1.
Puss in Boots
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The oldest record of written history dates from Italian author Giovanni Francesco Straparola, who included it in his The Facetious Nights of Straparola in XIV–XV. Another version was published in 1634, by Giambattista Basile with the title Cagliuso, the tale was written in French at the close of the seventeenth century by Charles Perrault, a retired civil servant and member of the Académie française. The book was an instant success and remains popular, Perraults Histoires has had considerable impact on world culture. Puss in Boots has provided inspiration for composers, choreographers, the cat appears in the third act pas de caractère of Tchaikovskys ballet The Sleeping Beauty, for example, and makes appearances in other media, most famously the sequels to the animated film Shrek. Puss in Boots is a pantomime in the UK. The tale opens with the third and youngest son of a miller receiving his inheritance—a cat, at first, the youngest son laments, as the eldest brother gains the mill, and the middle brother gets the mules. The feline is no cat, however, but one who requests. Determined to make his masters fortune, the cat bags a rabbit in the forest and presents it to the king as a gift from his master, the cat continues making gifts of game to the king for several months. One day, the king decides to take a drive with his daughter, the cat persuades his master to remove his clothes and enter the river which their carriage passes. The cat disposes of his masters clothing beneath a rock, as the royal coach nears, the cat begins calling for help in great distress. When the king stops to investigate, the cat tells him that his master the Marquis has been bathing in the river and robbed of his clothing. The king has the man brought from the river, dressed in a splendid suit of clothes, and seated in the coach with his daughter. The cat then happens upon a castle inhabited by an ogre who is capable of transforming himself into a number of creatures, the ogre displays his ability by changing into a lion, frightening the cat, who then tricks the ogre into changing into a mouse. The cat then pounces upon the mouse and devours it, the king arrives at the castle that formerly belonged to the ogre, and, impressed with the bogus Marquis and his estate, gives the lad the princess in marriage. Thereafter, the cat enjoys life as a lord who runs after mice only for his own amusement. The Italian translation by Carlo Collodi notes that the tale gives useful advice if you happen to be a cat or a Marquis of Carabas and this is the theme in France, but other versions of this theme exist in Asia, Africa, and South America. Perraults The Master Cat, or Puss in Boots is the most renowned tale in all of Western folklore of the animal as helper, however, the trickster cat was not Perraults invention. In the Panchatantra, a collection of Hindu tales from the fifth century A. D. a tale follows a cat who fares much less well than Perraults Puss as he attempts to make his fortune in a kings palace
2.
Human
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Modern humans are the only extant members of Hominina tribe, a branch of the tribe Hominini belonging to the family of great apes. Several of these hominins used fire, occupied much of Eurasia and they began to exhibit evidence of behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago. In several waves of migration, anatomically modern humans ventured out of Africa, the spread of humans and their large and increasing population has had a profound impact on large areas of the environment and millions of native species worldwide. Humans are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression and the exchange of ideas. Humans create complex structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals. These human societies subsequently expanded in size, establishing various forms of government, religion, today the global human population is estimated by the United Nations to be near 7.5 billion. In common usage, the word generally refers to the only extant species of the genus Homo—anatomically and behaviorally modern Homo sapiens. In scientific terms, the meanings of hominid and hominin have changed during the recent decades with advances in the discovery, there is also a distinction between anatomically modern humans and Archaic Homo sapiens, the earliest fossil members of the species. The English adjective human is a Middle English loanword from Old French humain, ultimately from Latin hūmānus, the words use as a noun dates to the 16th century. The native English term man can refer to the species generally, the species binomial Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th century work Systema Naturae. The generic name Homo is a learned 18th century derivation from Latin homō man, the species-name sapiens means wise or sapient. Note that the Latin word homo refers to humans of either gender, the genus Homo evolved and diverged from other hominins in Africa, after the human clade split from the chimpanzee lineage of the hominids branch of the primates. The closest living relatives of humans are chimpanzees and gorillas, with the sequencing of both the human and chimpanzee genome, current estimates of similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA sequences range between 95% and 99%. The gibbons and orangutans were the first groups to split from the leading to the humans. The splitting date between human and chimpanzee lineages is placed around 4–8 million years ago during the late Miocene epoch, during this split, chromosome 2 was formed from two other chromosomes, leaving humans with only 23 pairs of chromosomes, compared to 24 for the other apes. There is little evidence for the divergence of the gorilla, chimpanzee. Each of these species has been argued to be an ancestor of later hominins
3.
Mythology
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Mythology refers variously to the collected myths of a group of people or to the study of such myths. Myths are the people tell to explain nature, history. Myth is a feature of every culture, mythologizing continues, as shown in contemporary mythopoeia such as urban legends and the expansive fictional mythoi created by fantasy novels and comics. A cultures collective mythology helps convey belonging, shared and religious experiences, behavioral models, the study of myth began in ancient history. Rival classes of the Greek myths by Euhemerus, Plato and Sallustius were developed by the Neoplatonists, the nineteenth-century comparative mythology reinterpreted myth as a primitive and failed counterpart of science, a disease of language, or a misinterpretation of magical ritual. Recent approaches often view myths as manifestations of psychological, cultural, or societal truths, the term mythology predates the word myth by centuries. It first appeared in the fifteenth-century, borrowed from the Middle French term mythologie, the word mythology, comes from Middle French mythologie, from Late Latin mythologia, from Greek μυθολογία mythología from μῦθος mythos and -λογία -logia. The word mythología appears in Plato, but was used as a term for fiction or story-telling of any kind, combining mỹthos. From Lydgate until the seventeenth or eighteenth-century, mythology was similarly used to mean a moral, fable, from its earliest use in reference to a collection of traditional stories or beliefs, mythology implied the falsehood of the stories being described. It came to be applied by analogy with similar bodies of traditional stories among other cultures around the world. The Greek loanword mythos and Latinate mythus both appeared in English before the first example of myth in 1830, in present use, mythology usually refers to the collected myths of a group of people, but may also mean the study of such myths. For example, Greek mythology, Roman mythology and Hittite mythology all describe the body of myths retold among those cultures, dundes defined myth as a sacred narrative that explains how the world and humanity evolved into their present form. Lincoln defined myth as ideology in narrative form, scholars in other fields use the term myth in varied ways. In a broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story, due to this pejorative sense, some scholars opted for the term mythos. Its use was similarly pejorative and now commonly refers to its Aristotelian sense as a plot point or to a collective mythology. The term is distinguished from didactic literature such as fables. Main characters in myths are usually gods, demigods or supernatural humans, however, many exceptions or combinations exist, as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid. Myths are often endorsed by rulers and priests and are linked to religion or spirituality
4.
Folklore
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Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. These include oral traditions such as tales, proverbs and jokes and they include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, the forms and rituals of celebrations like Christmas and weddings, folk dances, each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next, for folklore is not taught in a formal school curriculum or studied in the fine arts. Instead these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either through verbal instruction or demonstration, the academic study of folklore is called folkloristics. To fully understand folklore, it is helpful to clarify its component parts and it is well-documented that the term was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms. He fabricated it to replace the contemporary terminology of popular antiquities or popular literature, the second half of the compound word, lore, proves easier to define as its meaning has stayed relatively stable over the last two centuries. Coming from Old English lār instruction, and with German and Dutch cognates, it is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group, the concept of folk proves somewhat more elusive. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor, a more modern definition of folk is a social group which includes two or more persons with common traits, who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. Folk is a concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family. This expanded social definition of folk supports a view of the material, i. e. the lore. These now include all things people make with words, things they make with their hands, Folklore is no longer circumscribed as being chronologically old or obsolete. The folklorist studies the traditional artifacts of a group and how they are transmitted. Transmission is a part of the folklore process. Without communicating these beliefs and customs within the group over space and time, for folklore is also a verb. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, the folk group is not individualistic, it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, in direct contrast to high culture, where any single work of a named artist is protected by copyright law, folklore is a function of shared identity within the social group. Having identified folk artifacts, the professional folklorist strives to understand the significance of these beliefs, customs, for these cultural units would not be passed along unless they had some continued relevance within the group
5.
Fairy tale
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Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends and explicitly moral tales, including beast fables. The term is used for stories with origins in European tradition and, at least in recent centuries. In less technical contexts, the term is used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness. Colloquially, a tale or fairy story can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale, it is used especially of any story that not only is not true. Legends are perceived as real, fairy tales may merge into legends, Fairy tales are found in oral and in literary form, the name fairy tale was first ascribed to them by Madame dAulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of todays fairy tales have evolved from stories that have appeared, with variations. The history of the tale is particularly difficult to trace because only the literary forms can survive. Still, according to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon, such stories may date back thousands of years, Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today. Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways, the Aarne-Thompson classification system and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp are among the most notable. Other folklorists have interpreted the significance, but no school has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales. It moves in a world without definite locality or definite creatures and is filled with the marvelous. In this never-never land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdoms, a fairy tale with a tragic rather than a happy end is called an anti-fairy tale. Although the fairy tale is a genre within the larger category of folktale. The term itself comes from the translation of Madame DAulnoys conte de fées, Vladimir Propp, in his Morphology of the Folktale, criticized the common distinction between fairy tales and animal tales on the grounds that many tales contained both fantastic elements and animals. Were I asked, what is a fairytale, I should reply, Read Undine, that is a fairytale. of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful. As Stith Thompson points out, talking animals and the presence of magic seem to be common to the fairy tale than fairies themselves. However, the presence of animals that talk does not make a tale a fairy tale, especially when the animal is clearly a mask on a human face. Steven Swann Jones identified the presence of magic as the feature by which fairy tales can be distinguished from other sorts of folktales, davidson and Chaudri identify transformation as the key feature of the genre
6.
Jack the Giant Killer
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Jack the Giant Killer is an English fairy tale and legend about a plucky young adult who slays a number of giants during King Arthurs reign. The tale is characterised by violence, gore and blood-letting, Giants are prominent in Cornish folklore, Breton mythology and Welsh Bardic lore. Jacks belt is similar to the belt in The Valiant Little Tailor, and his sword, shoes, cap. Neither Jack nor his tale are referenced in English literature prior to the eighteenth century and it is probable an enterprising publisher assembled a number of anecdotes about giants to form the 1711 tale. One scholar speculates the public had grown weary of King Arthur – the greatest of all giant killers –, henry Fielding, John Newbery, Samuel Johnson, Boswell, and William Cowper were familiar with the tale. In 1962, a film based on the tale was released starring Kerwin Mathews. The film made use of stop motion in the manner of Ray Harryhausen. This plot summary is based on a text published ca.1760 by John Cotton and Joshua Eddowes,1711, and reprinted in The Classic Fairy Tales by Iona and Peter Opie in 1974. The tale is set during the reign of King Arthur and tells of a young Cornish farmers son named Jack who is not only strong, Jack encounters a cattle-eating giant called Cormoran and lures him to his death in a pit trap. Jack is dubbed Jack the Giant-Killer for this feat and receives not only the giants wealth, a man-eating giant named Blunderbore vows vengeance for Cormorans death and carries Jack off to an enchanted castle. Jack manages to slay Blunderbore and his brother Rebecks by hanging and stabbing them and he frees three ladies held captive in the giants castle. On a trip into Wales, Jack tricks a two-headed Welsh giant into slashing his own belly open, King Arthurs son now enters the story and Jack becomes his servant. They spend the night with a giant and rob him in the morning. In gratitude for having spared his castle, the three-headed giant gives Jack a magic sword, a cap of knowledge, a cloak of invisibility, on the road, Jack and the Prince meet an enchanted Lady serving Lucifer. Jack breaks the spell with his magic accessories, beheads Lucifer, Jack is rewarded with membership in the Round Table. Jack ventures forth alone with his shoes, sword, cloak. He encounters a giant terrorizing a knight and his lady and he cuts off the giants legs then puts him to death. He discovers the giants companion in a cave, invisible in his cloak, Jack cuts off the giants nose then slays him by plunging his sword into the monsters back
7.
The Pilgrim's Progress
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The Pilgrims Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature, has translated into more than 200 languages. It has also cited as the first novel written in English. The English text comprises 108,260 words and is divided into two parts, each reading as a narrative with no chapter divisions. The first part was completed in 1677 and entered into the Stationers Register on 22 December 1677 and it was licensed and entered in the Term Catalogue on 18 February 1678, which is looked upon as the date of first publication. After the first edition of the first part in 1678, an expanded edition, the Second Part appeared in 1684. The entire book is presented as a dream sequence narrated by an omniscient narrator, the allegorys protagonist, Christian, is an everyman character, and the plot centres on his journey from his hometown, the City of Destruction, to the Celestial City atop Mount Zion. Christian is weighed down by a great knowledge of his sin—which he believed came from his reading the book in his hand. This burden, which would cause him to sink into Hell, is so unbearable that Christian must seek deliverance and he meets Evangelist as he is walking out in the fields, who directs him to the Wicket Gate for deliverance. Since Christian cannot see the Wicket Gate in the distance, Evangelist directs him to go to a shining light, Christian leaves his home, his wife, and children to save himself, he cannot persuade them to accompany him. Obstinate and Pliable go after Christian to bring him back, obstinate returns disgusted, but Pliable is persuaded to go with Christian, hoping to take advantage of the Paradise that Christian claims lies at the end of his journey. It is there in that bog where Pliable abandons Christian after getting himself out, Evangelist meets the wayward Christian as he stops before Mount Sinai on the way to Mr. Legalitys home. It hangs over the road and threatens to crush any who would pass it, in the Second Part, Goodwill is shown to be Jesus himself. To Christians query about relief from his burden, Goodwill directs him forward to the place of deliverance, Christian makes his way from there to the House of the Interpreter, where he is shown pictures and tableaux that portray or dramatize aspects of the Christian faith and life. From the House of the Interpreter, Christian finally reaches the place of deliverance, where the straps that bound Christians burden to him break and this event happens relatively early in the narrative, the immediate need of Christian at the beginning of the story being quickly remedied. After Christian is relieved of his burden, he is greeted by three angels, who give him the greeting of peace, new garments, and a scroll as a passport into the Celestial City. Encouraged by all this, Christian happily continues his journey until he comes upon three men named Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, Christian tries to help them, but they disregard his advice. Christian falls asleep at the arbor above the hill and loses his scroll, forcing him to go back, near the top of the Hill of Difficulty, he meets two weak pilgrims named Mistrust and Timorous who tell him of the great lions of the Palace Beautiful
8.
Norse mythology
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The cosmos in Norse mythology consists of Nine Worlds that flank a central cosmological tree, Yggdrasil. Units of time and elements of the cosmology are personified as deities or beings, various forms of a creation myth are recounted, where the world is created from the flesh of the primordial being Ymir, and the first two humans are Ask and Embla. These worlds are foretold to be reborn after the events of Ragnarök, there the surviving gods will meet, and the land will be fertile and green, and two humans will repopulate the world. Norse mythology has been the subject of scholarly discourse since the 17th century, by way of comparative mythology and historical linguistics, scholars have identified elements of Germanic mythology reaching as far back as Proto-Indo-European mythology. In the modern period, the Romanticist Viking revival re-awoke an interest in the subject matter, the myths have further been revived in a religious context among adherents of Germanic Neopaganism. The majority of these Old Norse texts were created in Iceland and this occurred primarily in the 13th century. The Prose Edda was composed as a manual for producing skaldic poetry—traditional Old Norse poetry composed by skalds. Originally composed and transmitted orally, skaldic poetry utilizes alliterative verse, kennings, the Prose Edda presents numerous examples of works by various skalds from before and after the Christianization process and also frequently refers back to the poems found in the Poetic Edda. The Poetic Edda consists almost entirely of poems, with some prose narrative added, in comparison to skaldic poetry, Eddic poetry is relatively unadorned. Numerous further texts, such as the sagas, provide further information, the saga corpus consists of thousands of tales recorded in Old Norse ranging from Icelandic family histories to Migration period tales mentioning historic figures such as Attila the Hun. By way of historical linguistics and comparative mythology, comparisons to other attested branches of Germanic mythology may also lend insight, wider comparisons to the mythology of other Indo-European peoples by scholars has resulted in the potential reconstruction of far earlier myths. Of the mythical tales and poems that are presumed to have existed during the Middle Ages, Viking Age, Migration Period, numerous gods are mentioned in the source texts. In the mythology, Thor lays waste to numerous jötnar who are foes to the gods or humanity, the god Odin is also frequently mentioned in surviving texts. One-eyed, wolf and raven-flanked, and spear in hand, Odin pursues knowledge throughout the worlds, Odin has a strong association with death, Odin is portrayed as the ruler of Valhalla, where valkyries carry half of those slain in battle. Odins wife is the powerful goddess Frigg who can see the future but tells no one, and together they have a beloved son, Baldr. After a series of dreams had by Baldr of his death, his death is engineered by Loki, and Baldr thereafter resides in Hel. Odin must share half of his share of the dead with a powerful goddess and she is beautiful, sensual, wears a feathered cloak, and practices seiðr. She rides to battle to choose among the slain, and brings her chosen to her afterlife field Fólkvangr, Freyja weeps for her missing husband Óðr, and seeks after him in far away lands
9.
Hop-o'-My-Thumb
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It is Aarne-Thompson type 327B, the small boy defeats the ogre. This type of fairytale, in the French oral tradition, is combined with motifs from the type 327A, similar to Hansel and Gretel. The story was first published in English as Little Poucet in Robert Sambers 1729 translation of Perraults book, Histories, in 1764, the name of the hero was changed to Little Thumb. In 1804, William Godwin, in Tabarts Collection of Popular Stories for the Nursery, retitled it Hop o my Thumb, Hop-o-My-Thumb is the youngest of seven children in a poor woodcutters family. His greater wisdom compensates for his smallness of size, when the children are abandoned by their parents, he finds a variety of means to save his life and the lives of his brothers. After being threatened and pursued by an ogre, Poucet steals his magic seven-league boots while the monster is sleeping, the parents are no longer able to support their children and intend to abandon them. Hop-o-My-Thumb, overhearing his parents, plans ahead and collects small white pebbles from a river and he uses the stones to mark a trail that enables him to successfully lead his brothers back home. However, the time round, he uses breadcrumbs instead. The brothers are lost in the wood, Hop-o-My-Thumb climbs up a tree and spots a distant light. They come at last to a house, and learn that it belongs to an ogre, Hop-o-My-Thumb, fearing the wolves, decides to take the risk of staying in the monsters residence. The ogre allows the boys to sleep for the night, but the ogre wakes up not too long after, and prepares to kill them in their slumber. Hop-o-My-Thumb, who anticipated the possibility, already planned ahead and replaced the gold crowns with the bonnets worn by him. As a result, the ogre kills his daughters instead, once he is snoring, Hop-o-My-Thumb directs his siblings out of the house. The ogre wakes up in the morning to discover his grave mistake, puts on his seven-league boots and they spot the ogre while walking. Hop-o-My-Thumb once again thinks fast and hides in a nearby cave. The ogre, who is tired, happens to rest close to their hiding spot, Hop-o-My-Thumb instructs his brothers to make their way home, and meanwhile, removes the boots from the sleeping ogre. He puts them on, and the boots, being magical, Hop-o-My-Thumb uses the boots to make a fortune, and returns to his familys home, where they live happily ever after. The French folktale was first published by Charles Perrault as Le petit Poucet in Histoires ou contes du temps passé in 1697, the French name for the hero, Poucet, derives from the French word pouce, which means thumb, big toe, or inch
10.
Beauty and the Beast
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Beauty and the Beast is a traditional fairy tale written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740 in La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins. Variants of the tale are known across Europe, amour pour amour, by Nivelle de la Chaussée, is a 1742 play based on Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuves version. According to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon, the story originated around 4,000 years ago, a widowed merchant lives in a mansion with his six children, three sons and three daughters. They secretly taunt Beauty and treat her more like a servant than a sister, the merchant eventually loses all of his wealth in a tempest at sea. He and his children are forced to live in a small farmhouse. Some years later, the merchant hears that one of the ships he had sent off has arrived back in port. Before leaving, he asks his children if they wish for him to bring any gifts back for them. The sons ask for weaponry and horses to hunt with, whereas his oldest daughters ask for clothing, jewels, Beauty is satisfied with the promise of a rose as none grow in their part of the country. The merchant, to his dismay, finds that his ships cargo has been seized to pay his debts, leaving him penniless, during his return, the merchant becomes lost during a storm. Seeking shelter, he enters a dazzling palace, a hidden figure opens the giant doors and silently invites him in. The merchant finds tables inside laden with food and drink, which seem to have left for him by the palaces invisible owner. The merchant accepts this gift and spends the night there, the next morning, as the merchant is about to leave, he sees a rose garden and recalls that Beauty had desired a rose. The merchant begs to be set free, arguing that he had picked the rose as a gift for his youngest daughter. The Beast agrees to let him give the rose to Beauty, the merchant is upset but accepts this condition. The Beast sends him on his way, with wealth, jewels and fine clothes for his sons and daughters, the merchant, upon arriving home, tries to hide the secret from Beauty, but she pries it from him. Her brothers say they will go to the castle and fight the Beast, Beauty then agrees to go to the Beasts castle. The Beast receives her graciously and informs her that she is now mistress of the castle and he gives her lavish clothing and food and carries on lengthy conversations with her. Every night, the Beast asks Beauty to marry him, only to be refused each time, Beauty does not make the connection between the handsome prince and the Beast and becomes convinced that the Beast is holding the prince captive somewhere in the castle
11.
Epic of Gilgamesh
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The Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia that is often regarded as the earliest surviving great work of literature. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian poems about Bilgamesh, king of Uruk and these independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic. The first surviving version of this epic, known as the Old Babylonian version, dates to the 18th century BC and is titled after its incipit. Only a few tablets of it have survived, the later Standard version dates from the 13th to the 10th centuries BC and bears the incipit Sha naqba īmuru. Approximately two thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have been recovered, some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BC Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. The first half of the story discusses Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and Enkidu, after an initial fight, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become close friends. Together, they journey to the Cedar Mountain and defeat Humbaba, later they kill the Bull of Heaven, which the goddess Ishtar sends to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. As a punishment for actions, the gods sentence Enkidu to death. In the second half of the epic, distress about Enkidus death causes Gilgamesh to undertake a long and he eventually learns that Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, however, because of his great building projects, his account of Siduris advice, and what the immortal man Utnapishtim told him about the Great Flood, Gilgameshs fame survived his death. His story has been translated into many languages, and in recent years has featured in works of popular fiction, distinct sources exist from over a 2000-year timeframe. The earliest Sumerian poems are now considered to be distinct stories. They date from as early as the Third Dynasty of Ur, the Old Babylonian tablets, are the earliest surviving tablets for a single Epic of Gilgamesh narrative. The older Old Babylonian tablets and later Akkadian version are important sources for modern translations, although several revised versions based on new discoveries have been published, the epic remains incomplete. Analysis of the Old Babylonian text has been used to reconstruct possible earlier forms of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The most recent Akkadian version, also referred to as the standard version, the Epic of Gilgamesh was discovered by Hormuzd Rassam in 1853. The central character of Gilgamesh was initially reintroduced to the world as Izdubar, the first modern translation was published in the early 1870s by George Smith. Smith then made further discoveries of texts on his later expeditions, the most definitive modern translation is a two-volume critical work by Andrew George, published by Oxford University Press in 2003
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