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The ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ is not the oldest surviving work of literature
- kasey_junk 4y agoI absolutely love that beer inventory management trumps literature when it comes to uses for new technologies even going back 4000 years.
- omwow 4y agoCheers!
- bee_rider 4y agoIn some instances I'm sure they had a couple beers and then had somebody tell oral histories and legends, and maybe made up some of their own. Probably they said "What? Mark down the tale on one of those beer-tablets? It is more fun to hear it spoken anyway and old Gilgamesh here works best when he's improvising."
- salmo 4y agoIn my amateur learning about Egypt, “beer” seems misleading. It’s definitely a fermented grain beverage thing, but more like bread + liquid that doesn’t make you sick. Reproductions are kinda nasty and very low ABV from what I’ve heard and read. But a ton of calories and no amoebas. Perfect for a hard day’s pyramid building.
- wl 4y agoThe Hymn to Ninkasi[0] provides a recipe for Sumerian beer. Instead of milling grain and steeping it, they baked bappir bread, crumbled it, and steeped that. The final product still had chunks of bread in it, so they drank it through straws. Instead of the modern practice of using hops, they used honey (or date juice?) and unspecified aromatics to flavor it. Fritz Maytag suggests that Miguel Civil mistranslates the Sumerian word ĝestin here as "wine," when "grapes" makes more sense from a microbiological perspective, the white fuzzy yeast found on the outside of grapes inoculating the brew for fermentation[1]. While it probably was an acquired taste foreign to our modern day paletes, the hymn suggests they enjoyed the taste. [0] https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/nn132.pdf https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/... [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/41765984 https://www.jstor.org/stable/41765984
- salmo 4y agoThat’s awesome and the references are great. Thank you for that. I’ve really been working on learning early history the past few years, especially from “the East”, where I had no real formal education. The straw part is brilliant. I image that kind of like traditional Yerba Mate. It’s kind of interesting that the fruit peel as a yeast source and aromatics are used in different Belgian brewing today. Modern beer only uses a few strains but these open vat brewing facilities can end up developing their own. But it was interesting to me that all the earliest writing about trading and inventory of beer was not so much about cultures that prioritized getting smashed, but that beer was a utilitarian dietary staple. And I guess for the most part, all alcoholic beverages have been “acquired tastes.” I’ve tried some meads with honey. I wouldn’t pick them out of today’s selection, but they’re not bad. I really would be curious to try this. I also wonder if it’s the same as Egyptian beer. More hesitant on the Mongolian airag, but I’d probably give that a shot out of adventurism. The more commoner ones fascinate me more than the fancy elite beverages.
- wl 4y agoIf you're interested in the brewing of Egyptian beer, I've got a few references you might want to check out. http://ancientgrains.org/samuel1995beer.pdf http://ancientgrains.org/samuel1995beer.pdf http://ancientgrains.org/samuel1996beer.pdf http://ancientgrains.org/samuel1996beer.pdf http://www.ancientgrains.org/samuel1996science.pdf http://www.ancientgrains.org/samuel1996science.pdf http://ancientgrains.org/samuel1999art.pdf http://ancientgrains.org/samuel1999art.pdf http://ancientgrains.org/samuel2000aemt.pdf http://ancientgrains.org/samuel2000aemt.pdf Plenty more at http://ancientgrains.org http://ancientgrains.org
- bananarchist 4y agoIt sounds like the disagreement here is over the definition of literature. I generally regard wiktionary's fourth entry (high fiction) to be its definition, whereas this seems somewhere between that and the second (collected creative writing of a culture). I was shaking my head at most of the examples given. Now I see we are operating from two different foundations. Maybe this is why so many arguments open with the cliche "Webster defines..."
- forbiddenvoid 4y agoIt's hard to separate "I think your definition of literature is wrong" and "I think your application of that definition is wrong."
- Maursault 4y ago> the disagreement here is over the definition of literature Deeply, but though we can make distinction between a modern best seller and Brian's grammatically incorrect graffiti, "Romanes eunt domus,"[1], in essence they are both literature, even if the latter is fictional and framed within the larger contemporary story, because Brian wrote a message representative of some language. Literature is defined by writing, and writing is defined by symbols representing language. Always given less emphasis than the ancient cave art found in caves all over the world are the abstract symbols that very often accompany the graphic depictions of animals. For all we know some of those symbols may mean, "this tastes good," and regardless of being unable to decipher them, they could still be the oldest extant literature[2] so long as they could represent language and tell a story, no matter how primitive a story. Before the Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mayan pictographs were deciphered, there was no question that they had specific meaning behind them. Though in the strictest sense, pictography is not an alphabet, it still conveys specific messages in some once spoken language. In my opinion, if there are any abstract symbols that represent even the most primitive message, if it's clear there is even some vague attempt at communication, then it will still broadly fall under the category of literature, regardless of ever being deciphered. While ultimately I agree that the epic of Gilgamesh is the earliest extant high, advanced, or complex literature, I think whether a written story still exists or not is an arbitrary distinction. The fact that Gilgamesh exists in the literary form that it does necessarily means earlier examples of high literature once existed but are unknown and likely lost. Between Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides there were over 300 plays written of which 33 survive. That the missing plays no longer exist should not diminish the fact that these were, in fact, written and were undoubtedly literature. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_ite_domum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_ite_domum [2] https://www.openculture.com/2019/03/40000-year-old-symbols-found-in-caves-worldwide-may-represent-the-earliest-written-language.html https://www.openculture.com/2019/03/40000-year-old-symbols-f... note: Though von Petzinger herself clarifies in her TED Talk that the common ancient symbols are not writing, I think she's hedging for some reason (probably professional caution) contradicting what her own research shows and statements she makes immediately previously.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- type0 4y agoIt is still the oldest surviving Epic, a blockbuster if you like, even though it had several remakes by Akkadians and others. edit: btw, I wish even a fraction of the current high-budget superhero movies had as good of a plot as Gilgamesh
- jvanderbot 4y agoWasn't there a high budget blockbuster version of Gilgamesh and it flopped?
- adastra22 4y agoAudiences probably thought it was too derivative.
- aae42 4y agolike when they said dune was a rip-off of star wars
- agency 4y agoYou might be thinking of Beowulf, which Robert Zemeckis did a version of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_(2007_film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_(2007_film)
- jvanderbot 4y agoI absolutely was!
- AdmiralAsshat 4y agoModern audiences hate the idea of any kind of moral ambiguity in their heroes, and they would need to rewrite his backstory to no longer include deflowering maidens on their wedding night. So we'd have to rewrite his first encounter with Enkidu, too. Maybe Gilgamesh will save him from drowning, and make some painfully obvious foreshadowing comment in the process ("Gee, I sure hope I never get that close to the ocean floor again!") While we're at it, we'd probably need to rewrite Enkidu's story, too, because the idea of a Sacred Prostitute sanitizing a wildman through several days and nights of continuous sex is sure to rile some puritan feathers.
- swayvil 4y agoWhat's got a greater chance of standing the test of time, something entertaining or something useful?
- xhevahir 4y agoI don't get why people are defining "literature" so narrowly as to exclude things like wisdom literature. Ecclesiastes isn't literature? Or the poetry of Hesiod? That's pretty eccentric. There's also the problem of applying the criterion of "fiction" to cultures that had no such concept. (The beginning of this article goes into it: https://theamericanscholar.org/fictions-revenge/ https://theamericanscholar.org/fictions-revenge/ .)
- generationP 4y agoBoth way newer than Gilgamesh.
- xhevahir 4y agoI was taking issue with the prevailing definition in this thread of literature as "high fiction." Not suggesting that those two examples are older than Gilgamesh.
- goto11 4y agoGilgamesh has characters and a long story with character development, which makes it quite distinct from other kinds of writing like inventories, prayers, collections of advice etc. Typically it is called the first epic. The article is kind of a straw-man - nobody have claimed Gilgamesh is the first writing we have.
- smitty1e 4y ago> Over the course of this period, Sumerian urban communities grew into the very first true cities anywhere on earth. ...of which we have knowledge now. Keeping it humble is a general challenge. However, one feels confident that human knowledge is still closer to the beginning than to the fullness of any macro, micro, or historical understanding of the universe. Were we capable of observing this romantic past, one surmises that we'd be shocked at how normal and boring it all is. Modulo technology, Solmon's observation holds constant: "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." (Eccl1:9)
- lproven 4y ago> ...of which we have knowledge now. For a start there is Göbekli Tepe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe Göbekli Tepe was nearly as long before cuneiform writing as cuneiform was before now. It's not really about cities. It's about cultures that wrote stuff down.
- pmayrgundter 4y agoYep. Images from the article for the earliest Sumerian writing forms look very similar to Göbekli. Writing with pictures goes back a very very long way
- pkdpic 4y agoI taught prehistory for a long time and got really tired of playing the, this is the first example of _______ game. It's fundamentally flawed unless you assume that we can ever know everything about anything, which is completely insane imnho. And it changed constantly for prehistoric artifacts which was awesome but super tiring. Anyway I ended up feeling best introducing historical points in a minimal amount of implied context. "The people who wrote this textbook considered _______ to be the earliest major example of _______." or "As of 20XX this was considered to be the oldest known example of ______." etc. I started to have a lot more luck with maintaining a positive productive engaged classroom conversation when I started doing that. And it let us dive into unstructured critiques of historical method and bias which was always a good way to run out of time in lectures. Then I realized teaching couldn't support an adult human lifestyle and had to quit. I miss these kinds of discussions though. Always glad to see them on hn.
- readthenotes1 4y ago"Then I realized teaching couldn't support an adult human lifestyle" not a modern first-world one at any rate;)
- defrost 4y agoCertainly not in central north America as I understand things to be there. Teachers in countries with university graduate requirements for teaching and strong education unions have better median salaries relative to population demographics.
- chrisseaton 4y ago> Teachers in countries with university graduate requirements for teaching and strong education unions I thought the US required a masters and had extremely strong teacher unions?
- kirsebaer 4y agoUS teacher unions are for teachers in elementary and high schools (teaching children). People teaching at universities typically do not have a union.
- ncmncm 4y agoCuriously, the "Pyramid Texts" the author cites were not incribed in pyramids. The pyramids are all unaccountably blank. The oldest stonework is of best quality: mirror finishes, perfect right angles and flat surfaces cut into the hardest of rock. Likewise, the biggest one-piece stone columns and statues are oldest. Later dynasties stacked their columns. All the oldest Egyptian construction was blank, but that didn't stop later pharaohs from tagging them with their own cartouches, chiseling off any older tags. Today, Egyptologists routinely date things to whoever was the last pharaoh to tag it. But there must have been a real taboo about tagging pyramids, because none did them. By the way, the reason noses and right hands of so much statuary is broken is that that was the standard Christian way of neutralizing the powerful magic they had enabled. Without a nose, they could not breathe in altar smoke. Without a hand, they could not bless.
- wl 4y agoPyramid texts, inscribed inside a pyramid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burial_chamber_in_Unas%27_pyramid.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burial_chamber_in_Unas%27...
- generationP 4y ago> Curiously, the "Pyramid Texts" the author cites were not incribed in pyramids. The pyramids are all unaccountably blank. Not all. See the image caption at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Texts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Texts . You're talking of the Giza ones I assume, which were indeed surprisingly text-free. Might have been a 5th dynasty "invention"? > By the way, the reason noses and right hands of so much statuary is broken is that that was the standard Christian way of neutralizing the powerful magic they had enabled. Without a nose, they could not breathe in altar smoke. Without a hand, they could not bless. This appears to be one of many theories https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/250763/1/2019%20-%20BMPES.pdf https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/250763/1/2019%20-%20BM... . What is definitely known is that Akhenaten would deface images of older gods, and his successors responded in kind; IIRC this would usually manifest in literal defacing rather than de-nosing.
- wl 4y ago
- kurupt213 4y agoI thought it’s presented as the first example of heroic epic
- barbariangrunge 4y agoSimple question: Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest stories we have. Is it good? Is it worth reading today? Or is just just preserved for history's sake? Actually curious
- wl 4y agoI rather like it. In particular, I'd recommend Benjamin Foster's translation as one that is based off of an up-to-date critical text and is very faithful to the original language (or so I've been told). Caveats: * There are still gaps in the text. You're going to have to fill in the blanks in places. * The story is from a distant cultural context that feels alien in a way that Greek stories don't.
- goto11 4y agoDepends on what you like I guess? But if you like ancient epics it is great. Monsters, friendship, sex, death, a search for immortality etc. Be aware that is is only partially preserved, so there is a lot of missing passages in the text which may make it a jumpy and somewhat confusing read compared to say Homer.
- cco 4y agoSo...what is it? I couldn't parse.
- factorialboy 4y agoThis article has a sensationalist headline, but it reiterates the old thought — that everything began in the Middle East. Several other regions of the world have extremely rich traditions, oral traditions of literature, predating by centuries events of the Middle East.
- shp0ngle 4y agoThis talks about surviving written literature.
- kitsune_ 4y agoTwo observations, first, the significance with the Sumerians, especially in context of this article, is the writing (among other things), not the fact that they told stories. Secondly, I think it's a fair assumption that there were oral traditions long before the invention of writing, but this is likely true for people living in the Middle East, or elsewhere. And as a sidenote, how can you prove the existence of extremely rich oral traditions?
- prox 4y agoOne really interesting one is that of the Vedas, where there is a priest specifically to check if there are no mistakes and errors made. From wikipedia’s vedic priesthood article : The brahman was the reciter of hymns from the atharvaveda who was largely silent and observes the procedures and uses Atharvaveda mantras to 'heal' it when mistakes have been made. So at least when it comes to accuracy, it was very resilient. I think my history teacher also mentioned something similar for the Jewish priesthood.
- goto11 4y agoSure, but presumably the Sumerians also had a long oral tradition predating writing. It is just that we don't know anything about oral traditions thousands of years ago, since they leave no archeological trace. What we can know about is what is written down on durable material, and Sumer happens to have some of the very oldest surviving writing. Stories are probably as old as language, but this is pure speculation.
- forgotpwd16 4y agoNote though that those earliest examples are distinct stories or journals or religious texts rather an extensive literature (as in fiction, art, etc).
- jawadch93 4y ago[dead]
- dr_dshiv 4y agoI love wisdom literature. The author gives the Instructions of Shurappak as the oldest literature on his list. Many maxims are metaphorical, like Pythagorean sayings. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Instructions_of_Shuruppak https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Instructions_of_Shuruppak But, I’d like to share my favorite, the Egyptian “The Instructions of Hardjedef”, supposedly written in the 25th century BC: * Clean yourself in your own eyes before someone can clean you. * When you grow, build a house. * Take a wife who has mastered her heart and multiply. * You build for your children when you house yourself. * Build a strong house in the grave and a noble place where the sun sets. * Death lowers us, life lifts us. * The house of death is for life. That last line, that the house of death is for life, suggests that the tombs were for the living, to support memories, traditions and cultural continuity. It makes tomb building less of a selfish affair.
- cyocum 4y agoIf you love wisdom literature. You may also enjoy "Old Irish wisdom attributed to Aldfrith of Northumbria: an edition of Bríathra Flainn Fhína maic Ossu" (https://worldcat.org/title/41404827 https://worldcat.org/title/41404827) and "The Triads of Ireland" (https://archive.org/details/triadsofireland00meyeuoft https://archive.org/details/triadsofireland00meyeuoft). The problem with the "Triads" is that the translation/edition is old and it probably needs a new one.
- prox 4y agoThat last line is also what you gather from contemporary sources, some of which can be found in the book “black land, red land” by Barbara Mertz. Many people went to visit the graves and do their tribute / ritual there.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- rblion 4y agoVedas.
- lakomen 4y agoWall of text with many ads in between and no tldr. This is like clickbait for nerds.
- citizenpaul 4y agoReally don't like the author or his writing style. It reeks of academic superiority complex. If you are in history and cannot admit that much of history is built on very flimsy and thin evidence and at least admit there is some merit to alternative theories you are just a snob.