The Epic of Gilgamesh Web Companion
The Journey
This is an instrumental song, so you will not find one of those nifty mock clay tablets here.
The Recording process:
Anthony Garone Jr. - classical guitar
Daniel Shin - keyboards
Recorded, engineered and mixed at Cow Pilot Studios, Arizona by Tony Garone
I asked Anthony if he would write an instrumental for "The Journey". With his new passion for classical guitar - and the fact that you cannot play electric guitar at the ASU dorm, he composed this beautiful piece and had his friend Daniel Shin add keyboards.
Anthony Garone Jr. playing steel string guitar - he left his classical at the dorm
What is this song about?
The Journey could have been an entire album. There was so much that happened to Gilgamesh after the death of Enkidu that it would have been impossible to include it in one song. After finally accepting the fact that he was mortal, Gilgamesh decided to seek out the hero of the Sumerian flood, Ziasudra/Utnapishtim. He was the only mortal to become a god (to get more info on this go to Utnapishtim and the Great Flood) and Gilgamesh was determined to find out how this was done so he too could become a god and not suffer the fate of mortals.
He first encountered the Scorpion people, whose continence was so terrifying one could not gaze upon them. They guarded the entrance to Mt. Mashu, where the sun god Utu/Shamash rose in the east to bring light to the world.
A famous cylinder seal depicting Utu/Shamash rising from Mt. Mashu (lower center holding a saw in his left hand), standing above him to the left is the winged Inana/Ishtar, to the right is Ea/Enki (the water and fish flows from his shoulders) and to the far right his two faced minister god Usmu.
We don't know how Gilgamesh persuaded the Scorpion people to allow him passage into the bowels of Mt. Mashu (the text is missing) but somehow he did. Gilgamesh traveled through total darkness for many leagues until he arrived in a beautiful garden of gems. After being dazzled by the trees bearing fruit of carnelian and lapis lazuli, he approached a tavern by the sea, where he encountered Siduri.
This seal depicts the wise Shamash on his throne.
The Cuneiform for "The Journey"
Dr. Pagan explains:
The first sign is the Sumerogram for "road," "journey": KASKAL. This equates with Akkadian harr~num. I have included a syllabic spelling of harr~num in the second complex of signs, spelled har-ra-núm.