An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic | Page 8

Sumerian name, the sign dú being
chosen to indicate the pronunciation (not the ideograph) of the third
element dúg. This is confirmed by the writing En-gi-dú in the syllabary
CT XVIII, 30, 10. The phonetic writing is, therefore, a warning against

any endeavor to read the name by an Akkadian transliteration of the
signs. This would not of itself prove that Enkidu is of Sumerian origin,
for it might well be that the writing En-ki-dú is an endeavor to give a
Sumerian aspect to a name that may have been foreign. The element
dúg corresponds to the Semitic tâbu, "good," and En-ki being originally
a designation of a deity as the "lord of the land," which would be the
Sumerian manner of indicating a Semitic Baal, it is not at all
impossible that En-ki-dúg may be the "Sumerianized" form of a
Semitic BA`L TZOB "Baal is good." It will be recalled that in the third
column of the Yale tablet, Enkidu speaks of himself in his earlier
period while still living with cattle, as wandering into the cedar forest
of Huwawa, while in another passage (ll. 252-253) he is described as
"acquainted with the way ... to the entrance of the forest." This would
clearly point to the West as the original home of Enkidu. We are thus
led once more to Amurru--taken as a general designation of the
West--as playing an important role in the Gilgamesh Epic. [42] If
Gilgamesh's expedition against Huwawa of the Lebanon district recalls
a Babylonian campaign against Amurru, Enkidu's coming from his
home, where, as we read repeatedly in the Assyrian version,
"He ate herbs with the gazelles, Drank out of a trough with cattle," [43]
may rest on a tradition of an Amorite invasion of Babylonia. The fight
between Gilgamesh and Enkidu would fit in with this tradition, while
the subsequent reconciliation would be the form in which the tradition
would represent the enforced union between the invaders and the older
settlers.
Leaving this aside for the present, let us proceed to a consideration of
the relationship of the form dGish, for the chief personage in the Epic
in the old Babylonian version, to dGish-gi(n)-mash in the Assyrian
version. Of the meaning of Gish there is fortunately no doubt. It is
clearly the equivalent to the Akkadian zikaru, "man" (Brünnow No.
5707), or possibly rabû, "great" (Brünnow No. 5704). Among various
equivalents, the preference is to be given to itlu, "hero." The
determinative for deity stamps the person so designated as deified, or as
in part divine, and this is in accord with the express statement in the

Assyrian version of the Gilgamesh Epic which describes the hero as
"Two-thirds god and one-third human." [44]
Gish is, therefore, the hero-god par excellence; and this shows that we
are not dealing with a genuine proper name, but rather with a
descriptive attribute. Proper names are not formed in this way, either in
Sumerian or Akkadian. Now what relation does this form Gish bear to
[FIGURE]
as the name of the hero is invariably written in the Assyrian version,
the form which was at first read dIz-tu-bar or dGish-du-bar by scholars,
until Pinches found in a neo-Babylonian syllabary [45] the equation of
it with Gi-il-ga-mesh? Pinches' discovery pointed conclusively to the
popular pronunciation of the hero's name as Gilgamesh; and since
Aelian (De natura Animalium XII, 2) mentions a Babylonian personage
Gilgamos (though what he tells us of Gilgamos does not appear in our
Epic, but seems to apply to Etana, another figure of Babylonian
mythology), there seemed to be no further reason to question that the
problem had been solved. Besides, in a later Syriac list of Babylonian
kings found in the Scholia of Theodor bar Koni, the name GLMGVM
with a variant GMYGMVS occurs, [46] and it is evident that we have
here again the Gi-il-ga-mesh, discovered by Pinches. The existence of
an old Babylonian hero Gilgamesh who was likewise a king is thus
established, as well as his identification with
[FIGURE]
It is evident that we cannot read this name as Iz-tu-bar or Gish-du-bar,
but that we must read the first sign as Gish and the third as Mash, while
for the second we must assume a reading Gìn or Gi. This would give us
Gish-gì(n)-mash which is clearly again (like En-ki-dú) not an
etymological writing but a phonetic one, intended to convey an
approach to the popular pronunciation. Gi-il-ga-mesh might well be
merely a variant for Gish-ga-mesh, or vice versa, and this would come
close to Gish-gi-mash. Now, when we have a name the pronunciation
of which is not definite but approximate, and which is written in

various ways, the probabilities are that the name is foreign. A foreign
name might naturally be spelled in various ways. The Epic in the
Assyrian version clearly