MDaines Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanos,
>
> A note of caution when freely quoting the
> Gilgamesh stories as just about everybody does.
> This time not my words.
>
> “W. Von Soden regrets that we depend on the
> documents of the “Renaissance of Sumerian
> culture” (around 2100 B.C.), instead of having
> the real, old material at our disposal. The mere
> fact that Sumerian was the language of the
> educated Babylonian and Assyrian, the existence of
> the many Sumerian-Akkadian “dictionaries” and
> the numerous translations of the Gilgamesh epic
> betrays the activity of several academies
> responsible for the officially recognized text
> editions. One can almost see the scholars puzzling
> and frowning over the texts.” P. 120,
> Hamlet’s Mill by Giorgio de Santillano and
> Hertha Von Dechend, David R. Godine, Publisher,
>
> At the same time, it's reasonable to suppose that
> the references to cedar trees are valid, and
> that's your main point.

Whether or not these early 3rd-2nd millenium BC copies of earlier Sumerian originals are faithful is completely irrelevant to the point. All that matters is that this is what the people thought at the time these were written which we can use as historians to help date these structures.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11-Apr-18 23:08 by Thanos5150.