Gilgamesh
c. 2100 BCE – 100 BCEattested
Uruk, Sumer
- Mesopotamian
A king who probably existed, remembered in the oldest surviving epic as a man who goes looking for immortality and comes back with the knowledge that he will not have it.
Known for
- the flood narrative
- friendship with Enkidu
- the futile quest
Dates are estimates. A great deal of what this atlas covers is only datable to within a century.