LiteratureBook · -1800
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Anonymous
A tyrant king and the wild man sent to humble him become inseparable, and when one of them dies the other goes looking for a way to not. Recovered from Mesopotamian clay tablets, it is among the oldest surviving works of literature we have.
Why you should read this
This is the oldest substantially complete epic poem to survive, composed and revised in cuneiform across more than a thousand years before being rediscovered by archaeologists in the nineteenth century. Best for readers curious about a flood narrative and a search for immortality that predate their more familiar counterparts in later literature.
- Field
- Literature
- Form
- Fiction
- Published
- 1800 BCE
- Themes
- Epic, AncientLiterature
