Word: gilgamesh
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DIED. T. GEOFFREY BIBBY, 83, British archaeologist who dug up the 4,000-year-old Middle Eastern kingdom of Dilmun, a secret and supposedly mythical island of everlasting life traversed by the epic hero Gilgamesh; near Aarhus, Denmark. Using little more than clay tablets inscribed with the legend of Sumeria, Bibby figured the mysterious city to be on the island of Bahrain, near Saudia Arabia...
...presidency isn't Gilgamesh, of course, but once upon a time, Americans entertained a subconscious ideal of a president with a Shackleton dimension. We somehow expected a hero and grown-up, even if we almost never got one, and even if a hero - Douglas MacArthur, say - wouldn't always have been such a good idea...
...that that argument was ever anything more than patriarchal propaganda. When the Crusaders entered Jerusalem, for example, they slaughtered every resident--man, woman, child and pet--and waded, triumphantly, in the knee-deep blood. Nor have civilian women ever been entirely safe from their own "protectors." The subjects of Gilgamesh, the first warrior hero of recorded history, complained that "his arrogance has no bounds by day or night...His lust leaves no virgin to her lover...
Ninth- and 10th-graders from the Eagle Academy in Poughkeepsie, New York, used the computer's protean powers of simulation to build a virtual replica of the Gilgamesh myth. Not only are the details of the Sumerian ruler's life re-created, but visitors who log on also get to play at being king for a day, at least in cyberspace...
...this score, the Common Reader is likely to be overwhelmed by The Western Canon. At the end of his book Bloom ticks off more than 3,000 works by some 850 authors, ranging from Gilgamesh (anonymous) to Angels in America (Tony Kushner), that merit an educated person's attention. Good grief. Even if each work could be read in a day -- and most can't -- boning up on the Western Canon as set forth by Bloom would take nearly 10 years uninterrupted by any of ^ the mundane details of life, such as jobs, friends and loved ones, and most meals...