page_title: Enkidu
section_title: "Hero in battle"
hierarchical_section_title: Enkidu / Sumerian poems / "Hero in battle"
caption_attribution_description: English: At the center of the depicted scene is a handled jug on a stand. Flanking this motif on both sides is an animal contest motif with a bearded hero/bull-man in horned headdress battling a bull-man. At the edge of the scene is a cuneiform inscription in two registers at the top, and beneath it is a small four legged animal with a long tail that curls upward.
context_page_description: Enkidu, was a legendary figure in ancient Mesopotamian mythology, wartime comrade and friend of king Gilgamesh. Their exploits were composed in Sumerian poems and in the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, written during the 2nd millennium BC. He is the oldest literary representation of the wild man, a recurrent motif in artistic representations in Mesopotamia and in Ancient Near East literature. The apparition of Enkidu as a primitive man seems to be an innovation of the Old Babylonian version, as he was originally a servant-warrior in the Sumerian poems.
  There have been suggestions that he may be the "bull-man" shown in Mesopotamian art, having the head, arms, and body of a man, and the horns, ears, tail and legs of a bull. Thereafter a series of interactions with humans and human ways bring him closer to civilization, culminating in a wrestling match with Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. Enkidu embodies the wild or natural world. Though equal to Gilgamesh in strength and bearing, he acts in some ways as an antithesis to the cultured, city-bred warrior-king.
context_section_description: Inanna is enraged with Gilgamesh, she forbids her from administering justice in her temple, the Eanna, causing unrest in the environment of the King of Uruk. Finally, Inanna demands, with threats, from her father the Bull of Heaven to kill Gilgamesh. The bull is released in Uruk, whose insatiable hunger destroys crops and rivers. Enkidu grabs the bull by his tail and Gilgamesh smashes its head. Finally they distribute the meat among the poor and transform the horns into cups for ointments for the Eanna.
caption: Cylinder seal with Enkidu vanquishing the Bull of Heaven - Walters 42786 - Side G
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