Furthermore, our investigation has shown that to Enkidu belongs the
episode with the woman, used to illustrate the evolution of primitive
man to the ways and conditions of civilized life, the conquest of
Huwawa in the land of Amurru, the killing of lions and also of the
bull, while Gilgamesh is the hero who conquers Erech. Identified with
the sun-god, the nature myth of the union of the sun with the earth and
the subsequent separation of the two is also transferred to him. The
wanderings of the hero, smitten with disease, are a continuation of
the nature myth, symbolizing the waning vigor of the sun with the
approach of the wintry season.
The details of the process which led to making Gilgamesh the favorite
figure, to whom the traits and exploits of Enkidu and of the sun-god
are transferred, escape us, but of the fact that Enkidu is the _older_
figure, of whom certain adventures were set forth in a tale that
once had an independent existence, there can now be little doubt in
the face of the evidence furnished by the two tablets of the old
Babylonian version; just as the study of these tablets shows that
in the combination of the tales of Enkidu and Gilgamesh, the former
is the prototype of which Gilgamesh is the copy.
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