Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven

Anonymous / tradition · c. 18th century BC (Old Babylonian copies of an older Sumerian composition; the poem is fragmentary) · Nippur (Iraq) · epic

In this fragmentary Sumerian poem, Inanna's request for a monstrous bull to punish Gilgamesh foreshadows the Bull of Heaven episode later folded directly into the Akkadian epic, where the bull's rampage and death costs Enkidu his life.