# Death of Gilgamesh
The Death of Gilgamesh (Sumerian *am gal-e ba-nú*), also rendered *Bilgames' Death*, is a Sumerian narrative poem about the death, funeral, and netherworld fate of Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Uruk.[1](https://brill.com/display/title/7385) It is one of five short Sumerian Gilgamesh poems known from tablets written during the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE, alongside *Gilgamesh and Huwawa*, *Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven*, *Gilgamesh and Agga of Kish*, and *Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld*.[2](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Epic-of-Gilgamesh) The surviving copies are Old Babylonian, dated ca. 1900-1600 BC,[3](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/469669) and the composition is associated with the Ur III court and the early Old Babylonian period; the exact date of composition remains a scholarly question.[4](https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/gilgamesh)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Subject | Death, funerary rites, and netherworld fate of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk |
| Sumerian title | *am gal-e ba-nú*[1](https://brill.com/display/title/7385) |
| Cycle | One of five Sumerian Gilgamesh poems[2](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Epic-of-Gilgamesh) |
| Manuscripts | Twelve witnesses from Nippur and Me-Turan (Tell Haddad), one of uncertain provenance[3](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/469669) |
| Copy date | Old Babylonian, ca. 1900-1600 BC[3](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/469669) |
| First edition | S. N. Kramer, 1944, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research[5](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/1355151) |
| Standard edition | Cavigneaux and Al-Rawi, *Gilgameš et la Mort*, Textes de Tell Haddad VI (2000)[1](https://brill.com/display/title/7385) |
| Reference translation | ETCSL 1.8.1.3; George 1999: 195-208[6](https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/c1813.htm) • [7](https://www.bu.edu/asor/pubs/jcs/53/veldhuis.pdf) |
## The narrative
The poem opens with Gilgamesh's failing health: he can no longer eat, drink, stand, or sit.[8](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2135/the-death-of-gilgamesh/) In the dream at its center, the hero sees the gods meeting to review his exploits and accomplishments; they decide that he, like all of humankind, shall not be granted eternal life.[4](https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/gilgamesh) The god Enki asks whether [Gilgamesh](https://www.edgepedia.org/gilgamesh) might be spared because of his mother Ninsun, but his semi-divine birth does not lift his mortality: as a demigod he was still mortal.[8](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2135/the-death-of-gilgamesh/)
Niek Veldhuis, Assyriologist at the [University of California](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-california), Berkeley, reconstructs the poem in five scenes: Bilgames on his deathbed; the dream in which he learns that he will die; the dream coming true; Urlugal building Bilgames' tomb; and Bilgames entering the underworld in peace.[7](https://www.bu.edu/asor/pubs/jcs/53/veldhuis.pdf) In Veldhuis's interpretation the tomb guarantees that the hero's name will not be forgotten, resolving the anguish he felt before death, and in the closing passage Bilgames has accepted his fate.[7](https://www.bu.edu/asor/pubs/jcs/53/veldhuis.pdf) The work ends with the narrator addressing all the people, telling them that no one truly dies while remembered by the living.[8](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2135/the-death-of-gilgamesh/)
## Manuscripts and editions
The composition is attested in several tablets and fragments from two findspots, Nippur (modern Nuffar) and Meturan (modern [Tell Haddad](https://www.edgepedia.org/tell-haddad), ancient Me-Turan). None of the sources is complete, and they do not always duplicate each other, leaving several incomplete versions; the Meturan text offers the most complete version.[7](https://www.bu.edu/asor/pubs/jcs/53/veldhuis.pdf) The CDLI composite, Literary 000363, catalogs twelve witnesses: six excavated at Nippur (P264388, P263350, P256692, P343694, P356873, P357055), five at Me-Turran (P355714, P355734, P462167, P355726, P355739), and one of uncertain provenance (P252033).[3](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/469669) One Nippur tablet, ex. 003 (P256692), is kept in the Penn Museum, Philadelphia, under museum number UM 29-16-086.[9](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/256692)
The Nippur fragments were first published by Samuel N. Kramer in 1944 in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research; this edition is the editio princeps (first published edition of a text) on which later work builds.[5](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/1355151) • [9](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/256692) For more than half a century little progress was made on the composition. An Iraqi excavation then uncovered important new fragments at Meturan-Tall Haddad, published for the first time in Antoine Cavigneaux and Farouk Al-Rawi's *Gilgameš et la Mort* (Textes de Tell Haddad VI, Brill, 2000), which also republished the Nippur fragments.[1](https://brill.com/display/title/7385) Although the Meturan version differs from the Nippur fragments in many details, Cavigneaux and Al-Rawi established the correct order of all scenes.[7](https://www.bu.edu/asor/pubs/jcs/53/veldhuis.pdf) English translations followed in Andrew George's 1999 edition of the Akkadian epic (pp. 195-208) and in the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL), whose translation appeared in October 2000.[7](https://www.bu.edu/asor/pubs/jcs/53/veldhuis.pdf) Veldhuis's 2003 Journal of Cuneiform Studies article additionally presents a previously unrecognized fragment joined to the main Nippur source.[7](https://www.bu.edu/asor/pubs/jcs/53/veldhuis.pdf)
Veldhuis cautions that the basic story line remains largely unclear and that the fragmentary pivotal passages and the unusual orthography of the Meturan texts render all interpretations provisional.[7](https://www.bu.edu/asor/pubs/jcs/53/veldhuis.pdf)
## Date and chronology
All surviving manuscripts are Old Babylonian, ca. 1900-1600 BC, as cataloged by CDLI for the composite and its witnesses.[3](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/469669) Composition is placed in the Ur III or early Old Babylonian milieu: the Metropolitan Museum essay treats the five Gilgamesh stories as originally oral narratives sung at the royal court of the [Third Dynasty of Ur](https://www.edgepedia.org/third-dynasty-of-ur), and notes that Sumerian ceased to be a spoken language soon after the end of Shulgi's dynasty, while Sumerian literature continued to be studied in the scribal schools of the following Old Babylonian period.[4](https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/gilgamesh)
The dating is debated. World History Encyclopedia dates the piece to before the Ur III period (2047-1750 BCE in its chronology) and argues that the extant copies suggest the poem circulated orally before Ur III, possibly influencing the related *[Death of Ur-Nammu](https://www.edgepedia.org/death-of-ur-namma)*; that direction of influence is itself challenged.[8](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2135/the-death-of-gilgamesh/) The poem is sometimes associated with *The Death of Ur-Nammu*, dated from the reign of Shulgi of Ur (2029-1982 BCE in that source's reckoning); some scholars argue that the Ur-Nammu poem influenced the Gilgamesh poem, while others reverse the direction.[8](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2135/the-death-of-gilgamesh/) Neither the direction of influence nor a precise composition date is settled by the sources.
## Place in the Sumerian Gilgamesh cycle and the Akkadian epic
The Death of Gilgamesh is the final composition in the five-poem Sumerian Gilgamesh group as listed by Britannica.[2](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Epic-of-Gilgamesh) • [4](https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/gilgamesh) The Meturan excavation that yielded the [Death poem](https://www.edgepedia.org/death-poem)'s most complete manuscripts also produced fragments of *Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld*: Cavigneaux and Al-Rawi's Iraq 62 (2000) article publishes fragments H 154 (Mt1) and H 157 (Mt2) from Tell Haddad locus II, room 30, giving the ending of that work.[10](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/iraq/article/abs/la-fin-de-gilgames-enkidu-et-les-enfers-dapres-les-manuscrits-dur-et-de-meturan-textes-de-tell-haddad-viii/357A97BF65D104B12B72AE6D6081C23F)
The poem's theme informs the later Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, but it is not always included in modern translations.[8](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2135/the-death-of-gilgamesh/) The fullest extant text of the Akkadian epic is on twelve incomplete tablets found in the mid-19th century by Hormuzd Rassam at Nineveh, in the library of [Ashurbanipal](https://www.edgepedia.org/ashurbanipal) (reigned 668-627 BCE, middle chronology).[2](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Epic-of-Gilgamesh) Standard Babylonian Tablet XII, which features dialogue between Enkidu and Gilgameš about what was seen in the Netherworld, derives from the Sumerian *Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld* rather than from the Death poem proper.[11](https://ebl.badw.de/corpus/L/1/4/SB/XII) A De Gruyter monograph survey treats the Death poem as a member of the Sumerian Gilgameš cycle and devotes a section to "Gilgameš's Deeds According to the Death of Gilgamesh".[12](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781614515456.toc/pdf)
## Royal ideology and scribal context
The poem belongs to the literary world of the Ur III dynasty. Shulgi, ruler of Ur in the twenty-first century BC, sponsored a revival of older literature, established academies at Ur and Nippur, and claimed [Lugalbanda](https://www.edgepedia.org/lugalbanda) as his father and Gilgamesh as his brother.[4](https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/gilgamesh) In the poem, although Gilgamesh is mortal, his semi-divine status and heroic life win him a role in the hereafter: he is made a judge of the dead, on equal standing with the underworld deities, named alongside Ninjiczida and [Dumuzid](https://www.edgepedia.org/dumuzid) (ETCSL lines 38-41).[8](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2135/the-death-of-gilgamesh/) Lines 63-81 carry the gods' promise that he will join the Anuna, the assembly of great gods, and meet Enkidu again.[8](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2135/the-death-of-gilgamesh/)
The five stories, originally oral court narratives of the Third Dynasty of Ur, were copied in Old Babylonian scribal schools after Sumerian ceased to be spoken.[4](https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/gilgamesh) The provenance of the witnesses fits this picture: the Nippur tablets come from a city that housed one of Shulgi's academies, and the Meturan copies show the poems' continued circulation in later school contexts.[3](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/469669) • [4](https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/gilgamesh)
## The tomb of Gilgamesh: poem and archaeology
The poem describes an exceptional burial. To dig Gilgamesh's tomb in the bed of the [Euphrates](https://www.edgepedia.org/euphrates) itself, so that it would remain inviolable, the river was drained or diverted, and stone, a rare material in the region, was used to build the mausoleum, with stone walls, doorposts, bolt, and threshold, and golden beams.[13](https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/publications/mesopotamia/2025-04-25.html) Gilgamesh was buried with his wives, children, staff and courtiers, retainer sacrifices described in a 2025 University of Hamburg publication as unique in cuneiform documentation.[13](https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/publications/mesopotamia/2025-04-25.html) [Archaeology](https://www.edgepedia.org/archaeology) provides one earlier parallel, dating from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC: the royal tombs of Ur, sixteen royal tombs within a necropolis of over 2,100 burials.[13](https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/publications/mesopotamia/2025-04-25.html)
In 2003 German archaeologists excavating and conducting magnetic surveys at Uruk believed they had found the tomb in an ancient Euphrates bed outside the city, at the location the poem describes; the same publication judges that searching for Gilgamesh's tomb is like searching for the remains of [Noah's Ark](https://www.edgepedia.org/noahs-ark), that is, it belongs to the realm of literature.[13](https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/publications/mesopotamia/2025-04-25.html)
## By the numbers
Twelve manuscript witnesses preserve the poem, from two findspots, Nippur and Me-Turan/Tell Haddad, with one of uncertain provenance.[3](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/469669) All surviving copies date to the Old Babylonian period, ca. 1900-1600 BC.[3](https://cdli.earth/artifacts/469669) The edition history spans from Kramer's 1944 editio princeps to Cavigneaux and Al-Rawi's 2000 volume and the ETCSL translation of October 2000.[5](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/1355151) • [1](https://brill.com/display/title/7385) • [7](https://www.bu.edu/asor/pubs/jcs/53/veldhuis.pdf) The archaeological parallel for the poem's retainer sacrifices, the Ur royal cemetery, comprises 16 royal tombs in a necropolis of over 2,100 burials of the mid-3rd millennium BC.[13](https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/publications/mesopotamia/2025-04-25.html)
## References
1. Antoine Cavigneaux and Farouk Al-Rawi, *Gilgameš et la Mort*, Textes de Tell Haddad VI, Brill, 2000. https://brill.com/display/title/7385
2. "Epic of Gilgamesh", Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Epic-of-Gilgamesh
3. CDLI Literary 000363 (Death of Gilgamesh: Nippur Version) composite (P469669), Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. https://cdli.earth/artifacts/469669
4. "Gilgamesh", The Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/gilgamesh
5. S. N. Kramer, "The Death of Gilgamesh", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.2307/1355151
6. "The death of Gilgameš: composite text", ETCSL 1.8.1.3, Oxford. https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/c1813.htm
7. Niek Veldhuis, "The Solution of the Dream: A New Interpretation of Bilgames' Death", Journal of Cuneiform Studies 53. https://www.bu.edu/asor/pubs/jcs/53/veldhuis.pdf
8. Joshua J. Mark, "The Death of Gilgamesh", World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2135/the-death-of-gilgamesh/
9. CDLI Literary 000363, ex. 003 (P256692), Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. https://cdli.earth/artifacts/256692
10. A. Cavigneaux and F. Al-Rawi, "La fin de Gilgameš, Enkidu et les Enfers d'après les manuscrits d'Ur et de Meturan", Iraq 62 (2000). https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/iraq/article/abs/la-fin-de-gilgames-enkidu-et-les-enfers-dapres-les-manuscrits-dur-et-de-meturan-textes-de-tell-haddad-viii/357A97BF65D104B12B72AE6D6081C23F
11. "Poem of Gilgameš, Standard Babylonian Tablet XII", electronic Babylonian Library. https://ebl.badw.de/corpus/L/1/4/SB/XII
12. *Gilgameš, Enkidu and the Netherworld*, survey contents, De Gruyter. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781614515456.toc/pdf
13. "The funeral of Gilgamesh, the deified hero", Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, University of Hamburg, 2025. https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/publications/mesopotamia/2025-04-25.html
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › History and archaeology › Periods and civilizations › Ancient Near East, Egypt, Nubia, and the Punic world › Ancient Mesopotamia › Akkadian Empire, Gutians, Lagash II, and Ur III › Akkadian Empire, Gutians, Lagash II, and Ur III: texts, inscriptions, and institutions*
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