Answer:
Death, inspirational journey, friendship, love and responsibility.
Explanation:
Sumerians were an ancient people that settled in the Persian Gulf some 5,000 years ago. Sumerian's are credited as being the first people that recorded literature through tablets and, therefore, Sumerian literature is among the oldest records of written and preserved literature.
The epic of Gilgamesh can be considered as the oldest and the most famous form of Sumerian literature. In this, several themes are explored. Lets evaluate some of them below:
(1) Death: Mortality is a major concept that is explored in this epic. The king, Gilgamesh himself, must learn to cope with the knowledge of his inevitable death. Despite being superbly powerful and a mighty ruler, the king must contend with the fact that he cannot evade death. When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh out of desperation seeks the secret of immortality but learns through hard labor that life cannot be measured in terms of wealth, power, and immortality, but through how a person spends their limited time on earth.
(2) Inspirational Journey: A difficult journey to self-discovery and to obtain self-actualization is an important theme explored in ancient texts including this epic. Gilgamesh undertakes a perilous journey, first with Enkidu to defeat the defender of the Cedar Forest, and then after the later's death, to seek immortality. The journey concludes with the king returning to his kingdom as a changed and self-aware man.
(3) Love & Friendship: The epic follows the close friendship that developed between Enkidu and Gilgamesh and how the king's love for Enkidu made him distraught and desperate enough to undertake a quest to gain immortality.
(4) Responsibility: The beginning of the epic introduces Gilgamesh as a ruthless and vainglorious ruler who looked at all others below him with loathing and disdain. The deities in the poem had to create Enkidu in order to teach Gilgamesh a lesson in responsibility. Gilgamesh's journey throughout the poem is what made him return to his kingdom as a changed man. He gained wisdom and realized that he needed to rule fairly and responsibly. He realized that this is what would make his life worth it.
