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Gilgamesh and Enkidu have become friends

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go out of the city to slay the monster Humbaba

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Humbab is inhabiting and protecting a wild forest

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they leave the city to raid the countryside, cut down the forest and slay the monster

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particularly in the ancient Near East, the environment is an extremely pervasive factor

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the city needs the countryside

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the cities are large and dependent on a large number of serf population in the countryside

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dependent on the scarce resources of water and timber

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Gilgamesh is known for two things

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1. building a wall around his city

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2. digging wells and irrigation projects

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the control of these things are important

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cities are made out of baked clay, mud and bricks

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but if you want a palace, you need roof beams and doors

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for this they deforested Western Persia

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so they went to Lebanon

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journies to get lumber were described as some of the great expeditions of life

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you don't need gold in the same way you need lumber

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you can't just steal lumber and come back

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you have to subdue a population and then spend time harvesting the lumber

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lumber is not easily portable

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you have float it down the Euphrates, it takes time

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Ashurbanipal's library

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from where the best version of the Gilgamesh ethic is dug up

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they mainly wanted cedar wood, not fir

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in the Ashurbanipal's library is an account of a builder saying that he wanted in writing that he had to use substandard fir instead of cedar

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when Gilgamesh goes to get cedar, this means that he has imperial ambitions

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this section celebrates the cutting down of a forest and the urban space

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today we see this as not a heroic deed

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the flood story

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people are multiplying to much and getting to noisy, the gods are having trouble sleeping

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in Genesis, people are sinful

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but in Gilgamesh, it is a moral them as such

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Humbaba

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they start to negotiate with him

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he's like a rival chieftan of a small polity that they are controlling

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the question is do you lay waste to these people or do you find a way to live with them so that the tribute becomes a sustainable resource

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they kill Humbaba whom they should rather have as a subsidiary vassal

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leads to the curse that will lead to Enkidu's death

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"if a sheep's intestine looks like Humbaba's face, it signifies revolution"

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Enkidu should be giving better advice to Gilgamesh, by restraining him, by saying don't kill Humbaba

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on the contrary, Enkidu eggs Gilgamesh on