Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, is the protagonist of the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem written Sîn-lēqi-unninni around the 12th century BC, using older sources. The historical Gilgamesh ruled sometime between 2800 and 2500 BC and was posthumously deified. Tales of Gilgamesh's legendary exploits are narrated in five surviving Sumerian poems, retroactively edited together as the Epic, telling of his companionship with the wild hermit Enkidu, his defeat of several giant monsters, and his repeatedly unsuccessful quest for the secret of immortality. Most classical historians agree that the Epic of Gilgamesh exerted substantial influence on Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. After having been lost for most of the Common Era, the Epic of Gilgamesh was rediscovered in the Library of Ashurbanipal in 1849. After being translated in the early 1870s, it caused widespread controversy due to similarities between portions of it and the Hebrew Bible. Nevertheless, Gilgamesh remained mostly obscure until the mid 20th century, but has become an increasingly prominent figure in popular culture since then.