Editing Epic of Gilgamesh (section)

===== Tablet nine =====
[[File:Baylonianmaps.JPG|thumb|300px|Babylon's world map. The more vertical lines indicate the [[Euphrates]], and the triangles mountains at the world's edge, including the [[Mount Ararat|Ararat]], on which Utnapishtim ''Noah'' stranded. The small circles show city-states such as Uruk, and the belt the goddess salt sea serpent [[Tiamat]].<ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUxFzh8r384 |title=The Babylonian Map of the World with Irving Finkel {{!}} Curator's Corner S9 Ep5 |date=2024-10-11 |last=The British Museum |access-date=2024-09-01 |via=YouTube}}</ref> She, the [[Abzu]] and the Flood are probably sources of the [[Leviathan]], a human-consuming cosmic sea monster.]] Tablet nine opens with Gilgamesh roaming the wild wearing skins, grieving for Enkidu. Having now become fearful of his own death, he decides to seek [[Utnapishtim]] ("the Faraway"), and learn the secret of eternal life. Utnapishtim and his wife are the only couple of humans artificially created by the gods who were allowed to survive the great flood and even endowed with divine immortality in gratitude for food sacrifices to the gods, so Utnapishtim seems to be identical to the pious priest [[Atra-Hasis]]. 

Gilgamesh crosses a mountain pass at night and encounters a pride of lions. Before sleeping he prays for protection to the moon god [[Sin (mythology)|Sin]]. Then, waking from an encouraging dream, he kills the lions and uses their skins for clothing. After a long and perilous journey, Gilgamesh arrives at the twin peaks of Mount [[Mashu]] at the western end of the earth. He comes across the tunnel of the sun god [[Shamash]], which no man has ever entered, guarded by two [[Scorpion man|scorpion monsters]], who appear to be a married couple. The husband tries to dissuade Gilgamesh from passing, but the wife intervenes, expresses sympathy for Gilgamesh, and (according to the poem's editor Benjamin Foster) allows his passage.{{sfn|Foster|2003}} Entering the tunnel's gate, he follows the path of Shamash in total darkness and actually manages to reach the eastern exit within 12 ‘double hours’, just before he would have been caught up by the sun god, burning him alive. Astonished, he enters the marvellous Garden of the Gods, a paradise in which trees full of delicious jewels grow.