Gilgamesh goes back on stage

After the dramatized reading that Casa Árabe hosted on January 16, the play can now be seen from February 8 through March 3 at scheduled show times at the Teatro Fernán Gómez (Jardiel Poncela room), in a production put on by AIDOS Teatro.

The Poem of Gilgamesh is the most ancient known Mesopotamian literary work, of great importance to the fields of Anthropology and Linguistics. It was one of the most important archeological finds of the nineteenth century, completed by Sir Henry Layard, and later translated by Assyriologist George Smith from the cuneiform written on etched clay tablets, the most ancient to be preserved, now mainly at the British Museum, belonging to the Paleo-Babylonian Sumerian culture. The poem’s authorship is attributed to the Assyrian scribe Sin-leqi-unninni, as a nearly unaltered record of the full poem has been preserved from around the year 1,400 AD.These archeological pieces were recovered at the library of Asurbanipal in Nineveh (Iraq).

Their central theme deals with life and death in a poetic form. The cornerstones of Mesopotamian worship can be found in this tale, which deals with the separation between the human and the divine, the nature of human mortality and servitude to the gods. Historians who are experts on Mesopotamia refer to Gilgamesh as the first tragic hero ever, and the poem contains the earliest verses written by humanity.

Further information and ticket sales