The Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest surviving work of literature from ancient Mesopotamia, tells the story of Gilgamesh, the demigod king of the city of Uruk, and his quest for immortality. The friendship that Gilgamesh forms with a man named Enkidu is at the center of the epic. Enkidu's death deeply affects Gilgamesh, compelling him to pursue immortality. During this quest for immortality, Gilgamesh experiences various adventures and eventually accepts the mortality of man.
The adventures of Gilgamesh were written in cuneiform on pieces of clay tablets after being passed down through oral culture for centuries. There are many gaps in these tablets found as a result of excavations due to breaks.
An initiative was carried out to eliminate the question marks in this ancient epic through artificial intelligence. With the project called Fragmentarium, academics at the Assyriology Institute of Ludwig Maximilian University are trying to shed light on the hidden aspects of this ancient epic. The developed algorithm not only helps identify missing sections in the epic text, but can also translate all types of ancient Babylonian writing. Thanks to this artificial intelligence, new details about the Epic of Gilgamesh have already been revealed. For example, in the epic, Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu kill the monster Humbaba, the guardian of the forest, and the gods kill Enkidu in return. Thanks to the Fragmentarium, the scenes in which Enkidu tries to persuade Gilgamesh not to kill Humbaba and the journey of Gilgamesh and Enkidu to Nippur, an important religious center, after killing Humbaba were revealed.
For over 150 years, scholars have been working to piece together a complete version of this ancient epic, but around 30% of the epic is still missing. It is a matter of curiosity what artificial intelligence will continue to say about such mysterious aspects of the literary world.
