There was a real King Gilgamesh, and there was a legendary Gilgamesh based on him. The legendary one is in the ancient poem known as "Epic of Gilgamesh".
What about Gilgamesh? There was a historical Mesopotamian king, name roughly transcribed into English as "Gilgamesh", who lived somewhere around 3000 BC.
He probably led the charge against a couple giant beasts (elephants, boars, and other things live in the wild and attack humans with little provocation). His exploits were mythicized and adapted into an Epic Poem (think, "The Odyssey" or "Hercules"), to be written down about 1000 years after the king's death. This makes the story of Gilgamesh one of the oldest mythical texts, as well as one of the oldest literary texts.
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There was a real King Gilgamesh, and there was a legendary Gilgamesh based on him. The legendary one is in the ancient poem known as "Epic of Gilgamesh".
What about Gilgamesh? There was a historical Mesopotamian king, name roughly transcribed into English as "Gilgamesh", who lived somewhere around 3000 BC.
He probably led the charge against a couple giant beasts (elephants, boars, and other things live in the wild and attack humans with little provocation). His exploits were mythicized and adapted into an Epic Poem (think, "The Odyssey" or "Hercules"), to be written down about 1000 years after the king's death. This makes the story of Gilgamesh one of the oldest mythical texts, as well as one of the oldest literary texts.
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