A

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Like those $5 roses at a gas station? Or a secondhand piece of technology that breaks in the first 10 minutes? Marketers know that feeling. We optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for bullspend. Now you can invest in what looks good to your CFO. LinkedIn Ads generates the highest roas of all major ad networks. You'll reach the right buyers because you can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull. Spend advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a 250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com broadcast that's LinkedIn.com broadcast. Terms and conditions apply.

B

Dish has been connecting communities like yours for the last 45 years, providing the TV you love at a price you can trust. Watch live sports news and the latest movies, plus your favorite streaming apps all in one place. Switch to Dish today and lock in the lowest price in satellite TV starting at $89.99 a month with our two year price guarantee. Call 888-add-H dish or visit dish.com today. Hello and welcome to youo're Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name's Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster and and today we are grabbing our bestie and gallivanting back to ancient Mesopotamia to learn all about the Epic of Gilgamesh. And to help us on this daunting quest, we have two very special guides in History Corner. She's an honorary fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford where she researches and teaches on the history of Mesopotamia, Cuneiform and the Akkadian language. You might have read her wonderful recent book Between Two Rivers, Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History. It is glorious and you'll remember her from our episodes on the ancient Babylonians and cuneiform, it's Dr. Moody Al Rashid. Welcome Moody.

C

Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's awesome to be back.

B

We love having you back. And in Comedy Corner, she's an award winning comedian, actor and storyteller. You might have seen her sell out Edinburgh Fringe show or caught her on Breaking the News or Rosie Jones's disability comedy extravaganza or her new Radio 4 show, Human Watch. And you'll definitely remember her from our episode on Scottish hero Robert Bruce. Not Robert the Bruce, it's Mary Lane Robertson. Welcome back, Marie Lane.

D

Aye, thank you for having me back to teach me more stuff.

B

Marielle, last time you let slip that you have a degree in archaeology.

D

Yes.

B

And we immediately went, uh, oh, this is interesting. How much will she know?

D

Well, that's the thing, because I did not know much about Robert Bruce at all. But I did do my dissertation on the Epic of Gilgamesh. But I did my dissertation on how has the imagery from the Epic of Gilgamesh changed according to different power struggles across Bronze Age? And it was so bad that I almost failed my entire degree because of it. And I thought, oh, Gilgamesh, I remember this. And then I thought in my brain, and I don't. So what's. Really. I can't even remember which one's the Tigris and which one's the Euphrates. I'm really rusty.

B

Okay, so a refresher course for you.

D

It will be. It'll also be like me bringing shame to the university. I don't know if I should even name the university I went to at this point, because when you said about it, I was like, I'd love to hear about this again, but I don't remember anything about it.

B

Okay, well, we can fix that.

D

I remember Bronze Age.

B

So what do you know? Okay, this is the. So what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And you might have heard that the Epic of Gilgamesh features a Great Flood narrative similar to the biblical story of Noah. Or maybe you've encountered Gilgamesh as the king of heroes from the Fate anime series. Or if you've read Elif Shafak's 2024 novel there are Rivers in the sky, or listen to Johnny Flynn and Robert McFarlane's Gilgamesh inspired album, Lost in the Cedar Wood. But if you're a movie buff like me, you're plain out of luck, because no one's done any kind of movies about Gilgamesh, which is very disappointing. So who exactly was Gilgamesh? Was he really that epic? And what are the consequences of rejecting a goddess? Let's find out. Right, Dr. Moody, we'll start with some basics for my benefit and perhaps Mary Elaine's benefit, although I'm sure it will come floating back to you. What exactly is the Epic of Gilgamesh?

C

So it's a long poem from ancient Mesopotamia that tells a transformative journey of a king called Gilgamesh who ruled the city of Uruk. It's originally about 3000 or 3100 lines long, but only about 2400 or 2500 remain, compared to, for example, 15,000 in the Iliad. It's written in cuneiform on 12 tablets. And. And we have to remember that cuneiform was a script, not a language, used in ancient Mesopotamia, which is the region between and around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq, Syria, and parts of Turkey, which was home to a succession of civilizations like the Sumerians, the Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians.

B

Well, that's a. That's a very good summary. Well done. Okay, Mary, Elaine, you've already said Bronze Age. How long ago do you think the Epic of Gilgamesh was first written down?

D

I should know that the Bronze age was around 3,000 B.C. is that right?

B

That's about right, yeah. But we probably go a little later with our first recording of the actual story.

C

Yeah. So we don't actually know how old this story itself is because it has these oral roots that we have hints of in the language and in other references. So it was probably recited, for example, in the courts of kings, including the kings of ur, around 2100, 2000 BCE, but it's probably older than that. And then some of the earliest tablets written kind of records of versions of this story come from around that time period, the third millennium BCE or the 2000s BCE. There's an old Babylonian version, and then there's a kind of standard Babylonian version, which is the one that gets copied over and over and over and over again. That comes from around probably 1100 BCE, written by a scholar named Sin Lekki Unini, he named in a later literary catalog. So we're not too sure to what degree we can call him the author. Does he just establish the most popular version? This raises fun in the nerdy sense, questions about authorship in ancient Mesopotamia, where it's more like people are links in a chain in the life story of a story, the tale itself, the story itself is more important than the author.

B

Gilgamesh was not always the name of the character.

D

What?

B

Do you want to guess what his original name was?

D

Steven.

B

Stephen. Stephen King of Uruk.

D

It wasn't Gilgamesh.

B

No.

D

Would he.

B

What was his name?

C

It was Gilgamesh.

B

Gilgamesh, yeah.

D

That's funnier than Stephen.

B

The boring question you probably get asked a Lot. Is Gilgamesh a real guy who then gets turned into a literary folk hero? Or is this pure speculation, pure fantasy?

C

Nobody really knows the answer to that. He's on what we would. He's referenced in what we would consider a semi historical document, which is called, we call it the Sumerian King List, basically a list of kings in what is now southern, in Iraq, what we would call Sumer. But it begins with these mythical primordial kings like Alulim, who ruled for 30,000 years, or Atana, who ruled for 400 years. So we know that these are probably not real people, or maybe they are based on real people, but these are not their real reigns. There are real kings on the list, though, that we know existed that are corroborated from other sources, like King Sargon. So is he a literary character who moved into the history books, or is he a historical figure who took on legendary proportions?

B

That's interesting, Moody. How does our story of Gilgamesh begin? Is it. Do we meet him in adulthood? Do we meet him as a king?

C

We do. He's the tyrannical king of Uruk. He exhausts the men and boys by forcing them to build a humongous wall, which is real, an archaeological wall, and play violent sports. And finally, the women beg the gods and goddesses to create a match or an equal for Gilgamesh to challenge him and just calm this guy down, really.

B

Right.

D

I studied this at university, and the version I learned was, he's lonely, needs a friend. Which makes me question what source I used. But I'll tell you this, when I did my course on Romans, I used to use rotten Romans.

B

Did you? The horrible histories books.

D

Yes. And my professor said, how did you know that? Because I used to come out with facts that the professors didn't know. And I'd have to be like, derry.

B

Derry.

D

It used to be my references.

B

Okay, so he needs a friend or he needs an equal to sort of match him in the ring who is created, or, you know, who is sent down to match or fight or play with Gilgamesh.

C

So the gods create Enkidu from clay and divine blood. There's a really beautiful description. He's born in silence, in other words, not with the cries of childbirth. He's at first a wild man. He's described as being very hairy and almost animal like. And he lives among the animals, the gazelles, and he causes grief to hunters because he's constantly foiling their traps and rescuing the animals. Yeah. So Gilgamesh learns about this when the hunters complain effectively he learns about Enkidu from the complaints.

B

So he's an animal rights activist, he's going along sabotaging traps and things.

C

Exactly.

B

Okay. And Gilgamesh is like, this guy's ruining my hunting. Okay, I'm gonna go sword and mail. Okay. How do you think tyrannical Gilgamesh addresses this, this new threat?

D

This is the one time I think I'll get this bit right. This is the one thing I remember from the story, which, take from that what you will, they get a really attractive lady.

B

They do, yes.

D

They cover her nice smelling oils and they're like, show him why he wants to enter society. And she seduces him. And Enkidu is like, I'd rather be with humans than animals. And thus ends my knowledge.

B

Beautifully put and suitable for Radio 4. So well done, Moody. I mean, Mary Lane did a very beautiful, elegant description. So who is the woman who is sent along?

C

Yeah. So he sends Gilgamesh, sends a woman called Shamchat to seduce Enkidu effectively. She's a temple worker, maybe a sex worker, a priestess of Ishtar. And afterwards he comes to Uruk and confronts Gilgamesh, but they turn out to be equally matched and become friends, lovers.

B

So what is the first adventure they go on and what spurs the adventure? Why do they need to go on a quest?

C

We have this scene where Enkidu is feeling sad and keeping in mind that lots of bits are missing from the epic, we're not 100% sure why. And to cheer him up, Gilgamesh decides they need to make a name. He needs to make a name for himself. But Enkidu's not so keen. They go on a quest, effectively to kill the guardian of the cedar forest, Humbaba.

B

So Enkidu and Gilgamesh primarily has killed an important forest guardian. What do you think of the repercussions for Gilgamesh having committed this crime?

D

I just feel like Gilgamesh has shown no remorse so far that I just don't see him showing remorse now. Also, I feel like Gilgamesh, if he's real or not, has had a real hand in writing this tale. So I'm like, Gilgamesh is something bad, but he's still great.

B

Oh, you think he authors his own quest narrative? For sure. Oh, okay.

D

My name start with a G. I defeated the forest monster. I don't know, do they fall out? Does Enkidu fall out of Gilgamesh? Well, I want Gilgamesh to grow and learn and go to therapy like I was promised. But maybe they have to Break up.

B

Ah, well, that's how rom coms work. So is it a rom com? Moody, what happens next?

C

Not quite. Although there is a third party who enters the scene who is quite a powerful one. So after the fight, the goddess Ishtar, who's again, the goddess of love and war, violence.

B

Those two things don't seem like the same remit.

C

No, she's quite. She's a very volatile goddess.

B

Sure.

C

So, yeah, she takes the same pleasure in lovemaking and murder, I guess. Yeah, she's an interesting figure.

B

Sure.

C

And she sees Gilgamesh and falls in love and proposes marriage, but Gilgamesh rejects her, listing all her dead or otherwise diminish former lovers, one of whom gets turned into, like, an earwig or something like that. And she gets pretty angry and calls on her father, Anu, the sky God, to send down the Bull of Heaven, which is the constellation Taurus, to kill Gilgamesh.

D

That's me. I'm Taurus.

B

Are you?

D

Yeah.

B

Okay, well, you might not like what happens next in this story, then.

D

Why?

B

Well, because the Ball of Heaven is sent down to kill Gilgamesh. To kill Gmech. And Gilgamesh, he's not being punished for slaughtering the innocent forest guardian, he's being punished for rejecting a sex God.

C

Yes.

B

I feel like he's learned nothing, but he's going to fight now a celestial bull. Marielaine, how would you go about defeating a celestial bull?

D

You take it to a celestial abattoir in the heavens around killing time.

B

Yeah.

D

Humane gun on the head.

B

Okay. Spoken like a tree farmer. Yeah, yeah. Moody, can you give us the gory details of the goring?

C

Yes. So they work together, essentially, because the Bull of Heaven is quite a destructive creature. And as he approaches Uruk, everything he does essentially ends up killing huge amounts of people. Every, you know, every time he breathes, a huge gulf opens up in the ground and swallows people up, etc. From memory. Enkidu grabs him and then Gilgamesh stabs him in the head between the horns.

B

So bolt gun's pretty accurate then.

C

Yeah, just a sword in this one or a blade of some kind would

D

be a very good one.

B

They cut out the heart?

C

Yes, they cut out the heart, they offer it to Anu, the sky God, and then they throw its penis at Ishtar.

B

I mean, that feels like a very childish move.

C

Yeah, yeah, it's quite the move.

D

And she's the goddess of, like, love and desire and stuff.

C

Yeah.

B

Very petty.

C

It is.

B

There's no growth here emotionally, is there?

C

Definitely not. It Takes a while for that to happen.

D

So I think I was right. He doesn' learn anything.

B

There's nothing.

D

Okay, but to be honest, I suppose here he's just defending himself from a bull that is attacking him. But he did really shame Ishtar for that to happen.

B

He did. So then what happens to Gilgamesh and Enkidu?

C

So the gods are pretty angry. I mean, they've killed a whole constellation, which is bad. They sentence Enkidu to death and he actually dreams of being in the underworld.

B

So why not Gilgamesh?

D

Yeah.

B

No, because Enkedu's just like the guy who's been dragged along.

C

Gilgamesh is sort of like that typical entitled guy that just consequences for anything he does. But he's about to face the ultimate consequence in a way because Enkidu does die. He dreams that he's in the underworld and he dies. And Gilgamesh is utterly grief stricken to the point where he won't even let them take the body away. And there's all this imagery of him, of him mourning, and some of it compares him to like a lioness. So there's like some women, like a woman mourning her cubs, I mean a female lion mourning her cubs. So it's such a loss, he won't let them take the body away until a Magnus crawls out of Enkidu's nose and he's finally like, okay, yes, you are dead and I have to let go. And he arranges this huge funeral and lists tons of gifts given in Enkidu's memory.

B

Wow. Gilgamesh has been punished by having the one thing he loves taken from him.

C

Yeah.

A

Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Like those five dollar roses at a gas station? Or a secondhand piece of technology that breaks in the first 10 minutes? Marketers know that feeling. We optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for bullspend. Now you can invest in what looks good to your CFO. LinkedIn Ads generates the highest roas of all major ad networks. You'll reach the right buyers because you can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bullspend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a 250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn, dot com broadcast. That's LinkedIn.com broadcast. Terms and conditions apply.

C

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B

Mary Lane, what do you think Gilgamesh, a grieving Gilgamesh, does after the funeral?

D

I mean, I still don't think he's learned anything.

B

You don't think he's grown from this?

D

No.

B

Okay.

D

I think he wants revenge.

B

Oh, so you think he's gonna go John Wick?

D

Would he go after Anu?

C

Wow, that would be a power move, I'd say.

B

Yeah.

D

I mean, I wouldn't put it past this guy.

B

Okay, so Mary Lane thinks that it's sort of revenge mission. He's gonna.

D

I mean, to be honest, if he did go for a revenge mission, that would probably be the most coherent structural journey thing he's done so far in the story. So maybe he doesn't. But currently he'd go for revenge.

B

Okay, interesting.

C

Yeah, I mean, you're right that there's no growth in that. He then, instead of being like, I should be less horrible and calm down, he becomes really anxious about death and he embarks on this new quest to attain immortality. So it's quite a self evolved anxious reaction.

B

Okay, so he goes on a quest for immortality.

C

Yes. And he seeks out the wisdom from one of the sole survivors of the Great Flood, the only immortal living man. There is an immortal living woman alongside him. That doesn't really. But she's not yet Mentioned, unfortunately, she's

D

just his wife and bird pretty much.

C

So he goes in search of a man called Uttanapisti. You know, in broad brushstrokes, the gods forgot, basically to build death into human DNA. And so population just explodes.

B

Oh, really?

C

Yeah. And it's just too loud. And they're like, we can't see. We gotta get rid of these people. So they decide to send down a deluge that will wipe out all life on Earth.

B

He's the lone survivor of the flood, and because his software doesn't have death built in, he's just living forever with his wife.

C

Yeah. And Gilgamesh is like, he must know how to live forever. So I'm gonna go find him so that I don't have to suffer the way Enkidu did.

B

Gilgamesh is desperately trying to sort of get the secret of knowledge. Does he sink or swim in his quest to live forever?

C

So Uttanabishti basically takes one look at him and says, you're on the wrong quest. He recounts the whole flood story, explains that Gilgamesh can't and shouldn't follow this path to immortality, and he challenges Gilgamesh to stay awake for seven nights. This conquering sleep is sort of like conquering death. And Gilgamesh fails, and I think he wakes up to seven loaves of bread that have been baked each day just to prove.

B

Just seven breakfasts that he hasn't eaten.

C

Yeah, exactly. And so Uttanapishti explains that eternal life is not an individual survival. It's not the survival of Enkidu, it's not Gilgamesh, it's not even his own survival, but the survival of the whole community. And because life can end in an instant, you should make the most of what time that you do.

D

That's really beautiful.

B

Yeah.

D

Will Gilgamesh see the beauty in this?

B

You're worried he's not gonna learn?

D

Throw a willy at someone else.

B

It's a good point. Does our violent, sad king finally go, oh, I've been chasing the wrong thing all along?

C

Nope.

B

Gilgamesh, come on.

C

I know. So he's.

D

I don't remember because I blocked him.

B

You're just so disappointed in this guy.

C

So relentless.

B

Yeah, he's so. He's just so refusing to grow as a person.

C

Exactly. Okay, not yet. Not yet.

B

Okay. All right.

C

So Uttanaphirishti is like, well, okay, fine. There is something called the Plant of Heartbeat, which you can find at the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the ocean, basically in the apsu, with this sort of subterranean lake or freshwater source, which is a mythical source of kind of nourishment of groundwater, but also of wisdom. So there's this connection between water wisdom and memory.

D

This story is like Babylonian, so it's very, very far away from the Hittites.

C

They had versions of it, though. So it traveled because.

D

In a Hittite in Hattusili. Is that right?

C

Hattusha, yeah.

D

Hattusha, sorry. Their capital there was the. But beside it, they called it like, a liminal space where they had this, like, water going into this tunnel. And they thought it was something to do with, like, a passage into another realm or that kind of wisdom.

C

Interesting.

D

Is an interpretation in archaeology which is the classic. We don't know.

B

We don't know.

A

Ritual.

B

Could be. Could be ritual.

D

That's where we washed our hands.

B

Yes.

D

So strike that from my notes.

B

That's lovely.

D

Yeah.

B

Yes. Because the Hittites would come along later, I suppose. The Hittites are.

C

They're around the same time. Yeah. And they are using cuneiform as well. So the myth does travel. And they have versions of the Gilgamesh epic, although I don't know when they date, when they're dated to.

D

They were like, he was 3 foot 5

B

and his name was Steven. Okay. So the water and wisdom, the kind of plant of heartbeat. Gilgamesh knows where to get it. Does he pop on his scuba gear and go diving? How does you know he does?

C

Yeah. He ties these heavy stones to his and he goes and retrieves the plant of heartbeat and then resurfaces and he takes a shower. And a snake steals the plant of heartbeat.

B

Don't you hate it when that happens?

D

It's like yoink goes straight over to Eden. It's like, yo, Eve, try some of this apple.

B

It is another.

D

Where the apple come from? Don't think.

C

I mean, snakes are quite. You know, they have. They're good and bad in mythology of ancient Mesopotamia. So they're ambiguous.

B

It's a cheeky snake.

C

It's a very cheeky snake.

B

It's a yoink moment, as Mary Lynn said. Okay, so the snake has stolen his eternal life. Gutting. Does Gilgamesh now get the memo and go, okay, I'll give up on the whole living forever thing.

C

At long last.

B

Hooray. Personal development. Okay, Moody, tell us about Gilgamesh's personal growth.

C

Yeah. So he finally returns to Uruk, and we have this scene that reprises the very beginning of the myth where he's looking, he's surveying the city, and he seems far more aware now of what's at stake, he looks the different elements that make up the city, civilization, human life, and sees that it's more important than his own ego and individual success. And he is wiser. He finally brings that wisdom back to Uruk and will ideally incorporate it into how he rules. And this kind of personal growth narrative has led some scholars to call it wisdom literature. But who knows? Exactly. It kind of has everything.

B

Yeah.

D

I would like to point out that he went through this adventure when he killed special forest guardian, his best friend, died, killed a bull of heaven, offended so many gods, troubled all these different people. And it feels like when he got out of the city, he decided, you know what, guys? Let's be peaceful. And the women of the city were like, this is what we said from day one. The women were like. We were always like, let's be peaceful. Yes, I do remember the end bit of the story. Was it? The secrets that he learns is to build structures that stand for all time, have a lineage of offspring that carry on your bloodline and have great stories that are told forevermore.

C

Yeah, sort of. He writes his, you know, his quests down on a. I think it's a lapis lazuli tablet, and he buries it somewhere in the wall and he says, someone will find this someday and remember me. And lo and behold, here we are remembering Gilgamesh.

D

Because those walls of Uruk. Uruk.

C

Yeah, Uruk.

D

Are still standing.

C

They are, yeah. And they're like nine kilometers long, and they're very thick and they're very real. Like, I think archaeologists estimate, 300 million bricks.

B

Wow.

C

In this thing.

B

So he did it. Eternal life. He nailed it.

D

Did he build those walls before or after the adventure? Because it's unlike before. He's working the men and the boys

B

to the bone, I was going to say. Yeah.

D

So once again, has he learned?

B

Yes. My lasting memory is this thing where I forced everyone into slave labor. We should talk about how the story of Gilgamesh, the Epic of Gilgamesh, was rediscovered in modern times. This is how the ancient world understood it. This is how it was passed down through their generations. But I guess we then received it much later on. Could you talk us through the modern texts? History?

C

Yes. So the first Akkadian texts were found in 1849 by Austin Henry Layard in Nineveh in the library of Usurbanipal. And these were ones that were copied down by scribes. And obviously, with the death of scribal training, no one copied them down anymore. So they just get buried Once cuneiform was deciphered, parts of it got translated. And in the 1870s, a self taught working class Londoner called George Smith, who was studying clay tablets at the British Museum, he was the first to translate the epic into English, producing a translation of this flood tablet, tablet 11, that was quite an exciting discovery at the time.

B

And Mary Elaine, George Smith, our working class, self taught Londoner, he was so thrilled to have, you know, produced this translation. How did he celebrate?

D

Oh, did he do it Gilgamesh style

B

or go on a killing spree?

D

Oh no, he didn't like have too much to drink, did he?

B

He certainly let go of his inhibitions.

D

Oh no. Did he, did he just like an enkidu and get naked and like run through Covent Garden?

B

He literally did. Really? Really? He ran naked through the. Was it the British Museum?

C

That's right, yeah.

B

Stripped off his clothes and just ran screaming naked through, shouting, I did it.

C

I did it.

D

That might be the one I'd have got right this whole time. And it was a total stab in the dark.

B

The Nuance Window. Time now for the Nuance window. This is the part of the show where Marian and I sit silently to contemplate our mortality for two minutes while Dr. Moody regales us with something we need to know about the Epic of Gilgamesh. My stopwatch is ready, so take it away, Dr. Moody.

C

The epic of Gilgamesh has meant and will mean different things to me throughout my life. It's about power, grief, community, death, love. But right now, as we watch one interconnected crisis after another unfold, I want to tell you what I think it could mean in this moment. Humbaba was the guardian of the cedar forest, appointed by the God Enlil to keep the ancient cedars safe. He had the face of a raging lion. He breathed fire. His cry was a deluge. In ancient Mesopotamia, people sometimes used sheep entrails to predict the future. And one omen says that intestines shaped like Humbaba's face foretell the arrival of a usurper king. Imagine the face of this monster like the coiled intestines of a dying animal. Slippery, bloody, palpitating. I used to wonder, why create such a terrifying creature to guard trees? Like many of you, I bear witness daily to the destruction of a once thriving world. To line the pockets of a handful of people with already full pockets. It has helped me understand the mythology of Humbaba. But the Gilgamesh who slayed Humbaba and chopped down trees as tall as the sky was not the same. Broken man who clawed his way to Uttanapisti, the oldest man in the world. He was looking for the key to eternal life, but he found instead a lesson in how to live. I think the crux of Uttanapisti's message is instead of trying to live impossibly long lives, let us do more with the short time that we have. For Gilgamesh, this means acting as a shepherd to the people in his care and by extension, the places they rely on. When he returns to Uruk and surveys the city, he sees people's homes, the date orchards, the clay pits and the temple which represent domestic life, agriculture, crafts and religion. This is worth fighting for. He realizes the survival of each successive generation confers immortality. On the whole, our well being is tied to the well being of those around us and to the places that sustain us. To the waters that give us life, to the trees that give us air. The land that Humbaba gave his life to guard. I think there is a timeless lesson in these 12 tablets and their unexpectedly flawed hero. Selfish, cowardly, violent, vulnerable, relentless, and eventually enlightened. What are the chances that this story has survived from its earliest oral tellings to a fragmentary translation over 4,000 years later? And what are the chances that it might contain just the call to survival, community and care that we need?

B

Amazing. Beautiful. Thank you so much.

C

Thank you.

D

So nice. That's just a nice way to take a message. Well, make it hopeful. I think that's what you need is hope.

C

Yeah, I think so too. I hope so anyway.

B

Yeah, absolutely. We definitely need more of the humanity and less of the monsters. Well, thank you so much, Mary Elaine. Thank you so much, Dr. Moody and Listener. If you want more Ancient History with Dr. Moody, check out our episodes on the Babylonians and the one on the history of cuneiform, which people loved. People really, really loved that episode. It's one of our most popular ever.

C

That's amazing.

B

It's lovely. For more epic myths, we've got one on King Arthur, of course. And for more, Mary Lane, we have the episode on Robert Bruce, not Robert the Bruce. If you enjoyed the podcast, please share the show with friends. Subscribe to youo're Dead to me on BBC Sounds to hear new episodes 28 days earlier than anywhere else. And yeah, I'd just like to say

C

a huge thank you to our guests.

B

In History Corner, we have the magnificent Dr. Moody Al Rashid from University of Oxford. Thank you, Moody.

C

Thank you for having me.

B

Always a pleasure. And in Comedy Corner, we had the marvellous Mary Elaine Robertson. Thank you, Mary, Elaine.

A

Cheers very much.

D

Thank you.

B

And to you, lovely listener. Join me next time as we delve into another dramatic historical epic. But for now I'm off to go and grab a mate to help me beat up a tree. Bye.

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