Sex was sacred in the time of Gilgamesh | Letters
We should not project Christian assumptions back into a Mesopotamian culture, writes Simon Dawson. Plus Fiona Collins highlights the difference between an adaptation and a translationIn Philip Terry’s review of...
By Guardian Staff · The Guardian Opinion
We should not project Christian assumptions back into a Mesopotamian culture, writes Simon Dawson. Plus Fiona Collins highlights the difference between an adaptation and a translation In Philip Terry’s review of Simon Armitage’s Gilgamesh (24 October)( An ancient epic is brilliantly translated for our times, 20 October ), we risk reading modern categories back into a very different world. The “sex worker” who brings Enkidu to Uruk has a name, Shamhat. She transforms the wild man into a human companion for Gilgamesh. But in Mesopotamian culture the sexual and erotic could be spiritual acts, leading to transcendence and transformation. Continue reading...