Big news in world literature: A new tablet containing additional lines for the ancient Babylonian poem The Epic of Gilgamesh has been discovered.
The following link tells about how the tablet was discovered and its significance. The article goes on to summarize the relevant points for the poem, quoted below. From Osama S. M. Amin, The newly discovered tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Ancient History et cetera:
- The revised reconstruction of Tablet V yields text that is nearly twenty lines longer than previously known.
- The obverse (columns i-ii) duplicates the Neo-Assyrian fragments which means the Epic tablet can be placed in order and used to fill in the gaps between them. It also shows the recension on Tablet V was in Babylonia, as well as Assyria and that “izzizūma inappatū qišta” is the same phrase that other tablets being with.
- The reverse (columns v-vi) duplicates parts of the reverse (columns iv-vi) of the late Babylonian tablet excavated at Uruk that begins with the inscription “Humbāba pâšu īpušma iqabbi izakkara ana Gilgāmeš”.
- The most interesting piece of information provided by this new source is the continuation of the description of the Cedar Forest:
- Gilgamesh and Enkidu saw ‘monkeys’ as part of the exotic and noisy fauna of the Cedar Forest; this was not mentioned in other versions of the Epic.
- Humbaba emerges, not as a barbarian ogre, and but as a foreign ruler entertained with exotic music at court in the manner of Babylonian kings. The chatter of monkeys, chorus of cicada, and squawking of many kinds of birds formed a symphony (or cacophony) that daily entertained the forest’s guardian, Humbaba.
- The aftermath of Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s slaying of Humbaba is now better preserved.
- The passages are consistent with other versions and confirm what was already known. For example, Enkidu had spent some time with Humbaba in his youth.
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