The poem in its final shape comprised twelve tablets of about three thousand lines. Unfortunately only about half of the epic has been found up to the present time. The numerous fragments represent at least four distinct copies, all belonging to the library of Ashurbanabal. To Professor Paul Haupt we are indebted for a practically complete publication of the fragments of the epic;[857] and it is likewise owing, chiefly, to Professor Haupt that the sequence in the incidents of the epic as well as the general interpretation of the composition has been established.[858]
The center of action in the first tablets of the series and in the oldest portions of the epic is the ancient city Uruk, or Erech, in southern Babylonia, invariably spoken of as Uruk supûri, that is, the 'walled' or fortified Uruk. A special significance attaches to this epithet. It was the characteristic of every ancient town, for reasons which Ihering has brilliantly set forth,[859] to be walled.[860] The designation of Uruk as 'walled,' therefore, stamps it as a city, but that the term was added, also points to the great antiquity of the place,—to a period when towns as distinguished from mere agricultural villages were sufficiently rare to warrant some special nomenclature. From other sources the great age of Uruk is confirmed, and Hilprecht[861] is of the opinion that it was the capitol of a kingdom contemporaneous with the earliest period of Babylonian history. A lexicographical tablet[862] informs us that Uruk was specially well fortified. It was known as the place of seven walls and, in view of the cosmic significance of the number seven among the Babylonians, Jensen supposes[863] that the city's walls are an imitation of the seven concentric zones into which the world was divided. However this may be, a city so ancient and so well fortified must have played a most important part in old Babylonian history, second only in importance, if not equal, to Nippur. The continued influence of the Ishtar or Nanâ cult of Erech also illustrates the significance of the place. It is natural, therefore, to find traditions surviving of the history of the place.
The first tablet of the Gilgamesh epic contains such a reminiscence. The city is hard pressed by an enemy. The misfortune appears to be sent as a punishment for some offence.[864] Everything is in a state of confusion. Asses and cows destroy their young. Men weep and women sigh. The gods and spirits of "walled Uruk" have become hostile forces. For three years the enemy lays siege to the place. The gates of the city remain closed. Who the enemy is we are not told, and such is the fragmentary condition of the tablet that we are left to conjecture the outcome of the city's distress.
In the second tablet, Gilgamesh is introduced as a hero of superior strength and in control of Uruk. Is he the savior of the city or its conqueror? One is inclined to assume the latter, for the inhabitants of Uruk are represented as complaining that Gilgamesh has taken away the sons and daughters of the place. From a passage in a subsequent tablet it appears that Uruk is not the native place of the hero, but Marada.[865] Moreover, the name Gilgamesh is not Babylonian, so that the present evidence speaks in favor of regarding the first episode in the epic as a reminiscence of the extension of Gilgamesh's dominion by the conquest of Uruk. When this event took place we have no means of determining with even a remote degree of probability. The representation of Gilgamesh on very ancient seal cylinders[866] warrants us in passing beyond the third millennium, but more than this can hardly be said.
Gilgamesh is a hero of irresistible power. The inhabitants of Uruk appeal for help to Aruru, who has created Gilgamesh:
He has no rival....
Thy inhabitants [appeal for aid?].
Gilgamesh does not leave a son to his father.
He, the ruler of walled Uruk,...