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60 free Epic of Gilgamesh trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Epic of Gilgamesh trivia takes you back to the oldest surviving story on Earth: a tyrant king of Uruk, two-thirds god, tamed by friendship with a wild man, and then broken by that friend's death into a hopeless hunt for immortality. Along the way there is a cedar forest with a monstrous guardian, a spurned goddess who unleashes a bull from heaven, a tavern-keeper at the edge of the world with excellent advice, a ferryman with magic stones, a flood survivor who has already tried everything, and a snake that steals the one plant that might have worked. This quiz covers the story tablet by tablet, plus how we have it at all: the fragments from Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh, George Smith's 1872 sensation, the hero first called 'Izdubar', the Old Babylonian and Standard Babylonian versions and their opening lines, the five Sumerian poems, the Dream Tablet that Hobby Lobby had to give back to Iraq, the parallels with Genesis and Ecclesiastes, and echoes as far afield as the Alexander Romance and Princess Mononoke. Easy questions suit anyone who has read a summary; the expert tier assumes you know how many punting poles the ferryman demanded. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's article on the epic, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
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Q 01The Epic of Gilgamesh comes from which ancient region?
Mesopotamia
It is generally called the world's oldest surviving work of narrative literature.
Q 02Gilgamesh was king of which city?
Uruk
At the end of the epic the sight of the city's massive walls consoles him for his failure to find eternal life.
Q 03According to the epic, what fraction of Gilgamesh was divine?
Two-thirds
His mother was a goddess who helps interpret his dreams.
Q 04How many tablets make up the Standard Babylonian version of the epic?
12
The final one is a later appendix in which Enkidu is somehow alive again; roughly a third of the whole is still missing.
Q 05Which scribe-scholar compiled the Standard Babylonian version around 1300-1000 BCE?
Sîn-lēqi-unninni
He is thought to have pushed the theme of mortality to the fore, turning the hero from adventurer into wise man.
Q 06What is the opening phrase, or incipit, of the Standard Babylonian version?
'He who saw the deep'
The 'deep' refers to the wisdom the hero brought back from his meeting with the flood survivor.
Q 07The oldest combined Gilgamesh epic, from the 18th century BCE, is titled after its first words. What are they?
'Surpassing all other kings'
Only a few tablets of this Old Babylonian version survive.
Q 08In which language were the earliest poems about Gilgamesh written?
Sumerian
There are five of them, some perhaps from the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2100 BCE.
Q 09In the older poems that predate the Akkadian epic, what is Enkidu's relationship to Gilgamesh?
His servant
The Akkadian epic turned him into an equal and friend created by the gods.
Q 10The best copies of the epic were found in the ruined library of which 7th-century BCE Assyrian king?
Ashurbanipal
About 15,000 tablet fragments came out of the library in the early 1850s.
Q 11In which ancient city was the great royal library containing the epic excavated?
Nineveh
Austen Henry Layard, Hormuzd Rassam and W. K. Loftus did the digging.
Q 12Which British Museum scholar read translated fragments of the epic to a learned society in 1872?
George Smith
His 1876 book was called The Chaldaean Account of Genesis, and the flood parallels caused a sensation.
Q 13By what name was the hero first reintroduced before scholars could read the signs in his name?
Izdubar
Alfred Jeremias even titled his translation 'Izdubar-Nimrod' to stress a link with Genesis.
Q 21What is the name of the monstrous guardian of the forest whom the heroes kill?
Humbaba
He begs for his life and offers to be Gilgamesh's slave, but Enkidu insists he must die.
Q 22How many winds does the sun god send to bind the forest guardian?
13
The mountains quake and the sky turns black during the fight; the guardian's seven sons are killed too.
Q 23Which sun god protects the heroes and later argues against Enkidu's death sentence?
Shamash
Enkidu even blames the god's protégée for taking him from the wild, before recanting his curse.
Q 24Enkidu plans to turn a gigantic felled cedar into a door for the temple of which god?
Q 14The gods created Enkidu to stop Gilgamesh doing what to the people of his city?
Oppressing them
For the brides that meant being raped on their wedding night; the young men were probably worn out with games or forced labour.
Q 15Which temple prostitute is sent to tame Enkidu through six days and seven nights of sex?
Shamhat
Afterwards his animal herd flees from him; she consoles him that he now has knowledge like the gods.
Q 16Who first spots the wild Enkidu, because he keeps destroying their traps?
A trapper
The trapper tells the sun god, and the taming plan is arranged.
Q 17At the shepherds' camp Enkidu is civilised: his hair is cut and he learns to eat bread and drink what?
Beer
He is made night watchman, and only sets off for the city when he hears about the king's treatment of brides.
Q 18Where does Enkidu block Gilgamesh's path, starting the fight that makes them friends?
At a wedding chamber
After a fierce battle Enkidu acknowledges the king's superior strength.
Q 19Which goddess, Gilgamesh's mother, adopts Enkidu as her son before the heroes leave?
Ninsun
She also asks the sun god to protect them on the journey.
Q 20To which distant place do Gilgamesh and Enkidu journey to win fame?
The Cedar Forest
It takes them six days, with a dream ritual on a mountain every few nights.
Enlil
On his deathbed he curses that very door.
Q 25Which goddess proposes to Gilgamesh and, when spurned, demands a monster to punish him?
Ishtar
He turns her down by listing what happened to her earlier lovers, such as Dumuzi.
Q 26What creature does the spurned goddess bring down on the city to avenge herself?
The Bull of Heaven
Its bellowing opens pits that swallow 300 men and it drinks the Euphrates down.
Q 27What did the goddess threaten to do if her father Anu refused her the beast?
Raise the dead to devour the living
Anu gives in, warning it will mean seven years of famine, so she stockpiles seven years of provisions.
Q 28What does Enkidu hurl at the goddess after the beast is killed?
One of its hindquarters
The heart goes to the sun god instead; the insult helps seal Enkidu's fate.
Q 29How do the gods choose to punish the heroes for the two killings?
Enkidu is given a fatal illness
He sickens for twelve days and dies lamenting that he could not fall in battle.
Q 30In a famous line, what finally makes Gilgamesh accept that Enkidu is really dead?
A maggot drops from the corpse's nose
He then tears at his hair and clothes and orders a funerary statue and grave gifts.