary king of Sumeria and the hero of famous Sumerian and Babylonian epics.
- proper noun The
Epic of Gilgamesh , a long Babylonian epic written in cuneiform in the Sumerian language on clay tablets. Early versions of the written story date from 2000 B. C.; it is probably the first written story still in existence. A longer version was written in the Akkadian language, on 12 clay tablets found at Nineveh in the ruins of the library of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria from 669 to 633 B. C. The story depicted the life and heroic deeds of the legendary Gilgamesh, apparently derived from stories about a real king of ancient Mesopotamia who lived around 2700 B. C. The story includes a tale of a great flood, which has some parallels to the biblical story of the flood survived by Noah. The Nineveh tablets name the author of that version of the story, a Shin-eqi-unninni.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- proper noun Legendary
king ofUruk . - proper noun Hero of a
Babylonian poem, "Epic of Gilgamesh".
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a legendary Sumerian king who was the hero of an epic collection of mythic stories
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Gilgamesh is introduced as a builder of walls, which is to say, a builder of civilisation as the enclosed domain of formal, definitional structures -- the outer temple, the inner temple, the city walls.
Archive 2007-03-01 Hal Duncan 2007
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The now of Gilgamesh is a present with past and future; when Inanna courts him, he applies hindsight and foresight, listing her trail of jilted and cuckolded lovers as he rejects her.
Archive 2007-03-01 Hal Duncan 2007
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Gilgamesh is so energetic he "would not leave young girls alone" and "would not leave any son alone for his father," according to Dalley's translation.
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The now of Gilgamesh is a present with past and future; when Inanna courts him, he applies hindsight and foresight, listing her trail of jilted and cuckolded lovers as he rejects her.
The Eternal Moment of Modernity Hal Duncan 2007
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Gilgamesh is so energetic he "would not leave young girls alone" and "would not leave any son alone for his father," according to Dalley's translation.
Archive 2007-08-01 2007
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The Epic of Gilgamesh is among the oldest surviving pieces of literature in the world.
Archive 2007-06-01 2007
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The Epic of Gilgamesh is among the oldest surviving pieces of literature in the world.
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What I like the most about Gilgamesh is how emotional a story it is.
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What I like the most about Gilgamesh is how emotional a story it is.
Archive 2007-06-01 2007
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Gilgamesh is introduced as a builder of walls, which is to say, a builder of civilisation as the enclosed domain of formal, definitional structures -- the outer temple, the inner temple, the city walls.
The Eternal Moment of Modernity Hal Duncan 2007
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