What is Plot?
Part 2
Welcome to the Ultimate Throwback Thursday!
We’re discussing the oldest story in the book... or rather... the oldest story yet discovered, and it predates books!
Let me introduce you to The Epic of Gilgamesh!
From Wikipedia, photograph by Kadumago
This a bas relief of Gilgamesh. He’s clutching a lion. The size difference is thought to be by art historians a technique to say, “Hey, the bigger image is the most important.” It’s not because Gilgamesh was a giant. There are however links in some of the Second Temple Jewish apocrypha to giants and Gilgamesh. This statue is from Ancient Babylon… Sumer didn’t have art like this. Sumer was a civilization that “grew up” into Babylon.
To read the Epic of Gilgamesh, check out The Academy for Ancient Text’s Gilgamesh section.
For the background info here’s the wikipedia article on The Epic of Gilgamesh.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is from one of the earliest civilizations: ancient Sumer. Sumer was located in modern day Iraq, between two rivers... the Tigris and the Euphrates. Sumer was a foundation civilization for Babylon, and much of the ancient Middle East.
If those sound familiar to you, these rivers are also mentioned as two of the rivers in the location of Biblical Eden.
Sumer was also the civilization that had the city of Ur in it... Ur as in Schilman's Treasures of Ur featured at the Penn Museum… and Ur as in the city of origin of the Biblical Patriach Abraham.
The Epic of Gilgamesh was discovered on ancient tablets by British archaeologists in the 1800s. They didn't get translated, but because they were profitable and portable, they were collected.
Many of these early archaeologists acted more like tomb robbers and James Bond style figures who smuggled artifacts and destroyed cultural heritage, while ignoring the locals who were (and are often still) the descendants of the ancient civilizations that they lived in.
I'm saying James Bond - because as much as I love Indiana Jones, diplomacy is not one of his character traits. (We’ll get to characters next week.)
Translation of the tablets from their original cuniform (wedge shaped writing) didn't happen until amature linguist George Smith translated part of the Gilgamesh Epic which sounded a lot like the story of Noah's Ark.
From The Animals Went in Two by Two, According to Babylonian Ark Tablet (link https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/the-animals-went-in-two-by-two-according-to-babylonian-ark-tablet/)
In his popular book The Chaldean Account of Genesis, Smith described the discovery: “I soon found half of a curious tablet which had evidently contained originally six columns of text; two of these (the third and fourth) were still nearly perfect; two others (the second and fifth) were imperfect, about half remaining, while the remaining columns (the first and sixth) were entirely lost. On looking down the third column, my eye caught the statement that the ship rested on the mountains of Nizir, followed by the account of the The Enduring Symbolism of Doves, and its finding no resting-place and returning. I saw at once that I had here discovered a portion at least of the Chaldean [Babylonian] account of the Deluge.”
According to a later source, Smith then “jumped up and rushed about the room in a great state of excitement, and, to the astonishment of those present, began to undress himself.” The British Museum has dubbed Smith’s Tablet 11, shown, “the most famous cuneiform tablet from Mesopotamia.”
After he calmed down, Smith scoured the museum’s holdings for further fragments, and soon found that his Flood tablet was the 11th tablet in a 12-tablet epic poem. On December 3, 1872, he presented his findings to the newly founded British Society of Biblical Archaeology and speculated that more of these tablet fragments remained buried in the sands of Nineveh.”
This rocked Bible believing Victorian society. It came at a time when people were still highly relegious, but that foundation seemed to be crumbling with Evolution and the exploration and discovery of civilizations not mentioned in the Bible. Dr. Michael Heiser explains this in Bad Bible Interpretation Really Can Hurt People. (This is worth the read regardless of your spiritual or non-spiritual beliefs.)
An alternative view that became popular during that time was Theosophy. Interestingly... theosophy has links to Nazism and ancient aliens or ancient astronaut theory, as shown on Ancient Aliens on the Disney owned History Channel. It has continued to influence modern culture through badly interpreted mythology, history, archaeology and modern Hollywood culture.
What does this have to do with plot?
I just tied a lot of knots together into a series of events.
A plot is a series of events.
Beginning - Translation of the Story of Gilgamesh
Middle - How the flood section of the Story of Gilgamesh impacted society and continues to impact society
End - Telling the facts, revealing the truth and setting things right by stopping the spread of bad information (At this point in history there are clear lines between Theosophy, slavery and genocide.)
That's how a plot would work for non-fiction. Even non-fiction works need a plot. The non-fiction plots should follow the facts and true events surrounding the topic which is being written about.
There's a lot more to plots - but I’m trying to keep things basic for now. Advanced and experienced writers tips will come later.
There are more elements to add for fiction writers. I'll also do my best to illustrate how non fiction writers can use the elements of:
Character
Tension
Conflict
Drama
Your stories are amazing!
Until next week!
Chronic Writer