Enkidu
? · Uruk
Enkidu is the wild man created by the gods to be a match and companion for Gilgameš. Fashioned in the steppe and living among the animals, he is civilized through human contact and becomes Gilgameš's beloved friend and fellow-adventurer. Their exploits — and Enkidu's death as the gods' punishment — set in motion Gilgameš's confrontation with his own mortality. Enkidu exists only within the epic tradition.
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Uruk
What they did here
A figure of the epic, not of documented history. In the Gilgameš story he is brought to Uruk from the wild and becomes the king's companion.
About Uruk
One of the oldest cities of Sumer (modern Warka, southern Iraq), sacred to Inanna and Anu, where some of the earliest known writing was found (c. 3300-3000 BCE). The Sumerian King List and later epics name Enmerkar, Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh among its early kings; these figures are known through legend and later tradition. Uruk remained a temple city into the Seleucid period, and many late scholarly tablets were excavated here; for a tablet, the pin marks where it was found.
Works
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