252-253) he is described as
"acquainted with the way ... to the entrance of the forest." This
would clearly point to the West as the original home of Enkidu. We
are thus led once more to Amurru--taken as a general designation of
the West--as playing an important role in the Gilgamesh Epic. [42] If
Gilgamesh's expedition against Huwawa of the Lebanon district recalls
a Babylonian campaign against Amurru, Enkidu's coming from his home,
where, as we read repeatedly in the Assyrian version,
"He ate herbs with the gazelles,
Drank out of a trough with cattle," [43]
may rest on a tradition of an Amorite invasion of Babylonia. The
fight between Gilgamesh and Enkidu would fit in with this tradition,
while the subsequent reconciliation would be the form in which the
tradition would represent the enforced union between the invaders
and the older settlers.
Leaving this aside for the present, let us proceed to a consideration
of the relationship of the form dGish, for the chief personage
in the Epic in the old Babylonian version, to dGish-gi(n)-mash in
the Assyrian version. Of the meaning of Gish there is fortunately
no doubt. It is clearly the equivalent to the Akkadian _zikaru_,
"man" (Br?nnow No.
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