Talk:Enkidu

Untitled
As noted in the (hopefully temporary) sub-heading, part of the text under the heading Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh is missing. Probably the author accidentally deleted it before saving his edit, and nobody noticed until now. The original author apparently doesn't have an account, otherwise I'd contact him via his User Talk page, and I'm not sufficiently familiar with the legend to attempt to reconstruct the original text. Someone really needs to fix this to bring the article up to scratch. Lee M 00:32, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Tense
This article is written in the present tense. It should be in the past tense, since it is a tale told by a orator of past events. Writing 'Enkidu is' instead of 'Enkidu was' is the proper way of writing about a story, as well as writing a story. --Desertphile (talk) 00:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * In the story, Enkidu is.
 * In Gone with the Wind, Rhett Butler is…. 72.83.172.180 (talk) 22:17, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Enkidu as original protagonist of Gilgamesh Epic's main events
In the work An old Babylonian version of the Gilgamesh Epic, edited by Morris Jastrow (1920), found in [Project Gutenberg], in chapter VI. (pages 33-40) it is maintained that the epic of Gilgamesh is a re-working of a previous one, that of Enkidu, re-assigning the latter's heroic deeds to the character of Gilgamesh. According to the author, this would have been done to re-use existing folklore to the greater glory of the King, inserting him in old legends and making him partner with deities or renowned heroes.

My knowledge of this legends and its studies is not enough to verify if this view is accepted to any extent. Should this theory/interpretation/opinion be represented in the Enkidu or Gilgamesh articles, as a reference to the genesis of Gilgamesh's epic? Elideb (talk) 05:53, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Astral Interpretation
Ishtar is Venus who follows Shamash the sun. Venus is in Sagittarius the wild goat who becomes a hunter or Archer's arrow and this is opposite or opposing or rebelling against Taurus the bull of heaven on the Saturnalia Dec 17. In doing so Venus gets dragged to Taurus from tail to horns from May 8 to June 4. (Description is 2030 BC; configuration was found by Chinese date 2637 BC Feb 2 used in 360-day calendar and 60-day calendar to match 2157 BC and 2020 BC). The match of 2157 BC Feb 2 is a 480-year cycle (487x 360 days), and is 126-year kingship to 2031 BC. The match of 2020 BC Feb 2 is 137-year subcycle (139x360 days). The years 2030 BC and 2020 BC are 10 years apart as is Genesis which says Peleg and the world started dying 340 years after the Flood, and says Noah died 350 years after the Flood, ten years later. Thus Enkidu may not be a person, but might be saying a star or zodiac constellation was the friend of Gilgamesh at the time death began in the world.

No support
I have deleted several clauses which have no support in the story. We do not know that she was a "temple priestess", she is called also simply a "prostitute". He did not "lose" the match, they jointly decided to stop fighting. That is a draw. The gods did not strike Enkidu ill, he was wounded by the monster, and his wound festered and got worse and killed him.Wjhonson (talk) 06:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

She's called "harimtu", I think it's obvious she's not simply what is denoted by the modern term "prostitute". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.227.159.238 (talk) 21:15, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Cryptid?
Since scholars have suggested that Enkidu may be an early record of a Neanderthal human, should this be included as a cryptozoology article? http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2011/10/gilgamesh-new-interpretation.htmlKortoso (talk) 17:20, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually it can't be done, as he is too little described to say what is the species. Neanderthal? May be so. But may be less known Denisovan. Still, mentioning the possibility the text describes the contact with humans with hominids should be fine, IMHO. - Melilac (talk) 18:36, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
 * What? This is a big anachronism — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.117.136.56 (talk) 14:06, 2 March 2017 (UTC)


 * This idea only seems new to millennials. It's an ancient implication of the text that has been taken seriously by scholars for over a hundred years. All things are new to some.
 * I do not think there is a single real scholar who has actually claimed that Enkidu was a Neanderthal. That sounds like Finding Bigfoot nonsense to me. --Katolophyromai (talk) 10:58, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Wrong photo of Enkidu
The photo shown as Enkidu in this article is in reality Gilgamesh, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh

Enkidu is a very haired and wild person, half animal, see here: http://pjk.scripts.mit.edu/pkj/2014/01/11/the-epic-of-gilgamesh/

Sometimes Enkidu is even represented with horns on his head like a Wiking: http://endorsemebro.com/17/

Michael Palomino - November 18, 2014

--87.78.21.7 (talk) 17:01, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Artistic representations of Gilgamesh and Enkidu sometimes portray them as indistinguishable. (Lambert,Gilgamesh in Literature and Art, p. 47; this reference brought to my attention by Harris, Gender and Aging, p. 39 and p. 194, n. 41.) Breedentials (talk) 17:59, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Discrepancy
There is a discrepancy between the second sentence in the first section, where it says "Enkidu was formed from clay and saliva by Aruru, the goddess of creation, to rid Gilgamesh of his arrogance," and the second sentence in the second section, "The goddess Aruru forms Enkidu from water and clay as rival to Gilgamesh, as a countervailing force." the discrepancy is in bold for ease of viewing.
 * --Aurachanneler (talk) 19:30, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Seduction
It is a prostitute, not a goddess, who seduces Enkidu — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.117.136.56 (talk) 14:08, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Deletion of 'Cultural references" section
Almost all of the entries in the "Cultural references" section are for minor, trivial pop culture references that have no immediate bearing on the subject of the article. Furthermore, the entire section does not contain a single citation and consists entirely of bullet points rather than actual prose. I propose that this section should be deleted because it adds nothing to the article. If no one objects to this proposal within twenty-four hours, I will move ahead and delete the section myself. --Katolophyromai (talk) 04:16, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Deletion of 'Cultural references" section Posthumous
Over time, this page has gone from very interesting to almost useless, like the majority of all the pages on Wikipedia. Whoever deleted the cultural references removed the single most interesting leads for further study. Increasingly Wikipedia no longer qualifies as an online encyclopedia and begins to read like Samizdat from the Soviet Union with ever increasing censorship. Like all pages it has become so bland and ideological nobody will want to read it.

None of these images are actually Enkidu
You recently added a large number of images to this article of ancient Mesopotamian representations of a figure with the horns and legs of a bull, which you have identified as Enkidu. These are not actually representations of Enkidu; we do not actually know who they depict, but the figure is known to contemporary scholars of ancient Mesopotamia as the "bull-man." Some early scholars identified him with Enkidu just because the bull-man seems "wild" and Enkidu is described in the Epic of Gilgamesh as a wild man, but there is no evidence other than that linking the bull-man with Enkidu.

Furthermore, Enkidu is never described in any Mesopotamian texts as having the horns and legs of a bull, which would seem to indicate that he is not the bull-man. Unfortunately, this dubious identification of Enkidu with the bull-man has persisted in many works written by non-specialists and there is no shortage of sources that make this erroneous identification. For further information on the bull-man, see the entry "bull-man" on pages 48 and 49 of the book Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary by Jeremy Black and Anthony Green. —Katolophyromai (talk) 02:54, 25 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi ! Thanks for the info! I didn't know things were so uncertain, as many refs indeed make this indentification with the "bull-man". I was also a bit surprised that Gilgamesh and Enkidu shared the same lead image on Wikipedia, which is a bit confusing and should be avoided... How about having a wording like "possible depiction of Enkidu" in the captions under bull-men, with refs, and explaining somewhere in the article that his appearance is not known for certain? Are there also other images in Mesopotamian art which have been claimed to represent Enkidu? पाटलिपुत्र (talk) 04:32, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Enkimdu
What is the relationship between Enkidu and Enkimdu? Are they variants? Jamplevia (talk) 20:11, 17 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Completely unrelated god. Please actually read the article before adding any comments on either figure to their articles like you did, there are multiple sources given. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 23:28, 17 March 2024 (UTC)