"The Epic of Gilgamesh" is considered the first-ever epic poem and, arguably, the first great piece of literature. Now, after a recent clay tablet discovery, the epic has grown a bit more epic.
In 2011, the Sulaymaniyah Museum in Slemani, Iraq, purchased a set of roughly 80 to 90 clay tablets from a known smuggler, largely as a means of recouping lost artifacts that disappeared during the American invasion and war in the country. It sounds like the plot to the most boring George Clooney movie ever. But it turns out one tablet wasn't just any tablet.
Farouk Al-Rawi, a professor at the University of London, advised the Sulaymaniyah Museum to pay the $800 asking price for one specific mud-caked tablet, as its cuneiform script stood out to him. And for good reason. It was a lost 'chapter' to "The Epic of Gilgamesh."
"The Epic of Gilgamesh," in case you skipped it in high school, tells the story of Gilgamesh, king or Uruk, and his companion, Enkidu, as they travel to the Cedar Forest to defeat the ogre Humbaba. Previously, the Cedar Forest was thought to be fairly silent. No more. The tablet adds 20 lines to the poem, largely describing the sights and sounds within the forest.
"The new tablet continues where other sources break off, and we learn that the Cedar Forest is no place of serene and quiet glades. It is full of noisy birds and cicadas, and monkeys scream and yell in the trees," Professor Andrew George, who assisted on the translation, told Live Science.
George continued his description, saying this chapter parodies courtly life, "like King Louie in 'The Jungle Book."
But does Baloo the Bear make an appearance? I think that's what we all really want to know.
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