Location: University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW
Country: Gadigal
LGA: City of Sydney and Inner West Councils
Region: Greater Sydney
Website: https://www.sydney.edu.au/
Map: Below
The University of Sydney‘s statue of Gilgamesh, by Assyrian-Australian sculptor Lewis Batros, takes us back thousands of years to the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk, Mesopotamia, in present-day Iraq, where people first began inscribing stories onto clay tablets using a writing system known as cuneiform.
One of these stories, the Epic of Gilgamesh, tells of a semi-mythical priest-king of Uruk, and his partner Enkidu. Like many ancestral stories, this one encodes knowledge about the movement of the stars and planets which were then understood to be celestial manifestations of Mesopotamian deities. To the people of this time and place, Venus was the personification of the Goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, Queen of Heaven, for example, while the Sun was the God Shamash.
The Epic of Gilgamesh also refers to many other celestial phenomena, including the constellations Taurus (the Bull of Heaven), Scorpius, and Orion, which some cultural astronomers have suggested represents Gilgamesh himself. Babylonian star catalogues from the Late Bronze Age, however, state that the Orion constellation personifies a mythic character knowns as The Loyal Shepherd of Heaven, or the True Shepherd of the Sky God Anu.
More on Mesopotamian astronomy here >>
While Australians of Southwest Asian descent proudly claim Gilgamesh and Enkidu as part of their inherited cultural heritage, the epic and other ancient Mesopotamian stories have now become part of our broader Australian and, indeed, part of global culture. These stories continue to be told in new ways, as the radical 2024 re-interpretation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, by composer Jack Symonds and librettist Louis Garrick, demonstrates.
More on Gilgamesh in popular culture here >>
See Guide to the classics: the Epic of Gilgamesh, by Louise Pryke, in The Conversation, May 8, 2017 >>
More on Mesopotamian astronomy >>
More on Ancient Mesopotamian mythology >>
Captions
Feature photo: Gilgamesh sculpture by Australian-Assyrian artist Lewis Batros presented to the University by the Gilgamesh Cultural Centre on behalf of the city’s Assyrian community.
Gallery images: Gilgamesh sculpture from different angles.
All photos by Merrill Findlay, 3 October, 2024.
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You’ll find the Gilgamesh sculpture across the sports fields from the Physics Building.
Post published 2 February 2025. Last updated 24 April, 2025.
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