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Frontispiece

Gilgamesh – ‘He who inspires perfect Awe’

Edward Mirza

2015

Epic Triptych (panel I, left); Gilgamesh Cycle

5,500 x 2,100 x 10 mm

Oil on canvas

Exhibited in Gilgamesh & Orpheus, January 2015, at The Coningsby Gallery, Fitzrovia, London.

This 5.5 metre canvas narrates a conspectus of episodes from The Epic of Gilgamesh, believed to be the world’s oldest surviving work of literature. Gilgamesh is believed to be one of the earliest mythological city builders, hence we have his likeness hanging over our site to remind us of the giants on whose shoulders we stand.

The first written version of the poem dates from twelve Sumerian stone tablets inscribed in Mesopotamia during The Third Dynasty of Ur (circa 2100 BCE). The principal figures are Gilgamesh, King of Uruk (now Iraq) – the archetypal wily warrior hero whose genealogy includes classical mythological figures such as Heracles, Achilles, and Odysseus – and his shadowy wild-man companion Enkidu.

Further references to historical heroes such as Alexander the Great, who is also fabled to have wrestled with lions, and Genghis Khan, anchor the exploits of Gilgamesh in a real-world continuum of founding myths and show the cyclical nature of the questing hero. Gilgamesh is regarded symbolically as a lion, a reference to his later incarnation as Nurgle, Lord of the Underworld (who was sometimes depicted as a black lion), the vanquished Venus in two guises, and a face formed from entrails – a reference to his wisdom, and clairvoyance. The face of Gilgamesh is foetus-like – the embryonic hero.

Our Touchstone

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings.”

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

– Percy Bysshe Shelley.

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