“Gilgamesh at Urkesh? Literary Motifs and Iconographic Identification,”
in P. Butterlin et al. (eds.), Les Espaces Syro-Mesopotamiens: Dimensions de l’experience humaine au proche-orient ancien, Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 403-414.
The renowned epos of Gilgamesh (with some glimpses on the Etana myth, as for sealing A5q680.1: cf. Sedláček 2014) is the topic of this contribution, which analyses in detail the possibility of a cultural presence of this story, attested by literary and iconographic motifs.
After the introduction, the author states (in paragraph 1) her methodological criteria in comparing texts and images: 1) “there can be single iconographic elements that are sufficiently descriptive to allow a univocal correlation between a given figurative element and a known literary motif” 2) “the identification may rest not on a single figure, but on a clustering of figures which, together, seem to represent a specific event described in the texts” (both the quotation are on p. 403).
Paragraph 2 and 3 deal with a stone plaque fragment found at Urkesh (in a private house of the late third millennium BC), namely A7.36, carved in white limestone and portraying two figures in relief [see photo V9d2501, fig. 4 on p. 411]: this plaque could represent Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu and a strict comparison with other specimens is presented by the author (see e.g. fig. 2 on p. 411), who also underlines the individual correspondences between iconography and text: 1) Enkidu’s hairy appearance; 2) Enkidu’s strength; 3) the beauty and elegance of Gilgamesh and 4) his youth; 5) the respective heights; 6) the friendly encounter; 7) the scene, which is self-contained; 8) the memorialization of a specific moment; 9) the presence of a quiver (with arrows in it) carried by the left figure. All these elements (forming a pattern or a cluster of evidences) clearly hint to the epos of Gilgamesh.
Paragraph 4 defines the dating (between EDIII and the early Akkadian period) and the place of origin (probably local, being the stone very similar to that used for another sculpture from temple BA: see B1.19 and cf. Kelly-Buccellati 1990) of the plaque.
In conclusion (paragraph 5), the author presents two important inferences [about the concept of ‘inference’ in archaeology see CAR/Themes/Inference, by M. De Pietri, quoting Buccellati 2017 (CAR)]: 1) “the first is that a significant thematic development that we know from the Old Babylonian Gilgamesh story would already have been so popular in the late third millennium as to have become the subject of a figurative representation and not in this case on cylinder seals but on a stone plaque” 2) “the second inference is about the Hurrian context within which the plaque can be situated. Arguments have been presented elsewhere for the specific ethnic nature of Urkesh as a Hurrian city. Since it seems likely that our plaque was carved in Urkesh, the presence of a Gilgamesh motif in this city attests to the third millennium Hurrian familiarity with these tales and their participation in the proliferation of these pan-Syro-Mesopotamian stories” (pp. 410-412).
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