Gilgamesh Decoded

The Epic of Gilgamesh is extraordinary because it was written as history and with great honesty. It is not a hero’s tale. There was no shirking that Gilgamesh killed Humbaba, the Watcher of the forest and all his people, and decimated the great forest system to plunder the timber. This deforestation caused drought, dust storms, climate change, earthquakes, and civilisation's eventual downfall. The story of Gilgamesh was not a hero’s tale but an allegory. We must learn from it! These events brought about the extinction of the Enkidu/Neanderthals, possibly because they could not tolerate drought conditions but perhaps because they had low immunity to viruses. Neanderthals evolved in the northern parts of Europe; their remains were found in Jersey, France and Germany. They adapted to freezing climates and found it difficult to deal with dry heat, dust storms and global warming. They seem to have survived the severe cold of the ice ages exceptionally well. Neanderthal genes have persisted in modern peoples right up to the present day. Part of the Neanderthal genome is missing, but some variants have had a beneficial impact on modern humans who carry their genes. For those carrying Neanderthal genes, there is a decreased risk of miscarriage and bleeding during early pregnancy. Scientists have found that people with the Neanderthal genome with severe COVID-19 symptoms have ended up in hospital or ICU or even died from the disease. This may be the fault of their immune receptors in an overreaction of the immune system to the disease. The coming of the Enkidu and their relationship with Gilgamesh are fundamental to the story. The Goddess Ninsun foretold Enkidu’s creation and the great love that Gilgamesh would have for him. The relationship embodied the sacred marriage between the Masculine and the Feminine, balancing the two archetypes. Enkidu is described in ways that indicate Feminine traits and aspects. The temple harlot trained him to serve and protect – he was loving and loyal. Gilgamesh’s weakness was hubris, ego, and desire for power, and Enkidu’s weakness was his love, loyalty and service. Possibly, the Enkidu were more concrete thinkers - what they saw was what they got. Humbaba was a monster that had to be killed! Gilgamesh, the son of a Holy One, was an abstract thinker; he could perceive spiritual concepts and understand Humbaba. Abstract thinking usually comes in at the age of about fifteen, but it just does not come in at all for some people, making it difficult for them to learn and understand some things. When Gilgamesh finally confronts Humbaba, he is offered everything he wants in exchange for Humbaba’s life. Indeed, Gilgamesh had compassion for Humbaba and knew who and what He was; he wanted to let him live, but Enkidu did not understand this and did not understand or trust what was being offered. He thought it was a trick and that Gilgamesh would lose everything, including his life, in the transaction. He did not realise that once Humbaba was gone, it was a final act of extinction – the glory and the Glamour could not be retrieved. Enkidu was there to protect Gilgamesh. So, it is said that they killed Humbaba, the Guardian of the forest, the ‘Country of the Living’, a tragedy with horrendous consequences. The loss of life, the loss of the glory and Glamour that was Humbaba’s. ------------------------------------ The era and reign of Gilgamesh reflected the creativity of humankind, the building of great cities and beautiful temples, the first agriculture, aquaculture, trade, the construction of canals and irrigation, the use of trees for building and carving, the use of the Tamarisk tree for cooling, as well as of science, mathematics and geometry. It showed the flowering of culture and beauty in one of the first civilisations of the world that we know of. It was the beginning of writing. Most of all, it showed the wisdom and understanding of Gilgamesh's spirituality. His was the pinnacle of one of the first great civilisations. But this came at a tremendous cost. But this story is about much more than that. It is about redemption! Gilgamesh was initially a giant, a despot, and a tyrant, the king of a civilisation that eventually reached its peak. He eventually redeemed himself and humanity, became enlightened, understood the mysteries, and established a new religion. He was a lawgiver, mystic, and judge of the inner realms. ‘Civilisations are cultures that create cities, communities that consume everything around them and then themselves. Indigenous people can never be truly Indigenous until they abandon their city-building culture, a lesson the Elders of Zimbabwe have handed down from the bitter experience. Similar cities of circular stone have also been found in Sardinia, perhaps founded by the Phoenicians or even earlier sea peoples. Civilisations are closed systems that peak and then die because they are not sustainable. A city is a community on the arrow of time, an upward-trending arrow demanding perpetual growth. Growth is the engine of the city – if the increase stops, the city falls.’ ‘First Peoples’ Law says that nothing is created or destroyed because of the infinite and regenerative connections between systems. Therefore, time is non-linear and regenerates creation in endless cycles. Second Peoples’ Law says that systems must be isolated and exist in a vacuum of individual creation, beginning in complexity but simplifying and breaking down until they meet their end. Therefore, time is linear because all things must have a beginning, middle and end. So, we see that inherent in the story of Gilgamesh is also the foretelling of its end, of the future of all closed civilisations because they are not sustainable. Empires fall as Rome did, as Persia, the Ottoman and the British did, and those that presently exist are also doomed to fail.