The Forgotten One first fully explores the theme of seeking the meaning of life, because after the death of his best friend Enkidu, the hero king left his kingdom to find the mysterious figure Utnapistim and gain eternal life. Forgetting a person's fear of death is actually a fear of meaningless. Although he didn't live forever, the task itself gave him the meaning of life. Since ancient times, writers and philosophers have been exploring this theme.
King of historical legends
The father of the Forgotten is said to be the priest King Lougarre Banda (who described the magical power of the Forgotten in two Sumerian poems) and his mother, the goddess Sun Ning (also known as Ningsumon, the Virgin and the Great Queen). Therefore, the forger is a demigod. It is said that he lived an unusually long life (the Sumerian Kings List recorded his reign as 126) and had superhuman strength.
Known as "Bilgames" in Sumerian and "Gilgamos" in Greek, it is closely related to the image of Dumz in Sumerian poem "The Descendants of Inanna". The Forgotten is widely regarded as the fifth king in the history of uruk, who ruled in the 26th century BC. His influence was so far-reaching that the myth of his sacred position developed around his behavior and finally reached its climax in the story of Epic of Gilgamesh. Later, the kings of Mesopotamia would quote his name and associate his lineage with their own. Most famously, Urshuerji (2029- 1982 BC), considered as the greatest king of Mesopotamia in the period of Ur III (2047- 1750 BC), claimed that Lugabanda and Song Ning were his parents and forgot one and his brother, so as to raise the eyes of his rule.
Development of text
The Akkadian version of this passage was discovered by archaeologist Austin Henry Layard in the ruins of the library in Ashgabat, Nineveh, at the time of 1849. Layard's expedition is part of an initiative launched by European institutions and governments in the mid-Kloc-0/9th century, which funded an expedition to Mesopotamia to find physical evidence to confirm the events described in the Bible. However, these explorers found that the Bible, which used to be considered as the oldest original story in the world, was actually borrowed from ancient Sumerian mythology.
The same is true of forgotten one's epic, because it is a compilation of stories. Undoubtedly, it was handed down orally at first, and it was finally recorded after the king ruled for 700- 1000 years in history. Version Layard discovered that the author was Babylonian writer Zinzile-Unnini (written in 1300-1000 BC), and he was considered as the earliest name in the world until the author of this work discovered Endoanna (2285-2250 BC), the daughter of sargon of Akkad. Shen-Qi Le-Unnini borrowed Sumerian materials to create his story, and there may be quite a lot of materials for reference, because at the time of writing this epic, the forgotten has become a popular hero for centuries.
The forgotten one saved a powerful goddess from the predicament, which shows that she is highly respected.
In the story of Inanna and the gourd tree in Sumer, the goddess Inanna planted a troublesome tree in her garden and called on her family to help her. A forgotten man appeared as her loyal brother, and he came to help her.
In this story, Inanna (Sumerian love and Sivir) planted a tree in her garden, hoping to make a chair and a bed with it one day. However, there is a snake at the root of the tree, a female demon in the middle (Lilitu), and a An Su bird on the branch.
In any case, Inanna couldn't get rid of the pests, so she turned to her brother Utu, the sun god, for help. Wutu refused, but forgot that someone had heard her request. He was armed to the teeth and killed the snake. The devil and the An Su bird have escaped. After taking the branch for himself, the forger gave the trunk to Inanna to make a bed and a chair. This is considered to be the first time that the Forgotten appeared in heroic poems. The fact that he saved a powerful goddess from the predicament shows that he has attached great importance to it for a long time.
Other stories about the Forgotten also made him a great hero, and the king in history was finally given the status of a completely sacred god. He is considered to be the brother of Inanna, one of the most popular, if not the most popular, goddesses in Mesopotamia. The prayer found on the clay tablet said that the forgotten man was a judge of the afterlife, and his wisdom was comparable to that of the famous Greek judges of the underworld, Radaman Tus, Minos and arkus.
An epic story
In forgotten one's epic, the gods thought the great king was too arrogant, so they decided to send the savage Enkidu to belittle him to teach him a lesson. Enkidu and the Forgotten were considered close rivals, but after a fierce battle, Enkidu was defeated. He accepted his failure frankly, and they became friends and embarked on the road of adventure together.
They killed Humbaba, the demon in the cedar forest, which attracted Inanna's attention (her Akkadian/Babylonian name is Ishtar in the story). Inanna tried to seduce the Forgotten, but the Forgotten refused her on the grounds that all her other men had ended their lives as lovers. Inanna was angry and sent her sister-in-law, the bull of heaven and man, to destroy the forgotten one in a down-to-earth manner. Enkidu helped his friend and killed the bull, but it offended the gods and was sentenced to death.
After the death of Enkidu, the forgotten people fell into deep sorrow, and realized their own death through the death of their friends. Facing the ultimate extinction, they questioned the meaning of life and the value of human achievements. He shouted:
How can I rest in peace? Despair is in my heart. What my brother is now will be what I will be when I die. Because I am afraid of death, I will try my best to find what they call Utnapishtim in the distance, because he has entered the collection of God. Sandel, 97)
Forgotten people abandoned all their vanity and pride, began to seek the meaning of life, and finally found a way to overcome death. He crossed mountains and oceans, and finally found Utnapishtim, which provided him with two chances of eternal life. He failed twice. One is that he can't stay up for six days and six nights, and the other is that he doesn't protect magical plants; While a person was sleeping, a snake ate the plant. Unable to live forever, he was gestured home by the ferryman Urshana and wrote his own story there.
Legacy and ongoing debate
By trying to find the meaning of life, the forgotten are not afraid of death, and thus become the first epic hero in world literature. Forgetting your own grief and the questions caused by the death of a friend have resonated with everyone who is struggling with the meaning of life in the face of death. Although the forgotten man did not achieve immortality in the story, his behavior was handed down through words, and so was he.
Because forgotten one's epic existed in oral form long before it was written, whether the existing story was influenced by the culture of earlier Sumerians or later Babylonians has been controversial. As mentioned above, the best preserved version of this story comes from Shen Qi Le Unnini, who may have modified the original Sumerian materials. In this regard, the orientalist Samuel Noah Kramer wrote:
Among the plots containing Gilgamesh's epic, several can be traced back to Sumerian archetypes, which actually involve the forgotten heroes. Even in those plots that lack Sumerian correspondence, most individual themes reflect the origin of Sumerian myths and epics. However, in any case, Babylonian poets did not blindly copy Sumer's materials. According to their own temper and tradition, they modified its content and shaped its form, so that only Sumer's original bare core could be recognized. As for the plot structure of the whole epic-restless adventure heroes and powerful and fatalistic melodrama that they are bound to disillusion-it is definitely the development and achievement of Babylonians rather than Sumerians. (History begins in Sumer, 270).
Historical evidence of the existence of the forgotten man can be found in the inscription, which holds that he built the Great Wall of uruk (modern Iraqi Valka). In the story, this is the first time he recorded his great deeds and his life of seeking meaning. There are other references about him from historical figures known in his time, such as King Kish, Mebara Gisi, and, of course, the list of Sumerian kings and legends that grew up during his reign.
A team of German archaeologists claimed to have discovered a forgotten grave in April 2003.
Today, the forgotten one is still talked about and written. A team of German archaeologists claimed to have discovered a forgotten grave in April 2003. Archaeological excavation magnetized the old riverbed of the Euphrates River and its surroundings by modern technology, revealing the garden fence, the specific buildings and structures described in Gilgamesh epic, including the tomb of the great king. According to legend, after Gilg Metz died, he was buried at the bottom of the Euphrates River.
However, it doesn't matter whether there is a king in history, because this role has had its own life for centuries. At the end of the story, when the forgotten one dies, the narrator says:
Heroes and wise men are like new moons, with ups and downs. People will say: Who ever had power and power like the forgotten? Like the dark moon and the shadow moon, there would be no light without him. Oh, forgotten man, you have been given kingship. This is your destiny. Immortality is not your destiny. Because of this, don't be sad, don't be sad, don't be depressed; He gave you the power to bind and release, and became the darkness and light of mankind. (Saunders, 1 18)
The story that the forgotten man failed to realize his dream of eternal life is exactly how he realized his dream. The epic itself is immortal and has always been a model for any similar story since then. Undoubtedly, it was widely read before the collapse of Assyrian Empire in 6 12 BC, and it has become more and more popular and influential since it was rediscovered in AD 1879.
The Forgotten One encourages the hope that even though one may not live forever, the choices one makes in life will have an impact on others' lives. These other people may be friends, family members, acquaintances, or strangers long after their death. They continue to be moved by the hero's refusal to accept the eternal story of meaningless life. The forgotten man's struggle with obvious meaninglessness defines him-just as it defines anyone who has ever lived-and his pursuit continues to inspire those who realize how eternal and essentially human this struggle is.