Here we have a story written over 5000 years ago. Think about it. 5000 years. That's equal to 70 lifetimes, or 166 generations, or 1 plot development in Days of Our Lives.
Funnily enough, the concerns of the ancient Babylonians are exactly the same as those confronting us today: food, sex, drugs and the fear of death. It is the fear of death that forms the central theme of the Gilgamesh epic.
Gilgamesh is the semi-divine king of Uruk. He is a lusty lad with unlimited wants and desires and the resources to fulfil most of them - lock up your daughters, sons and barnyard animals, here comes the king. Then one day Gilgamesh witnesses the death of Enkidu, his best friend and, possibly, the only person on the planet with a greater lust for life. Gilgamesh ponders the question of his own mortality. Deciding he does not want to die, Gilgamesh goes in search of the secret of immortality and has many adventures on the way.
Gilgamesh meets Noah (called Utnapishtim) and is given the recipe for the Good Life by the goddess Siduri. This recipe is uncannily like that given in the book of Ecclesiastes, and has more than a passing resemblance to the spirit of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Entertaining, illuminating, puzzling and relevant, I recommend this short but long-lived piece of literature to anyone who is interested in seeing how far and how little we humans have come in 5000 years.
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