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Tomb Of Gilgamesh: Any Updates?

MrRING

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I can't believe there wasn't already a thread on this - but considering it's a year old, has anybody heard any updates on this find?

Gilgamesh tomb believed found

Archaeologists in Iraq believe they may have found the lost tomb of King Gilgamesh - the subject of the oldest "book" in history - written by a Middle Eastern scholar 2,500 years before the birth of Christ - commemorated the life of the ruler of the city of Uruk, from which Iraq gets its name.

Now, a German-led expedition has discovered what is thought to be the entire city of Uruk - including, where the Euphrates once flowed, the last resting place of its famous King. "I don't want to say definitely it was the grave of King Gilgamesh, but it looks very similar to that described in the epic," Jorg Fassbinder, of the Bavarian department of Historical Monuments in Munich, told the BBC World Service's Science in Action programme.

Magnetic

In the book - actually a set of inscribed clay tablets - Gilgamesh was described as having been buried under the Euphrates, in a tomb apparently constructed when the waters of the ancient river parted following his death. "We found just outside the city an area in the middle of the former Euphrates river¿ the remains of such a building which could be interpreted as a burial," Mr Fassbinder said.

The Epic Of Gilgamesh
He said the amazing discovery of the ancient city under the Iraqi desert had been made possible by modern technology. "By differences in magnetisation in the soil, you can look into the ground," Mr Fassbinder added.

"The difference between mudbricks and sediments in the Euphrates river gives a very detailed structure." This creates a magnetogram, which is then digitally mapped, effectively giving a town plan of Uruk.

'Venice in the desert'

"The most surprising thing was that we found structures already described by Gilgamesh," Mr Fassbinder stated. "We covered more than 100 hectares. We have found garden structures and field structures as described in the epic, and we found Babylonian houses."

But he said the most astonishing find was an incredibly sophisticated system of canals. "Very clearly, we can see in the canals some structures showing that flooding destroyed some houses, which means it was a highly developed system.

"[It was] like Venice in the desert."
 
No, cant find any updates, very odd considering it's historical importance.
 
I don't know, I had heard that Iraq was quite busy at the moment with other stuff. Maybe the opportunity for further archaeology hasn't really arisen.
 
Still no updates, but the WIKI article had the following info:
Fragments of an epic text found in Me-Turan (modern Tell Haddad) relate that Gilgamesh was buried under the waters of a river at the end of his life. The people of Uruk diverted the flow of the Euphrates River crossing Uruk for the purpose of burying the dead king within the riverbed. In April 2003, a German-led expedition discovered what is thought to be the entire city of Uruk - including, where the Euphrates once flowed, the last resting place of its King Gilgamesh.

Despite the lack of direct evidence, most scholars do not object to consideration of Gilgamesh as a historical figure, particularly after inscriptions were found confirming the historical existence of other figures associated with him: kings Enmebaragesi and Aga of Kish. If Gilgamesh was a historical king, he probably reigned in about the 26th century BC. Some of the earliest Sumerian texts spell his name as Bilgamesh.

In most texts, Gilgamesh is written with the determinative for divine beings (DINGIR) - (Tenger) - Tangra, but there is no evidence for a contemporary cult, and the Sumerian Gilgamesh myths suggest the deification was a later development (unlike the case of the Akkadian god-kings). Historical or not, Gilgamesh became a legendary protagonist in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
 
The Gilgamesh story is one of the most fascinating stories ever written down.
It's cool if the story to a large degree would be confirmed by archeological findings.

Wouldn't be surprised if Hollywood takes a closer look at the story and turn it into a movie like they did with Alexander the Great.
 
I don't think Hollywood can handle Gilgamesh - the relationship with Enkidu and anticlimax of the quest's failure are entirely not up their alley. They'd turn in some overblown blockbuster with a love interest and the Water of Life swallowed up in an earthquake.

I can see an independent doing something wonderful with it on a budget. But basically we should all just read the poem.
 
I was looking to see if there was any updates on this, and there isn't... but there is footage supposedly showing something that was found, but I'm guessing it must be a hoax because something that elaborate found in a tomb would have still had news talking today. It seems to start around 2:20...

 
I was looking to see if there was any updates on this, and there isn't... but there is footage supposedly showing something that was found, but I'm guessing it must be a hoax because something that elaborate found in a tomb would have still had news talking today. It seems to start around 2:20...
Unless it had been suppressed somehow.
 
On 24th Oct 2018. MrRING said: I was looking to see if there was any updates on this, and there isn't... but there is footage supposedly showing something that was found, but I'm guessing it must be a hoax because something that elaborate found in a tomb would have still had news talking today. It seems to start around 2:20...

I have been looking out for updates too and as of September 2019 I haven't found anything.
The video looks very fake to me! At 2.58 you see a very strange fishlike object upon the person's chest. It has a couple of lines of cuneiform text - but these characters are decidedly too late in style and are not from the time of Gilgamesh (26th century BCE) when the cuneiform characters are much more differentiated and recognizable as images.
 
If this Quora post it to be believed, something is there, but if it is Gilgamesh or not is still to be determined.
https://www.quora.com/Where-is-the-tomb-of-Gilgamesh
In 2003 a German expedition doing a magnetometer sweep of the area, looking for underground traces of Uruk, found a buried ceremonial complex which may be a tomb. The media at the time hyped it as “possibly the tomb of Gilgamesh” but in the subsequent years not a lot more news has surfaced about it — archaeology at the site was interrupted shortly after the first survey by the Iraq War and was only resumed in 2016. The team studying the site is still concentrating on magnetometer surveys rather than physical excavations; there doesn’t seem to be any published work on the contents of the “tomb” which suggests it’s still undisturbed under the earth.
 
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