He Performs The 'Epic Of Gilgamesh' In Sumerian - The Earliest Great Work Of Literature Known To Man

July 8, 2016

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.

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 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.