d
although, as we shall see, the story has been given its final shape
under the same influences that determined the other branches of
religious literature, the form has not obscured the popular character of
the material out of which the story has been constructed.

The name of the hero of the story was for a long time a puzzle to
scholars. Written invariably in ideographic fashion, the provisional
reading Izdubar[845] was the only safe recourse until a few years ago,
when Pinches discovered in a lexicographical tablet the equation

Izdubar = Gilgamesh.[846]

The equation proved that the Babylonians and Assyrians identified the
hero with a legendary king, Gilgamos, who is mentioned by Aelian.[847]
To be sure, what Aelian tells of this hero is not found in the Izdubar
epic, and appears to have originally been recounted of another legendary
personage, Etana.[848] There is therefore a reasonable doubt whether the
identification made by Babylonian scholars represents an old tradition
or is merely a late conjecture arising at a time when the traditions of
Izdubar were confused with those of Etana. Still, since Etana appears to
be a phonetic reading and can be explained etymologically in a
satisfactory manner, the presumption is in favor of connecting Gilgamesh
with the hero of the great epic. For the present, therefore, we may
accept the identification and assume that in Aelian, as well as in the
sources whence he drew his information, Izdubar-Gilgamesh has been
confused with Etana.[849]

The ideographic form of the name is preceded invariably by the
determinative for deity, but the three elements composing the name,
_iz_, _du_, and _bar_, are exceedingly obscure. The first element is a
very common determinative, preceding objects made of wood or any hard
substance. The word for weapon is always written with this
determinative; and since Izdubar is essentially a warrior, one should
expect _dubar_ to represent some kind of a weapon that he carries. On
seal cylinders Gilgamesh appears armed with a large lance.[850] However
this may be, Jeremias' proposition to render the name as "divine judge
of earthly affairs"[851] is untenable, and the same may be said of other
conjectures.

The fact that the name is written with the determinative for deity must
not lead us to a purely mythical interpretation of the epic. There was a
strong tendency in Babylonia to regard the early kings as gods. Dungi
and Gudea, who are far from b