A Dictionary of Akkadian

Akkadian was the dominant language of the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia. It was the lingua franca in the Ancient Near East for several centuries. It was gradually replaced by Aramaic. It faded into oblivion once Alexander the Great Hellenized (Greekified) the region and in modern times we had no dictionary to decode it.

But, after 90 years of work, scholars at the University of Chicago finally published in 2011 a 21-volume dictionary of Akkadian.

Unspoken for 2,000 years, Akkadian was preserved on clay tablets and in stone inscriptions until scholars deciphered it.

Gilgamesh was a historical king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk, a major hero in ancient Mesopotamian mythology, and the protagonist of the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem written in Akkadian during the late second millennium BC.

Composed of many stories, the connected narrative that is the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh was composed by a scribe named Sîn-lēqi-unninni, probably during the Middle Babylonian Period (c. 1600 – c. 1155 BC). The source material is much older.

In the epic, Gilgamesh is a demigod of superhuman strength who befriends the wildman Enkidu, and together, they go on adventures.

Gilgamesh is considered one of the masterpieces of world literature. As a half-god and half-man, his isolation from both worlds turns him into a cruel tyrant over the citizens of Uruk. To impress them forever he orders a great wall to be built, driving his people to exhaustion and despair so that they cry to the Sun God for help.

The Sun God's response is to to send to Earth another kind of man, Enkidu, to live among the animals and learn kindness from them. He falls in love with Shamhat, a singer from the temple, and he follows her back to Uruk. There, Enkidu, the “uncivilized” beast from the forest, shows the evil Gilgamesh through friendship what it means to be human.