5707), or possibly _rab?_, "great" (Br?nnow
No. 5704). Among various equivalents, the preference is to be given
to _itlu_, "hero." The determinative for deity stamps the person so
designated as deified, or as in part divine, and this is in accord
with the express statement in the Assyrian version of the Gilgamesh
Epic which describes the hero as
"Two-thirds god and one-third human." [44]
Gish is, therefore, the hero-god _par excellence_; and this shows
that we are not dealing with a genuine proper name, but rather with a
descriptive attribute. Proper names are not formed in this way, either
in Sumerian or Akkadian. Now what relation does this form Gish bear to
[FIGURE]
as the name of the hero is invariably written in the Assyrian version,
the form which was at first read dIz-tu-bar or dGish-du-bar by
scholars, until Pinches found in a neo-Babylonian syllabary [45]
the equation of it with Gi-il-ga-mesh? Pinches' discovery pointed
conclusively to the popular pronunciation of the hero's name as
Gilgamesh; and since Aelian (_De natura Animalium_ XII, 2) mentions
a Babylonian personage Gilgamos (though what he tells us of Gilgamos
does not appear in our Epic, but seems to apply to Etana, another
figure of Babylonian mythology), there seemed to be no further reason
to question that the problem had been solved.
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