Gilgamesh

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Gilgamesh \Gilgamesh\, Gilgamish \Gilgamish\prop. n.
     1. (Sumerian mythology) A legendary king of Sumeria and the
        hero of famous Sumerian and Babylonian epics.
        [WordNet 1.5]
  
     2. The {Epic of Gilgamesh}, a long Babylonian epic written in


        cuneiform in the Sumerian language on clay tablets. Early
        versions of the written story date from 2000 B. C.; it is
        probably the first written story still in existence. A
        longer version was written in the Akkadian language, on 12
        clay tablets found at Nineveh in the ruins of the library
        of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria from 669 to 633 B. C. The
        story depicted the life and heroic deeds of the legendary
        Gilgamesh, apparently derived from stories about a real
        king of ancient Mesopotamia who lived around 2700 B. C.
        The story includes a tale of a great flood, which has some
        parallels to the biblical story of the flood survived by
        Noah. The Nineveh tablets name the author of that version
        of the story, a Shin-eqi-unninni.
        [PJC]
  
     Note: The entire text may be found in:
           The Epic of Gilgamesh
           Translated by Maureen Gallery Kovacs
           (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990)
           and
           Gilgamesh
           Translated by John Maier and John Gardner
           (New York: Vintage Press, 1981)

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  Gilgamesh
       n : a legendary Sumerian king who was the hero of an epic
           collection of mythic stories