THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH.

The description of a person who was treated as a renown hero in Ancient Mesopotamia is written in the first clay tablets found among the ruins of the temple library of the god Nabu (Nebo) at the palace of the king Ash'Ur'Banipal in Nineveh. The name of the character is Gilgamesh. The material contained in the tablets is very old and consists of numerous originally independent episodes that must have been current long before it spring into existence at later time when the Epic of Gilgamesh was woven together. Yet  the arrogance, ruthlessness and depravity of the character were a subject of great concern for the people of Uruk (his kingdom). The Epic also contains some very indecent sections showing the vile, filthy and perverted side of the character. Yet the character is presented  as the greatest and strongest hero that ever lived. The myth also says of him that he was 2/3 god and 1/3 man.
The Epic begins with 5 Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. The first few tablets of the compiled version known as the "Old Babylonian" dates to the 18th BC and is titled after the first few words of the text "Surpassing All Other Kings"(Shutur eli Sharri). The later version dates from the 13th to the 10th BC and bears the title "He Who Saw the Deep"(Sha Naqba Tmuru).
The first half of the story discusses the character of Gilgamek, king of Uruk. His people complained to the great god Anu, and the god instructed the goddess Ar'Ur'u to create another wild ox, half- man, half-animal, who would challenge him and distract his mind from all the filthy thinking that was going on. This wild man, Enkidu, who is covered in hair and lives in the wild with the animals, was spotted by a trapper, whose livelihood is being ruined because Enkidu is uprooting his traps. The trapper tells the sun-god Shamash about the man, and it is arranged for Enkidu to be seduced by Shamhat, a temple prostitute, his first step towards being tamed.
After Enkidu becomes civilized through sexual initiation (6 days and 7 nights), the man travels to Uruk, where he challenges Gilgamesh to a test of strength. Gilgamesh, two-thirds god and one-third man, wins and the two become friends. Gilgamesh proposes a journey to the Cedar Forest to slay the demi-god Humbaba in order to gain fame and renown. The leders give Gilgamesh advice for his journey. He visits his mother, the goddess Nin-Sun, who seeks the support and protection of the sun-god Shamash for their adventure. Nin-Sun adopts Enkidu as her son, and Gilgamesh leaves instructions for the governance of Uruk in his absence.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu journey to the Cedar Forest. Every few days they camp on a mountain, and perform a dream ritual. Gilgamesh has 5 terryfying dreams about falling mountains, thunderstorms, wild bulls, and a thunderbird that breathes fire. Despite similarities between his dream figures and earlier descriptions of Humbaba, Enkidu interprets these dreams as good omens. The heroes enter the Cedar Forest. Humbaba accuses Enkidu of betrayal, and vows to disembowel Gilgamesh and feed his flesh to the birds. The mountains quake with the tumult of the battle and the sky turns black. The god Shamash sends 13 winds to bind Humbaba, and he is captured. Humbaba curses them both and Gilgamesh dispatches him with a blow to the neck. The heroes cut down many cedars, including a gigantic tree that Enkidu plans to fashion into a gate for the temple of En-Lil. They build a raft and return home along the Euphrates with the giant tree and the head of Humbaba.
Then Gilgamesh rejects the advances of the goddess Ishtar because of her mistreatment of previous lovers. Ishtar asks her father Anu to send the Bull of heaven (Gugalanna), to avenge her. When her father rejects her complains, the goddess threatens to raise the death who will outnumber the living and devour them. Anu becomes frightened and gives in to her. Ishtar leads the Bull to Uruk and it causes a widespread devastation. It lowers the level of the Euphrates and dries up the marshes. It opens up huge pits that swallow 300 men. Without any divine assistance, both men attack and slay the Bull, and offer up its heart to Shamash. When Ishtar cries out, Enkidu hurls one of the hindquarters of the Bull at her. The city of Uruk celebrates, but Enkidu has an ominus dream about his future failure.
Uruk was an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia, situated in the Southern part of Mesopotamia, East of the present bed of the Euphrates River. The original site was South West of the ancient Euphrates, now dry. The change in position was caused by a shift in the Euphrates at some point in history contributing to the decline of Uruk. It is believed Uruk is the biblical Erech, the 2nd city founded by Nim-Rod in Shinar.
Uruk was the main force of urbanization and state formation (4,000-3200BC). This period of 800 years a shift from small, agricultural villages to a significantly larger and more complex urban center occurred with a full-time bureaucracy, military, and stratified society. Uruk culture exported by Summerian traders and colonists had an effect on all surrounding peoples, who gradually evolved their own comparable, competing economies and cultures.
Uruk's growth underpins geographical factors. Through the gradual domestication of grains from the Zagros Foothills and extensive irrigation techniques, the area supported a vast variety of edible food.
Although currently degraded through overgrazing and deforestation, the Zagros is still home to a complex flora. Remnants of the originally widespread oak-dominated woodland can still be found, as can the park-like pistachio/almond steppe-lands. The ancestors of many familiar foods, including wheat, barley, lentil, almond, walnut, pistachio, apricot, plum, pomegranate and grape can be found growing wild throughout the mountains.
In Enkidu's dream, the gods decide that one of the heroes must die because they killed Humbaba and the Bull (Gugalanna). Enkidu is marked for death. Enkidu curses the great door he has fashioned for En-Lil's temple. The also curses the trapper and Shamhat for removing him from the wild. The god tells him that Gilgamesh will bestow great honors upon him at his funeral, and will wander into the wild consumed by grief. Enkidu regrets his curses and blesses Shmahat. In a second dream, however, he sees himself being taken captive to the Netherworld by the Angel of Death. The underworld is a "house of dust" and darkness whose inhabitants eat clay, and are clothed in bird feathers, supervised by awful beings. For 12 days, Enkidu's condition worsens. Finally, after a lament that he could not meet a heroic death in battle, he dies.
Gilgamesh roams the wild wearing animal skins, grieving for Enkidu. Fearful of his own death, he decides to seek "the Faraway"(Utna-Pishtim), and learn the secret of eternal life. Among the survivors of the Great Flood, the Faraway and his wife are the only humans to have been granted immortality by the gods. Gilgamesh crosses a mountain pass at night and encounters a pride of lions. Before sleeping he prays for protection to the moon god Sin. Then, waking from an encouraging dream, he kills the lions and uses their skins for clothing. After a long journey, he arrives at the twin peaks of Mount Mashu at the end of he earth. He comes across a tunnel, which no man has ever entered, guarded by two terrible scorpion-men. After questioning him and recognizing his  semi-divine nature, they allow him to enter it, and he passes under the mountains along the Road of the Sun. In complete darkness he follows the road for 12 "double hours," managing to complete the trip before the Sun catches up with him. He arrives at the Garden of the gods, a paradise full of jewel-laden trees.
Gilgamesh meets ale-wife (brewer woman), who assumes that he is a murderer or thief because of his disheveled appearance. She attempts to dissuade him from his quest, but sends him to the ferryman, Ur-Shanabi, who will help him to cross the sea of "the Faraway." He, out of spontaneous rage, destroys the stone-giants that live with "the Faraway." The ferryman informs him that he has just destroyed the only creatures who can cross the Waters of Death, which are deadly to touch. The ferryman instructs Gilgamesh to cut down 120 trees and fashion them into punting poles. When they reach the island where "the Faraway" lives, the creature reprimands him, declaring that fighting the common fate of humans is futile and diminishes life's joys.
Gilgamesh observes that 'the Faraway" seems no different from himself and asks him how he obtained his immortality. The Faraway explains that the gods decided to send a Great Flood. To save him the god Ea told the Faraway to built a boat. He gave precise dimensions, and it was sealed with pitch and bitumen. His entire family went aboard together with his craftsmen and all the animals of the field. A violent storm then arose which caused the terrified gods to retreat to the heavens. Ishtar lamented the wholesale destruction of humanity, and the other gods wept beside her. The storm lasted 6 days and nights, after which all the human beings turned to clay. His boat lodges on a mountain, and he releases a dove, a swallow, and a raven. When the raven fails to return, he opens the boat and frees everyone. The Faraway then offers a sacrifice to the gods, who smell the sweet flavor and gather around. Ishtar vows that just as she will never forget the brilliant necklace that hangs around her neck, she will always remember this time. When En-Lil arrives, angry that there are survivors, she condemns him for instigating the Flood. Ea also castigates En-Lil for sending a disproportionate punishement. En-Lil blesses Faraway and his wife, and rewards them with eternal life. It was a unique gift.
Gilgamesh weeps at the futulity of his efforts, because he lost all chance of immortality. He returns to Uruk.
The nations surely knew about the Creator, even though they had no respect for Him. The Name of God, in a civilization which is in rebellion against His rule, would be in a derisive form, not in its true form. The Epic is the description of the first "God is Dead" movement. The hero excited the population to such an affront and contempt of God, making them see a bold man and of great strength and perceive  that it was his own courage which procured them happiness. The hero also persuaded them not to ascribe it to the Creator. The character also gradually changed the government into tyranny -seeing no other way for men to live a life, but to bring them into a constant dependence upon his own power.