The most powerful man on earth, two-thirds divine, forced to stare at a decaying body and accept that he will die. This episode explores the Epic of Gilgamesh, humanity's first recorded existential crisis, carved into clay over four millennia ago. We ground the story in the real Sumerian city of Uruk around 2100 BCE, examine how divine alienation drove Gilgamesh to exhaust his people with wall-building and claim brides on their wedding nights, and follow the gods' psychological remedy: the wild man Enkidu, civilized by Shamhat with bread, beer and clothing, who blocks a wedding chamber door and wrestles the king to a standstill.

The friendship amplifies their hubris through the slaying of Humbaba in the Cedar Forest, the rejection of Ishtar and the killing of the Bull of Heaven, until the gods strike Enkidu down and his vision of the house  ...