A legendary king of Sumeria and the hero of famous Sumerian and Babylonian epics.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, a long Babylonian epic written in cuneiform in the Sumerian language on clay tablets. Early versions of the written story date from 2000 B. C.; it is probably the first written story still in existence. A longer version was written in the Akkadian language, on 12 clay tablets found at Nineveh in the ruins of the library of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria from 669 to 633 B. C. The story depicted the life and heroic deeds of the legendary Gilgamesh, apparently derived from stories about a real king of ancient Mesopotamia who lived around 2700 B. C. The story includes a tale of a great flood, which has some parallels to the biblical story of the flood survived by Noah. The Nineveh tablets name the author of that version of the story, a Shin-eqi-unninni.

("Gilga the Hero") A Hercules-like hero goes on many adventures; he ruled Uruk I around 2650 B.C. and was said to have become one of the judges in the netherworld after he died

king of the city of Uruk, he was probably a historical figure, once his name is inscribed in the ancient Sumerian King's List. Gilgamesh is also the hero of the first epic written by humankind, inscribed in clay tablets, the Epic of Gilgamesh, which tells the fascinating story of a legendary king who embarks on a heroic quest to search for immortality.

a legendary Sumerian king who was the hero of an epic collection of mythic stories

Gilgamesh, according to the Sumerian king list, was the fifth king of Uruk (Early Dynastic II, first dynasty of Uruk), the son of Lugalbanda, ruling circa 2650 BC. Legend has it that his mother was Ninsun, a goddess.