Generally held to be the earliest recorded epic poem in the world, The Epic of Gilgamesh is based on stories that first appeared around 4,000 years ago in the Near East, where tales of Gilgamesh were written down in various editions by generations of Mesopotamian scribes. Like many early epics, these written forms probably grew out of oral compositions, recited by communal storytellers for generations before scribes set them down on clay tablets, in an archaic form of writing known as “cuneiform.” Any view of the world of the epic must take into account that it was not composed by a single author, but evolved over time, in four stages. First, a series of stories describing Gilgamesh’s adventures was transcribed in the Sumerian language sometime between about 2200 and 1800 B.C.E. Second, around 1700 B.C.E. Babylonian scribes composed the earliest version...