Oldest Stories Podcast

In today's episode, we are going to weave a few separate tales of Ishtar together to get a picture of her character and power as  the Goddess of Love and War. Apologies for the poor audio quality, my set up was flawed today, but the story is still audible.

Today we conclude the epic of Gilgamesh, finally we learn the story behind the mysterious hermit Utnapishtim and go on an adventure to seek immortality. I did just last episode say we were going on a once per week schedule, but I wanted to get the epic finished, so bonus episode. Weekly podcasts will start next Wednesday.

This episode is something of a climax for the adventures of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. We will see exactly why Ishtar is the goddess of both love and war when she hits on our hero and finds herself rejected. We will see a great battle with the bull of heaven and then follow a globe spanning adventure (or I guess plane spanning adventure, since they appear to have believed the world was flat) driven by grief and terror. All in all a fantastic romp until we get to meet Utnapishtim at the far edge of the world.

In this episode we cover two shorter tales of Gilgamesh. He defends Uruk from a besieging force in Gilgamesh and Aga and then he helps Ishtar and learns about the afterlife in Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Underworld. Two very different stories, but both interesting.

Today we continue with the Epic of Gilgamesh as he travels across the middle east into the cedar forests of Lebanon to battle the fearsome face of Nature itself, the terrifying lord of the forest, Humbaba. Yes, he has a silly name, but he wields the forces of nature as weapons and guards over the valuable cedar trees of Lebanon. It is an action packed episode of man vs nature as we continue the adventures of Gilgamesh and Enkidu.

Today we begin the Epic of Gilgamesh, available on anchor.fm, spotify, and a growing number of other podcasting services. We begin with the majestic, 9 foot tall superhero's biggest problem, he is getting bored and starting to harass the people of Uruk. The gods know that boys will be boys and what he really needs is a constructive outlet for all this energy, so they create Enkidu. We will also meet the head of the Temple of Ishtar, the prostitute priestess Shamhat, and we get an epic throwdown worthy of any modern action movie.