CultureThe Middle East
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The world's oldest great story, about friendship and death
See it on the timeline →In depth
The epic contains a flood story with a ship, animals and a bird sent out — strikingly like the biblical one, and older. When the tablets were deciphered in 1872 it shook Victorian England. Its literary distinction is that the hero does not win: he returns without immortality and finds consolation in the wall he has built.
For children
King Gilgamesh loses his closest friend and sets out to find eternal life. He does not find it. The story was written on clay tablets over four thousand years ago, and is about the same things stories are about today.
Connects to
Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org