Anonymous (ancient Sumerian/Akkadian)
1 book analyzed
Biography
The Epic of Gilgamesh has no single author in the modern sense. It evolved over approximately a millennium. Sumerian poems about the historical King Gilgamesh of Uruk (who likely ruled around 2700 BCE) circulated independently from at least 2100 BCE. An Old Babylonian version consolidated several of these into a connected narrative around 1800 BCE. The Standard Babylonian version — the one most widely read today — is attributed to the scribe-exorcist Sin-leqi-unninni, who compiled and shaped it around 1200 BCE. Sin-leqi-unninni did not invent the stories; he gave them architecture, transforming scattered heroic tales into a unified meditation on mortality. He is the world's first known literary editor, and arguably its first literary artist.