The Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh describes the search for the secret or source of immortality by the legendary Uruk (or Unug) king Gilgamesh. The epic is based on earlier Sumerian tales about this ruler.
Gilgamesh’s traveling companion and friend Enkidu is said to be a humanoid being, previously running around the steppe like an animal, drinking water from a lake, hunting other animals, and eating raw meat. Enkidu (Sumerian: EN.KI.DU) was humanized by the Gods (Anunnaki) siblings Enki and Ninhursag and trained to be Gilgamesh’s friend and “bodyguard.”
Gilgamesh, a demigod (“two-thirds god, one-third man”), the son of the goddess Ninsun and the king of Uruk Lugalbanda, claimed immortality, which his Gods possessed but earthlings did not. For this reason, he set out with Enkidu to the Cedar Forest, in present-day Lebanon, to seek out the Gods and ask them for immortality.
One of the many translated Sumerian tablets provides information:
How can we go, my friend, to the Forest of Cedar?
The one who guards it is Enlil, he is mighty, never sleeping.
Ḫuwawa was appointed by Enlil,
Adad is the first, he the second!
In order to safeguard the cedar,
Enlil assigned him the Seven Terrors.
Unfortunately, the Cedar Forest is defended by Huwawa (Humbaba).
A copy of the epic currently in the Yale Babylonian Collection states that “his (Huwawa’s) voice is a flood, his mouth fire, his breath death.”
The elders of Uruk warn Gilgamesh of Humbaba’s presence, but he rejects the pleas and journeys to the cedar forest with Enkidu. The surviving copy of this section on the Yale tablet breaks off before the confrontation with Humbaba. However, more detail is provided by other, shorter fragments, which indicate that during the journey Gilgamesh had a series of dreams foretelling his confrontation with Humbaba, in which the guardian of the cedar forest appears in various symbolic, non-anthropomorphic forms intended to emphasize his power: an avalanche, a storm, the Anzû bird, and a wild bull.
Enkidu is initially reluctant to make the journey and describes Humbaba as a terrifying being assigned to him by Enlil for this position:
In order to keep the cedars safe,
Enlil made it his destiny to be the terror of the people.
That journey is not one for the making,
that man is not one for the seeing.
He who guards the Forest of Cedar, his (…) are wide,
Humbaba, his voice is the Deluge,
his speech is fire, his breath is death.
He hears the forest’s murmur for sixty leagues;
who is there that would venture into his forest?
According to further descriptions, Humbaba “was powerful, had a dragon’s face, a lion’s snout, came like a flood“, from this “deadly force no one could escape“.
The God Shamash/Utu (a son of Nanna, grandson of Enlil) told Gilgamesh that Humbaba had only put on one of the seven armors, so Gilgamesh and Enkidu could defeat him with the weapons they had, and additionally Shamash would create a whirlwind that would hit Humbaba in the eyes and neutralize Huwawa’s deadly ray.
The friends managed to defeat Humbaba, then Ishtar (who wanted Gilgamesh as her lover) stood in their way, and then the divine bull GUD.ANNA.
In the end, Gilgamesh did not receive immortality, but interestingly, he reached the Mountain of Cedars and described something he saw, really interesting:
The sky screamed, the earth trembled
Although the dawn was breaking, darkness fell
Lightning tore the sky, flames shot out
The clouds swelled and rained death
Then the brightness disappeared and the fire died out
And everything that fell turned to ashes.
To sum up the whole story, Gilgamesh and Enkidu came from Uruk to Lebanon to the Mountain of the “Gods”, from which the “Gods” rose to the sky.
It may follow from this that the friends reached Baalbek, which in the pre-flood times served the Anunnaki as a space port, from which space shuttles took off and landed, carrying the Anunnaki and raw materials from Earth to the Mothership, which was in orbit around the Earth.
So today’s big questions are:
– Did Gilgamesh and Enkidu fight the machine/guardian of the entrance to the forbidden Anunnaki zone?
– Did Gilgamesh and Enkidu see a space rocket take off from the platform in Baalbek?
As always, I’ll leave the answers to each individual.
Related posts:
Were the first humans Adam and Eve been created in the Garden of Eden or somewhere else?
Is the story of Cain and Abel an interpretation of much older Sumerian accounts, providing evidence of extraterrestrial interference in the development of Homo sapiens?
Was the flood a natural phenomenon or artificially caused by extraterrestrial beings?
Was Pharaoh Akhenaten a descendant of Re/Marduk, the Sumerian Anunnaki?