Gilgamesh — The First Hero

He was two-thirds god and one-third human. He ruled the city of Uruk with such arrogant strength that the gods created Enkidu — a wild man from the steppe — to be his equal and distract him. They became the closest of friends. When Enkidu died, Gilgamesh could not accept it. He crossed the waters of death to find Utnapishtim — the only mortal ever granted immortality — and ask the secret. Utnapishtim told him there is no permanent life, only the life well-lived. Gilgamesh went home and had the story carved on stone. We found those stones in 1853. The Epic of Gilgamesh, written 4,000 years ago, is still the most emotionally powerful story about grief and the refusal to accept mortality ever told.

These signs carry the cedar forest, the battle with Humbaba, the scorpion men at the edge of the world, and the king who went further than any human dared.