Gilgamesh and the Flood
...way..... [as] the lord of wisdom, he knew everything, Gilgamesh, who saw things secret, opened the place hidden, and carried back word of the time before the Flood-- he traveled the road, exhausted, in pain, and cut his works into a stone tablet. (John Gardner and John Maier, Gilgamesh) While Gilgamesh was a great warrior-king, he is remembered most for his journey into the Abyss, into the Other-world of the Sun God, Shamash who is warrior, god of wisdom, judge, and both the husband and brother of the goddess Ishtar (Inanna). Why did he undertake such a desperate and painful journey? King of Uruk Gilgamesh is a civilizing hero. He is described as "opener of the mountain passes, digger if wells on the hill's side" and as a military leader who "takes the forefront, as a leader should" even as he patrols the rear to encourage the stragglers who are vulnerable to a rearguard action. First and foremost, Gilgamesh is a city-builder. We read: He ordered built the walls of Uruk of the Sheepfold the walls of the holy Eanna, stainless sanctuary. The Eanna is the temple complex bearing the name that translates "House of An," the god of Heaven and the father of the gods. It can also be translated as "House of Heaven." In the epic, it is the temple of the Goddess Inanna (Ishtar) who is: daughter of An, Queen of Heaven, the goddess of love, and even of war. At the very center of the city of Uruk is the temple of Inanna; at the center of the temple there is the Sheepfold or the bed of Inanna upon which the sacred marriage between the Goddess and her censors Dumuzi (Tammuz), the Shepherd, is celebrated. It is this sacred marriage that guarantees the yearly cycle of fertility that is the life of the agrarian city. As king, it fell to Gilgamesh to play the part of Dumuzi to a priestess representative of the Great Mother Inanna. This ritual initiated the New Year. Gilgamesh towers over the city as if he were a "wild bull rising up supreme, his head high," weapon raised. The king is like the Tree of LIfe connecting Heaven and Earth; he is like a divine source of fertility and renewal. He is described as being "like...