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Gilgamesh travels through darkness beneath Mount Mashu, whose peak reaches heaven and whose base extends to the netherworld. 1 Enoch echoes this tradition, describing a similar journey to a place of darkness and a mountain whose summit reaches to heaven.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Epic of Gilgamesh IX 40
Ancient Near East, Babylonian
37 The name of the mountain was Māšu. 38 To Māšu’s twin mountains he came, 39 which daily guard the rising [of the sun,] – 40 their tops [abut] the fabric of the heavens, 41 their bases reach down to Hades – 42 there were scorpion-men guarding its gate, 43 whose terror was dread and glance was death, 44 whose radiance was terrifying, enveloping the uplands – 45 at both sunrise and sunset they guard the sun –
Date: 2100 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
1 Enoch 17:2
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 And they brought me to a place where those present were like flaming fire, and when they wished, they appeared as men. 2 And they led me to a place of darkness, and to a mountain whose peak reached to heaven. 3 And I saw the places of the sun and moon and the treasuries of the stars and of the thunder in the utmost depths, where there was a fiery bow and arrows and their quiver, and a fiery sword and all the lightnings. 4 And they took me to the living waters, and to the fire of the west, which receives every setting of the sun.
Date: 300 BCE – 100 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“… In order to reach Utnapishtim, Gilgamesh travels first to Mount Mašu (Epic of Gilgamesh 9). We learn that Mount Mašu guards the rising and setting of the sun; the mountain is of considerable height and depth, its flank extending to the netherworld below and being the point at which the sun passes from east to west. The scorpion beings evoke terror, perhaps to frighten mortals who attempt to cross the dark mountains in search of the mouth of the rivers. Gilgamesh then travels through twelve leagues of darkness along the ‘path of the sun.’ He emerges from that leg of the journey at the place where the sun rises. There he finds trees with precious stones that serve as fruit and foliage (Epic of Gilgamesh 9). The geography in this selection of the Epic of Gilgamesh is, like 1 Enoch 17–19, concerned with sites located on the periphery of the earth …”
Kelley Coblentz Bautch, A Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch 17–19: "No One Has Seen What I Have Seen", JSJSup 81 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 232–234.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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