[64]
Some of these names, as Galumum, Arpi and Etana, are so Amoritic
in appearance, that one may hazard the conjecture of their western
origin. May Gilgamesh likewise belong to the Amurru [65] region, or
does he represent a foreigner from the East in contrast to Enkidu,
whose name, we have seen, may have been Baal-T?b in the West, with
which region he is according to the Epic so familiar? It must be
confessed that the second element _ga-mesh_ would fit in well with
a Semitic origin for the name, for the element impresses one as
the participial form of a Semitic stem G-M-S, just as in the second
element of Meskin-gaser we have such a form. Gil might then be the
name of a West-Semitic deity. Such conjectures, however, can for the
present not be substantiated, and we must content ourselves with the
conclusion that Gilgamesh as the real name of the hero, or at least
the form which comes closest to the real name, points to a foreign
origin for the hero, and that such forms as dGish-bil-ga-mesh and
dGish-b?l-gi-mesh and other variants are "Sumerianized" forms for which
an artificial etymology was brought forward to convey the idea of the
"original hero" or the hero _par excellence_.
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