In History Begins at Sumer*, thirty-nine ‘firsts’ in recorded history are attributed to the Sumerian civilization of Mesopotamia- the fertile land between Tigris and Euphrates rivers: law & justice, philosophy & ethics, medicine & agriculture, government and tax, poetry & literature, love & family,...

One of Sumerians’ most important contributions to mankind is the Cuneiform -man’s first writing system of some 800 signs, evolving later into our present day Alphabet. Gilgamesh was discovered in cuneiform inscribed on twelve clay tablets, in various degrees of ruin.  Unfortunately, this resulted in the loss of vital parts of the epic. Still, some 3000 lines were deciphered from pocketsize tablets of original Sumerian version and from later versions of Babylonian and Assyrian eras, now mostly exhibited at the British Museum in London, the Paris Louvre, and also at Yale and Pennsylvania Universities in the USA.

Gilgamesh is a poetic legend in a time of magic, taking place more than two thousand years before Judeo-Christian monotheist Puritanism. The epoch precedes and parallels the era of another advanced civilization: Ancient Egypt.

The Gilgamesh screenplay contains some innocent erotic scenes celebrating the joy of sex and love, which comprises less than 10% of screen time. Gilgamesh’s central premise is love- both platonic love between man and man, and sensual love between man and woman. It is about love and loss.

Gilgamesh mediates on Life, Death and Afterlife: It is man’s first recorded quest for Immortality!

In the end, Gilgamesh is pro love, children and family. 

The London British Museum and the Paris Louvre contain ample objects of the Sumerian civilization.  Illustrations are also available in  superb books and catalogues, to provide filmmakers with exciting concepts for costume, jewelry, armor, furniture, architecture: that is the production design, the look and atmosphere of the film.  Additionally, in the Summer of 2003, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York hosted an exhibition that showcased masterpieces from over 54 museums entitled Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus.  The screenwriter has many books on different aspects of Gilgamesh and other related Mesopotamian Myths, including the richly illustrated catalogue from the Metropolitan exhibit.

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* History Begins at Sumer by Samuel Noah Kramer, Professor of Assyriology University of Pennsylvania Press, 1956.

 * The Gilgamesh Epic And Old Testaments Parallels, by Alexander Heidel, University of Chicago Press, 1946  & 1949. 

 For synopsis click Gilgamesh Synopsis.