NEHC

This course takes as its topic the literary tradition surrounding Gilgamesh, the legendary king of the Mesopotamian city-state of Uruk. The course will focus on the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh and its Sumerian forerunners, and their cultural and historical contexts. We will also read a number of Sumerian and Akkadian compositions that are thematically related to the Gilgamesh tradition, including Atrahasis, the Sumerian Flood story, and the Epics of Enmerkar and Lugalbanda, also of first dynasty of Uruk.

This course surveys the political, social, and economic history of ancient Egypt from pre-dynastic times (ca. 3400 B.C.) until the advent of Islam in the seventh century of our era.