The story of the Flood told before the Bible! Gilgamesh caused an uproar in Europe.
Translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh in 1872 riled up Christian Europe - embroiling Prime Minister Gladstone and Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Gilgamesh, which was written in cuneiform, is an ancient story that was told and taught in Mesopotamia for 3,000 years. But it was lost to history for more than 2,000 years until 1854.
It's an ancient tale of gods and kingly adventure that weaves through topics familiar to our modern psyches and sensibilities - leadership, violence, quest for mortality, love, homosexuality, environment and religion. It's a wonder why a movie or a Netflix series hasn't been produced about Gilgamesh! 🚩About my guest:
Dr. Sophus Helle is a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University. He is a prolific author with major works in history on subjects as diverse as Babylonian epics, climate change and medieval philosophy.
He is author of Gilgamesh, a book about an ancient Mesopotamian epic.
🚩Other episodes about anicent Middle East:
▶️Peace & diplomacy in ancient times
▶️Ancient climate change and religion ▶️No religious war in ancient Middle East ▶️How polytheism gave way to monotheism in Middle East
🖱️Support Our Program: We appreciate your financial support of our program, for any amount you like. And thank you.
Adel Aali
Host, Scholars Unravel Middle East
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🎶Music attributions:
1. Opening and closing music of the program:
Santur: Peyman Heydarian playing on the Santur some Iranian music. Recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 at the School of Oriental and African Studies of London on April 7th 2011.
Music available on at https://freesound.org/people/xserra/sounds/125654/
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0 DEED)
This music has been cut in shorter pieces and its volume has been adjusted in different portions of our program.
2. Background music:
The Desert | The Grand Score
The Desert | The Grand Score by Alexander Nakarada (CreatorChords) | https://creatorchords.com
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The volume and lengths of this piece have been modified.
3. Background music:
The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon. Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The volume and lengths of this piece have been modified.