The Epic Of Gilgamesh In Sumerian

The EPIC OF GILGAMESH is the earliest great work of literature that we know of, and was first written down by the Sumerians around 2100 B.C.

Ancient Sumer was the land that lay between the two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, in Mesopotamia. The language that the Sumerians spoke was unrelated to the Semitic languages of their neighbors the Akkadians and Babylonians, and it was written in a syllabary (a kind of alphabet) called "cuneiform". By 2000 B.C., the language of Sumer had almost completely died out and was used only by scholars (like Latin is today). No one knows how it was pronounced because it has not been heard in 4000 years.

What you hear in this video are a few of the opening lines of part of the epic poem, accompanied only by a long-neck, three-string, Sumerian lute known as a "gish-gu-di". The instrument is tuned to G - G - D, and although it is similar to other long neck lutes still in use today (the tar, the setar, the saz, etc.) the modern instruments are low tension and strung with fine steel wire. The ancient long neck lutes (such as the Egyptian "nefer") were strung with gut and behaved slightly differently. The short-neck lute known as the "oud" is strung with gut/nylon, and its sound has much in common with the ancient long-neck lute although the oud is not a fretted instrument and its strings are much shorter (about 25 inches or 63 cm) as compared to 32 inches (82 cm) on a long-neck instrument.

For anyone interested in these lutes, I highly recommend THE ARCHAEOMUSICOLOGY OF THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST by Professor Richard Dumbrill.

The location for this performance is the courtyard of Nebuchadnezzar's palace in Babylon. The piece is four minutes long and is intended only as a taste of what the music of ancient Sumer might have sounded like.

[unaltro]

-I listen to old songs
-Oh do you like 80's too?
-Actually..

[ErnestsLacis]

That guy at the party who brought his own gishgudi: "Anyway here's The Epic of Gilgamesh in Sumerian"

[McHrozni]

The moment you realize the oldest story ever told opens up with "In those ancient days ...".

[arturcordeiro]

"In those distant days"

That verse that makes you remember that 90% of the entire human history has no surviving records, thus being lost forever.

[polyglotboi]

Hope Gilgamesh does not copyright strike this

[kubikator]

Kids nowadays can't appreciate how available music is. Back in my day you would walk for a month to the city of Uruk, lay siege for 2 years and if you're lucky and break in, find and enslave a musician. Only then can you listen non stop to all the latest hits. Those were the days...

[jacopoabbruscato]

So people in 2100 B.C. already talked about the good old days. Some things in humanity never change

[galens]

Got some Sumerian humor for you
A dog walks into a bar
He says ‘I can’t see anything. I’ll open this one’

[eugeniakatsafadou]

I love how the epic is 4000 years old and still begins with "In those distant days"

[jeffreymodesitt]

When the oldest written work known to man talks about the ancient times

[einkilian]

The sumarians were ancient to the romans who are ancient to us and still this song is about ancient times for the sumarians. Just awesome...

[simonhardin]

This song reminded me of the time I wanted to buy some copper. I sent my servant over to the baazar to find a merchant who sold copper at a reasonable price. He found one but when he came back, the quality was terrible. I was so furious I screamed "What in Kur is this shit?!?!?!?!" at the top of my lungs. I wrote a complaint to him but from what I heard, the merchant kept it like a trophy. So I would like to end this review by saying: don't ever buy copper from Ea Nasir.

[SleepBomber]

Man when he said "𒀆 𒀋𒀙𒃰 𒄐𒄑" I felt that.

[ivandelarosa]

Civilization now: "shit, ancient times were dope"
Sumerians: "shit, ancient times were dope"

[binguschad]

Thousands of years and it's still not on Spotify

[TheCrewExpendable]

The Indus Valley Civilization has been very quiet since this dropped...

[boywithangerproblems]

The oldest song in history talks about an even older time, amazing.

[themaplebean]

It's fitting how Gilgamesh tried so hard, yet failed to achieve immortality, but now lives on even 6000 years later through a writing by an author who himself is forgotten. Art really does transcend time

[Belleplainer]

I used to listen to this when I was in high school. I'm 4000 years old now and it still rocks.

[lunarlightasmr]

3:00 warms my heart even the Sumerians, at the dawn of human civilization, knew when to shred an absolute mad lad riff with vocals