I’ve always wondered about the actual pronunciation of UtNApishtim (my emphasis—forerunner of our friend Noah the arkwright), Siduri (the lady bartender with her ancient beery drinks), and Humbaba or Huwawa or what have you (a big deal monster). In its moderately many versions in a couple or three different languages, this assortment of stories is a feast for anyone who knows about the work of Stith Thompson and others on legend and oral literature. Gilgamesh, in its various forms and extensions really amounts to prehistory. History, especially that of marginal societies that were sort of under the regal bureaucratic radars, and apart from some dynastic Egyptian records and possibly some Chinese records, really is only about two and a half millenia old. Then things get very interesting, at least for math teachers like me.
(I’d love to be able to read Cretan Linear A, but that’s a different story entirely.)
Last edited by Allen Tice; 01-07-2022 at 10:09 AM.
Reason: Fix on “the Bull of Heaven”, much later in Mithraism
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