Entity
Gilgamesh’s Rejuvenating Plant
A reference page linking a name, group, or concept to the materials that discuss it.
A thorny underwater plant in Tablet XI that Gilgamesh intended to test for renewed youth before losing it to a snake; the text does not establish perpetual immortality.
Text
Uta-napishtim tells Gilgamesh of the plant near the end of Tablet XI. The hero takes it from the water and proposes to try it on an old man before eating it himself. A snake then scents and takes it, shedding its skin. The episode concerns lost renewal of youth; it neither explicitly promises perpetual human immortality nor states in the relied-upon lines that the snake ate the plant. [1][4]
References and notes
- Alexander Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (1949), Tablet XI, pp. 91–92 in the University of Chicago copy; these pages were read and visually checked, not the whole book. Alexander Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (1949), Tablet XI, printed pp. 90–93, especially 91–92 Return to the text ↑
- Andrew George, Cambridge excerpt on The Epic of Gilgamesh (2007), PDF pp. 2–4 and 9; excerpt only, not the full book. Andrew R. George, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Cambridge Companion excerpt (2007), PDF pp. 2–4 and 9 Return to the text ↑
Research history
Substantive changes are retained here. Minor copy edits remain in the internal operational log.
-
Substantive record update
Suggest a correction · Suggest a source for this record
Cite this record
IL Archive, «Gilgamesh’s Rejuvenating Plant», Edition 2, https://ilarchive.com/en/entities/gilgamesh-rejuvenating-plant