originally know from the Atra-hasīs poem, was included into what became the Standard
Babylonian version of the Epic.^498
The Tablets
The fragments of tablet XI in the standard Babylonian series examined here are from
Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian sources. There are eight tablets represented by the
fragments, which were excavated from Nineveh, Ashur, Nimrud and Babylonia, and two
further tablets that hold only the incipit of our text.^499 The following list and description
of the tablets relies on the full treatment of the sources in A.R. George’s critical edi-
tion.^500 The sigla used by A.R. George are also employed in the present analysis.
(^) Table - First Millennium Sources for Gilgamesh XI Under Examination
Siglum Museum Number
C K2252+2602+3321+4486+Sm1881
J 1 K3375
J 2 Rm616
T 1 K7752+81-2-4, 245+296+460
T 2 Sm2131+2196+Rm2,383+390+82-5-22, 316
W 1 K8517+8518+8569+8593+8595
W 2 K8594+21502
W 3 K17343
(^498) A.R. George, Gilgamesh, 18. The version of the epic that is referred to as the ‘standard Babylonian Epic
of Gilgamesh’ is thought by George to have been edited in the late second millennium B.C.E. (Gilgamesh,
30). 499
These latter two sources are copies of tablet X that preserve the catch-line of tablet XI. The tablets,
given the sigla K 3 and b in George’s critical edition, are from Kuyunjik and Babylon respectively. K 3 con-
sists of K8589+Sm1681, while b consists of eleven other fragments joined to BM34160. As may be ex-
pected these sources have very little of the text of Gilgamesh tablet XI preserved and so will not feature in
the description of the fragments. However, for comprehensiveness, the variants in the catch-lines of both
tablets will be noted in the list of variants that follows. 500
See Gilgamesh, 411-15.