of two columns each on obverse and reverse, as against three columns each in the case of our two tablets. We thus have the interesting proof that as early as 2000 B.C. there were already several editions of the Epic. As to the provenance of our two tablets, there are no definite data, but it is likely that they were found by natives in the mounds at Warka, from which about the year 1913, many tablets came into the hands of dealers. It is likely that where two tablets of a series were found, others of the series were also dug up, and we may expect to find some further portions of this old Babylonian version turning up in the hands of other dealers or in museums.
IV.
Coming to the contents of the two tablets, the Pennsylvania tablet deals with the meeting of the two heroes, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, their conflict, followed by their reconciliation, while the Yale tablet in continuation takes up the preparations for the encounter of the two heroes with the guardian of the cedar forest, Ḫumbaba—but probably pronounced Ḫubaba[1]—or, as the name appears in the old Babylonian version, Ḫuwawa. The two tablets correspond, therefore, to portions of Tablets I to V of the Assyrian version;[2] but, as will be shown in detail further on, the number of completely parallel passages is not large, and the Assyrian version shows an independence of the old Babylonian version that is larger than we had reason to expect. In general, it may be said that the Assyrian version is more elaborate, which points to its having received its present form at a considerably later period than the old Babylonian version.[3] On the other hand, we already find in the Babylonian version the tendency towards repetition, which is characteristic of Babylonian-Assyrian tales in general. Through the two Babylonian tablets we are enabled to fill out certain details
- ↑ See below, p. 23
- ↑ I follow the enumeration of tablets, columns and lines in Jensen’s edition, though some fragments appear to have been placed by him in a wrong position.
- ↑ According to Carl Bezold’s investigation, Verbalsuffixformen als Alterskriterien babylonisch-assyrischer Inschriften (Heidelberg Akad. d. Wiss., Philos.-Histor. Klasse, 1910, 9te Abhandlung), the bulk of the tablets in Ashurbanapal’s library are copies of originals dating from about 1500 B.C. It does not follow, however, that all the copies date from originals of the same period. Bezold reaches the conclusion on the basis of various forms for verbal suffixes, that the fragments from the Ashurbanapal Library actually date from three distinct periods ranging from before c. 1450 to c. 700 B.C.
