Epic of Gilgamesh Tablets
Overview
The Standard Babylonian version of Gilgamesh, engraved on 12 clay tablets around 1300 to 1000 BCE and copied for the library of Assyrian king Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. Discovered in 1853 by Hormuzd Rassam, the tablets give the fullest telling of the flood story and the quest for immortality. Written in Akkadian cuneiform, they remain the oldest surviving major work of world literature.
Related Manuscripts
Code of Hammurabi
A 2.25 meter diorite stela inscribed around 1754 BCE with 282 laws of Babylonian king Hammurabi, the longest surviving legal text ...
Amarna Letters
Around 382 clay tablets of diplomatic correspondence from the 14th century BCE between pharaohs Amenhotep III and Akhenaten and ru...
Behistun Inscription
A colossal rock relief carved high on a cliff around 520 BCE for Darius I of Persia, recounting his victories in Old Persian, Elam...
Cyrus Cylinder
A small clay barrel inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform around 539 BCE after Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon. It presents Cyrus re...