There appears, on deeper inspection of the text, to be an overwhelming amount of terms and words relating to land and nature. The constant use of words such as stone, land, mud, earth, and wind seems to emphasize the power and reverence the civilization who wrote Gilgamesh had for nature. This reverence seems to have a negative connotation, however. Just as in the Judeo-Christian tradition, most are taught to fear God, the same is true for the civilization who wrote Gilgamesh, although in a different manner. Many of the deities within the Epic are commanders of some form of nature or another. Hadad, for example, God of the storm, or Shamash the sun god, or even Humbaba, the guardian of the forest, a great terror to human beings. This seems to show that many of …show more content…
This shows how the ancient Sumerian civilizations seemingly viewed nature. Nature was seen as a force to fear and possibly worship in order to keep it at bay. In fact, historians agree that the Sumerians, “viewing nature as unpredictable” typically “brought offerings to their city’s temple complexes or ziggurat, hoping to please the gods who controlled the natural forces of their world”. Those who could dominate nature themselves are seemingly just as worthy of such reverence. Gilgamesh not only builds walls to conquer the wild ravages of floods coming from without but defeats demonic and deified creatures that symbolize and possibly control the natural world. This deification of nature is shown greatly in the words and how they are used. Many of the praises heaped on Gilgamesh are associated with natural imagery, for example, when Gilgamesh is called “the one who saw the wellspring, the foundations of the land”. Much of the feats which make him great are involving words such as mountains, ocean, and sea. Gilgamesh is described as the King who explores the furthest reaches of the