New research by Dr. Adnan Obaid

  Dr. Adnan Obaid dives deep into the words of the Epic of Gilgamesh and captures the spirit of the age of the Epic, the wisdom of the people who lived with Gilgamesh and the feelings of Death Lose and Despair basic human feelings that has never changed since the time of creation despite your race, religion the piece of land you live on, when death knock on the door we as human share that same feelings. However, we all chose to accept it knowing that this is the final chapter, the final frontier no action could change that fact. However, we never asked ourselves the question of why? Why should I give up? why can’t I fight and bring back the person I love more than anything on this world?. It is because of Gilgamesh who pioneered that path and came back with the answer to all mankind. Consciously or subconsciously we all know that there was once a person real or fiction who did go to the edge of the universe to bring back his friend and instead he came back with the wisdom and the acknowledging that death is not the end if you are an honourable human being, death can only magnify your name and lets you live forever in the hearts of those who loved you, your name will continue from generation to generation like Gilgamesh. 3500 years later and we are still talking about the King who went to the end of the world for those he loved.

A masterful analytical skills and choice of expression by Dr. Adnan. I can’t wait to read the second part.

Wajdan Majeed- Iraqi – British Archaeological scientist 

No nation can arise or build a civilization without its people paying high prices

The Sumerians and their Babylonian successors began to make a deal with their fate, for that they shed blood, tears and endured pain, they succumb to death, war and invasion, and suffered the tragedies of floods, epidemics and droughts, they weighed it all with wisdom, law, religion, order and art. They accepted their fate, and made pace with it, generation after generation, leaving behind wisdom and lesson for those who delve deeper into the reed’s roots, enjoy the salt of the earth, and the rhythm of wails of sadness ...

In their footsteps, they left numerous numbers of clay tablets, the scattering of porcelain, the hills of dust, and the walls of empty cities

In the Sumerians songs and those who followed in their footsteps to this day , the tears are mixed with the chants, songs, and jubilation with fear , and in their strange philosophy, the ancient Iraqis recorded the story of death and life with sadness and sorrows. On the destruction of their cities at the shores of the ancient Euphrates stretches the ruins of bricks, and the wreckage of porcelain, which testifies to the death of a nation, and the resurrection of nations 

Deth and life alternate on Mesopotamian plains, and weave between them the Euphrates, the lifeline.

Nothing lasts here 

The cradle of man, the brown earth, the century’s pass by, the Euphrates continue to overflow as nations fade away

Pain is an art produced by the peoples who learned from the symphony of pain, and turn it into songs, tears and legends, and to hope, faith, determination and rebirth. 

The cry of Gilgamesh was not new when he saw the body of his friend, and his soul mate, Enkidu, lying on his deathbed, but Gilgamesh at that terrible hour, was not a legendary super hero, nor half god, he was a human being made from dust, and the calamity grieved him, death stung him, and his fear showed that he was only a mortal human being, with all the meaning of the word, and because the tears drowned him, and the sadness besieged him; we must remember him well, and learn from him the lessons of life, he was the same human who faced the supernatural force that has the power to execute life, deny existence, and estrange the beloved from their lovers, Gilgamesh cannot ask death; why did you take Enkidu? and what crime caused for him to languish to nothing?

The problem with death lies in its indifferent to us, ignorant of our tears, and does not know the depth of our feelings nor it cares for them...

Death has one sure wish, which is to return all the bodies it touched to dust; so the Iraqis adored the clay and mastered its creation. They made bricks from it, sterilized it purified with fire be natural fire at the hand of the Sun or manmade kilns. 

They adorned it with words so that the clay would have a memory. They impregnated it with wisdom, and decorated it with colour, so that it answers to them if they questioned it... They carved from it the bodies of every living being, and thought that death could not turn against itself ...

Death has no more desire than nothingness; therefore, they made a civilization out of nothingness; and paved it with their wisdom on the path to monotheism, and the philosophy of exaltation: that God has created life out of nothingness, and from clay 

Listen to me, elders, and hear my words 

for Enkidu, my friend and my comrade,

I cry and mourn for the bereaved.

He is the axe by my side, the strength in my forearm,

The dagger under my belt,

The shield that wards off my foe

My happiness and joy, and celebration robe ...

[Epic of Gilgamesh , Taha Baqir , Freedom House, 4th Edition, Baghdad, 1980 , p. 72] 

The phrases and passages of the Epic of Gilgamesh are in harmony with the symphony of sadness and pain. It decreases and its dwindles when pain becomes unbearable, and despair presses on our chests, and it roars and rises when the lava of despair explodes, and flames erupt from within us. 

Gilgamesh groans with every exhale, and his breath rumbles with every inhalation. Death left him defenceless, weak, afraid, strange, appealing to the elders of Uruk, asking them for advice, or perhaps they carried some of the burdens of his grief 

before this terrible hour for the arrogant Gilgamesh, death was not more than a trivial event, passing around him, and what does it mean for him if people kidnaped by it?

That was his old hobby 

Before this hour. Gilgamesh did not look well at the features of death and did not see into its depth. Death stood facing him this time, he observed it as it snatched the life of the veins of Enkidu's body.

For the first time, Gilgamesh cannot come to the rescue of his loyal friend

What sleep is this that overcame you and got you? 

The darkness of the night has surrounded you so do not listen to me, 

but Enkidu did not open his eyes

so, he felt his heart, but it did not beat

then he covered his friend with a vail, like the bride vail, 

and began to roar around him like a lion

[Epic, Taha Baqir, p. 127] 

Until this moment, Gilgamesh does not want to admit the certain fact of death before him, so he calls it sleep "What sleep is this that has overcome you?"

What a last defensive trick the mind of Gilgamesh makes; to keep a little hope Many of those who read to the Gilgamesh saga miss secrets and subtleties that remain hidden and unrevealed; because they only read the text, a preliminary reading and because they were unable to migrate with Gilgamesh The migration of the soul from Uruk to the land of hope They argue in the myth wandering in details (celestial bull, scorpion man, khambaba, or auto-nabashtam, thorns that carry precious stones, the plant of immortality, the serpent that stole the mystery of immortality ....

They look for the meanings of these symbols, and they drown themselves and their notebooks swamp, completely forgetting, it is a language of expression that suits the nature of the age of the Epic.   

The mind may not always have many of them. They are just linguistic through banks which the mind streams or consciousness flows, or the sense of our loneliness in the universe

(mourned him six days, and seven nights

convincing and eluding myself that my many tears will make him rise again

refrained from handing him to the grave, 

so I kept him six days and seven nights

until the worm fell on his face)

[Taha Baqir, Epic , p. 134]

(The worm fell on his face ) , Gilgamesh continues with his defensive tricks to rule out the fact of death from the body of his friend; the worms did not eat the flesh of Enkidu ... Only they fell on him and in his hour of despair, Gilgamesh continued to roar around the lifeless body, like a lion 

In that hour in which despair reached its zenith, and he was forced quietly before the Majesty of Death to hand over the body of his friend to dust but not before carving a statue of his friend from gold or silver or what befits the essence of the beloved Enkidu.

at that moment, something changes in Gilgamesh. From the depth of darkness, we are always few steps from light break. 

The Sumerians philosophy is rooted in the veins of clay and water, the life we lead with toil and sweat, gives death as well as life, vanishes the mortal and the present but hides the seed of immortality in its depth like a dream. 

It possible that the elders of Uruk and its wise men, with whom Gilgamesh appealed, have advised him to stop his despair, and begin the journey to search for immortality.

Since the reigns of the early Sumerians, the Iraqis have learned this wisdom

“The souls of those who lose the believe in salvation of the soul will be extinguished like the lamp whose oil is depleting it will eventually die out, these peoples soul will rot in their body before the body itself dies out.

From this starting point, Gilgamesh began his journey searching for hope, the wisdom presented by the Sumerians in the facts of the saga unfold in Opposite, parallel, swaying, and zigzag lines like the Euphrates cutting through plains, hills and deserts ...In the drama of the growing event at the meeting line on the shore of the sea.

After Gilgamesh defies the horrors and endures the hours upon hours in his journey, he meets Sidori, the tavern owner, who rushes to close the doors in his face, Gilgamesh appeared like a killer or the bandit, wearing a lion skin, his hair has been dishevelled, his facade has been smeared, his brutality become bare, he is exhausted, wasted, and thirst has been added. He is standing at the doors of Sidori threateningly, bleating, determined to break the locked doors.

In that image that suggests evil, aggression and retrogression to the purest forms of brutality suspicion, rising inside Gilgamesh his noble message of saving the whole human race from the scourge of death; that is exactly what his great moral spirit entrances, and is enabled by ((Ur-Shenabi).

With This is a wonderful plant 

A person can restore the vitality of life ...... 

I will carry it with me to Uruk, the fortified, °°°

and share it with the people so they can eat it ...

[ Taha Baqir, The°°° Epic , pp. 165 - 166 

These displacement and erosion lines we read are clear in the philosophy of the owner of the bar and her exquisite personality as well as in her general appearance. Sidori looks charming, beautiful, wise, and a tactful speaker, civilized, ghanoush (Sprinkled), and decisive, But in growing and escalating sensory of the dramas, she teaches  Gilgamesh the origins of life, but she has a questionable virtues and moral and in a latent, deceitful and evasive drama; she is nothing more than a courtesan and trollop woman °° 

(What are you deny me, yey tavern owner, °°° why you resulted to locking your door in my face and bolted shut?

I will break down your door and the barriers°.......

The tavern owner replied, 

Gilgamesh,:

If you are really Gilgamesh who killed the forest ranger

and defeated Khambaba 

who lives in the cedar forest 

Your cheeks were not shriveled

and pain was not on your face, 

and° the king of grief knew your heart, and your form was changed .......

Why do you wander in the deserts ?)

Taha Baqir , The Epic of Gilgamesh° , p. 134 ] 

Sidori thinks that Gilgamesh is just a bandit or a murderer, but she preaches to him the same philosophy of death and tampering that the same Gilgamesh rejected after he realized the supreme human values in the personality of his friend Enkidu.

She thinks that this is the destiny of man, and he must live enjoying what life is good for, and not worry about something else that cannot be achieved ...

The greatness of Gilgamesh's fighting missionary spirit is revealed; he rises from responding to that empty sensory philosophy, which he disdains and hate, because it only means relapse and relegation to the pre-meeting with Enkidu, a day when he lived on amusement and absurdity, and the display of the arts of power and indiscretion...

A day when life was without a noble goal, and there was no clear human purpose, just like the life of the owner of the bar, and here she is advising him...

What a paradox ... !

What are you seeking, O Gilgamesh? 

The life you seek will not be found

when the great gods created humans. 

They estimated death over humanity and took over life

As for you, O Gilgamesh, let your belly always

be full and be joyful rejoicing in the evening .....

Make your clothes clean, 

wash your head and bathe in water.

Pamper the little one who holds your hand and rejoice

the wife who is in your arms, and

this is the share of humanity ...

 [Epic , Taha Baqir ,°°°°° p. 128]