54 Books Like Gilgamesh

The most compelling original source material for the Norse myths is a collection of anonymous poems known as the Poetic Edda. Based on a 13th-century Icelandic transcription of ancient oral legends, the Poetic Edda includes the creation myths of the Ash Tree and the Frost Giants, the adventures of Thor and Loki, and many other lesser-known Norse tales. Jackson Crawford’s translation manages the difficult task of making the stories understandable while capturing the rhythm and beauty of the original poems.

The Oxford Companion is an encyclopedia, not a narrative, but I love that it includes stories from the Bible, the Quran, and other sacred texts alongside fantastical legends that span the globe. The line between myth and religion is, after all, largely subjective. King David, the nymph Daphne, and the Dayak myths of Borneo all share the same page. For those of us seeking inspiration in myth, the Oxford Companion offers ideas from Abraham to Ziusudra.

Living high in the world’s Arctic regions, Inuit civilization remained largely free of European influences until the twentieth century, allowing its traditions to remain relatively intact into the modern era. Like the Norse, Inuit are a people of wolves and sea monsters and giants. But while the Norse focus mainly on male gods and supernatural warriors, Inuit legends are full of female deities and resourceful humans, making for an arguably more relatable and compelling mythology. Neil Christopher’s immensely readable compendium of Inuit myths is a great introduction to this vibrant tradition.

For many fans of Greek myths, Egypt is the next logical stop on a journey to a broader understanding of world mythology. As a culture which influenced both the Hellenistic and Judeo-Christian world, Egypt’s stories inform our understanding of other Western traditions. And the mania for mummies and pyramids means outstanding examples of Egyptian artifacts await in museums across the world, helping make the ancient tales come alive. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt makes for a fantastic introduction into the world of Ra, Isis, and Osiris.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the great masterpieces of world literature, and the oldest, with its origins lost in the mists of time.

It contains a dramatic account of the Great Flood, upon which the much later Noah’s Ark tale was based. The Epic was current for some 3,000 years and entered the literature of many ancient cultures including those of Sumer, where it originated, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Hittite.

The Epic has been reconstructed from many thousands of clay tablets unearthed from Middle Eastern archaeological sites. The cultures through which it passed moulded their own flesh upon its venerable bones and this I have also done. 

This book is simply the first written story ever found—and it’s about friendship! It was pressed into clay in the city of Nineveh around four thousand years ago and was re-found in the nineteenth century. It tells the story of a friendship between two men, Gilgamesh, the lord of his city, and Enkidu, ‘a wild man’ from the forests. The story recounts their adventures, then Enkidu’s death, and Gilgamesh’s grief at losing his friend. I find it extraordinary that so many thousands of years ago, human beings were concerned with the nature and power of friendship—it shows that the bonds of friendship are fundamental to human beings. 

This book, like the others, is an essential reference for anyone researching the subject.

It covers in detail geography, rivers and irrigation, archaeology and building, government and society, religion and myth, language and writing, architecture, and the arts, economy and trade, food and agriculture, arms and warfare, everyday life, customs and society in general.

Getting down to finer details is the strength of this book. A great asset it has to be for the finer points in developing a novel.

Why not start with the oldest surviving long-form narrative there is. While purporting to account for the late reign of the very real King of the very real Sumerian city-state Uruk, the epic of Gilgamesh—very like the epics that the Greeks would offer some 4 to 14 hundred years later—trots out a world replete with the goddesses, monsters, magical drums, forests, and sacred undersea plants. The flavor of this world is first and most memorably signaled by the deliberate creation of a rival for its protagonist. Sculpted from river clay, then sexually domesticated by a temple maiden, the wild man Enkidu fights his way into a lifelong bromance with Gilgamesh that eventually confronts each with his own mortality. Again, for being the oldest such tale we know of, and for having to be chiseled on tablets, the whole thing holds up as a very living document, wildly entertaining, psychologically… show more.

This large and sumptuous volume, published in 1962, is the oldest of my references for ancient history.

Although over sixty years old its text, compiled by numerous specialists in their day, is still largely authoritative.

Where it excels, however, is in a cover to cover wealth of detailed pictures showing people, activities, situations, and places from ancient times in numerous parts of the world.

I have found this book an invaluable source, particularly regarding fashion and dress, for the book featured here as well as for Mycenaean period novels I’ve also published.     

This most revealing book explains how, over 7,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, an area corresponding roughly with that of modern Iraq, urban living began.

The region where this remarkable phenomenon first occurred is known as Sumer. Where its people originated remains something of a mystery and the still imperfectly understood Sumerian language appears unrelated to any other known tongue, ancient or modern.