Gilgamesh

“He Saw The Secret, Discovered The Hidden, He Brought Information of The Time Before The Flood.”

Tablet 1

Gilgamesh is the first great epic poem...

In ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilisation, the tale is told of the King of Uruk and his search for the secret of eternal life.

There is clear evidence that a king of Uruk named Gilgamesh lived around 2700-2600 B.C. Excavation of sites in the area bounded by the great rivers Tigris and Euphrates began in 1839 and thousands of tablets were discovered at various locations.

It was not until 1870 that decipherment restored the poems of Gilgamesh to the world, providing links to the Old Testament stories of the Garden of Eden and the Flood.

The most complete version comes from the library of Assurbanipal, King of Assyria, who had the original Sumerian texts translated into Akkadian Semitic in the seventh century B.C. They were written in cuneiform on clay tablets and then baked. Shortly after this, invasion destroyed the Assyrian cities and, for twelve hundred years, the story was lost.

Gilgamesh - A Personal Reminiscence

“A theme was chosen for one of Octave’s events; The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Some of us were asked to prepare and perform a scene from the poem; Gilgamesh’s twelve league journey through the unlit mountains of Mashu following the death of his friend, Enkidu.

We began by visiting the British Museum to see and draw Sumerian and Assyria figures; to sense and feel the spirit of that time and place.

"Having immersed myself in the project for several months I found the denouement intense. My head was covered and I was lead to my position and then knelt to wait. The room was hot and stuffy with the smell of wax from the candles; my face began to sweat; it was hard to breath; my joints began to ache; I felt claustrophobic; but had a determination to keep absolutely still and endure it.

The time came to start. I stood up slowly; the material was removed from my head and the presentation began. I felt quite isolated and very focused on what I had to do. Listening closely to the familiar words spoken by the narrator, and attempting to enact the movements with as much presence as I could, the story unfolded and the walk through the mountain began.

Soft drum-taps marked my steps, stopping as I turned to look back. The light, dim as the journey began, went out and there was only the light of some candles in the room. My steps and posture became heavier. At the end of the eighth league I drew breath and a cry came from deep down in my body. After nine leagues the soft sound of a single fluttering note on the flute heralded the north wind and I was aware through the eye-holes of the mask of the light growing in front of me until I emerged from the mountain.

I felt a huge sense of relief and gratitude at the completion of the presentation."

“In the beginning was the word.”

“Sound is God”

(‘Nada Brahma’ in Sanskrit)

We discovered that ancient and traditional music was a means to transmit knowledge and that for most world nations, music and the divine are closely connected.

With the creation of instruments and the refinement of our own instrument, the voice, humans have been able to express their knowledge of both the universe and their inner world.

We tried something practical by familiarising ourselves with music theory – learning about scales, keys and intervals. As a group, we explored singing together and listening to different types of music with a more connected attention.

“A theme was chosen for one of Octave’s events; The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Some of us were asked to prepare and perform a scene from the poem; Gilgamesh’s twelve league journey through the unlit mountains of Mashu following the death of his friend, Enkidu.

We began by visiting the British Museum to see and draw Sumerian and Assyria figures; to sense and feel the spirit of that time and place.

I felt a huge sense of relief and gratitude at the completion of the presentation."

Poetry

We read and recited poetry, both together as a group and by ourselves, and also experienced different ways in which to read poems.

“There were a lot of interesting moments. I found among the most vivid, was when we read the same poem. Every one of us offered something different and precious when we each read aloud. I tried to connect with the shared feelings experienced in the moment, smiling, laughing and crying.”

Beyond emotion, we recognised something deeper, something indefinable that spoke to us. When we studied poetry as a group, we brought together feeling and understanding. We then felt more able to appreciate the presence of poetry in all that we see and hear around us.

Perhaps we are not that dissimilar to a musical instrument ourselves. In the fine-tuning of our senses - in particular our listening, we can become more attuned to these fundamental laws of sound. Perhaps we could even rekindle our ancestral ability to hear a wider spectrum of frequencies, revealing much more of that which seems hidden.