SOURCE: Kramer, S. N. “The Epic of Gilgameš and Its Sumerian Sources.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 64, no. 1 (January-March 1944): 7-23.

In the following essay, Kramer discusses the textual and narrative elements of the Sumerian poem about Gilgamesh that are incorporated into the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh.

From the point of view of human interest and dramatic impact, the Epic of Gilgameš is outstanding and unique in Babylonian literature. In such compositions as Enûma eliš (the Babylonian Epic of Creation), The Song of Irra, and Ištar's Descent to the Nether World (the Babylonian counterpart of the Sumerian poem Inanna's Descent to the Nether World), it is the Babylonian gods who hold the center of the stage, gods who, on the whole, tend to represent abstractions rather than personalities, personified intellectualizations, rather than profound spiritual forces. Even in such tales as Adapa and the South Wind, and...