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Gilgamesh in the Arabian Nights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Stephanie Dalley
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Extract

It is difficult to lose a good story. Many of the best folk tales transcend the boundaries of language and nationality, and the Gilgamesh Epic, attested in Human, Hittite, Elamite and Akkadian cuneiform, is no exception. The latest Akkadian tablets to be inscribed with the story come from the site of Uruk of the late Babylonian period, some time after the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C. and perhaps as late as the Seleurid period, after the reign of Alexander the Great. The story had been popular for some two thousand years. Despite this popularity in so many countries and for such a very long period of time, the story of Gilgamesh was supposed to have died more or less with the death of cuneiform writing, although some residual themes were recognised in various versions of the Alexander Romance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , April 1991 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1991

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References

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