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Epic of Gilgamesh | MS 3025

EPIC OF GILGAMESH

MS 3025
MS Short Title EPIC OF GILGAMESH
Text GILGAMESH EPIC: : THE DREAM OF GILGAMESH, INCLUDING THE FIRST TWO OF GILGAMESH'S NIGHTMARES FROM THE EXPEDITION TO THE CEDAR FOREST AND ENKIDU'S EXPLANATIONS OF THEM
Description MS in Old Babylonian on clay, probably Larsa Babylonia, 19th-18th c. BC, 1 tablet, 20,3x7,5x3,2 cm, 85 lines in cuneiform script.
Context For 5 of the 6 Sumerian forerunners of the Gilgamesh Epic, see MSS 2652/1-2, 4, 2887,3026, 3027 and 3361.
Commentary Gilgamesh, the oldest substantial world literature, is mostly preserved on a set of 12 Neo Babylonian tablets, which however, are about 1000 years later than the present Old Babylonian original version. Only one more large intact tablet and 9 fragments of this version are known. One of the fragments is MS 2652/5. One of these only is partly overlapping the present text (Pennsylvania CBS 7771), which makes the remainder of this tablet the sole witness to this part of the Old Babylonian Gilgamesh. Less than half of the text has parallels with the later Middle Babylonian version from Hathusa, and the Neo Babylonian Gilgamesh tablet IV. Only about 2/3 of the epic is preserved. The present tablet adds 55 new lines to it, including an entirely new dream and its explanation.
Published A.R. George: The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic. Introduction, critical edition and cuneiform texts. Oxford, University press, 2003. 2 vols. Andrew George: Babylonian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 10, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts IV. CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2009, text 5, pp. 29-36.
Image featured in A.R. George: The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic. Introduction, critical edition and cuneiform texts. Oxford, University press, 2003. 2 vols. Andrew George: Babylonian Literary Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 10, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts IV. CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2009, text 5, pp. 29-36.
Place of origin probably Larsa Babylonia
Dates 19c - 18c BC