Gilgamesh, King of Uruk

The Sumerian king lists name Gilgamesh as a ruler of Uruk, and the city wall whose remains archaeologists have found is credited to him. In time the king becomes a hero of tales: he builds and destroys, loses his friend Enkidu, and goes off in search of immortality, only to return with nothing. The Akkadian version of the epic, written on twelve tablets, also contains a story of a great flood, with an ark and a bird sent out. Recovered in the nineteenth century, the text became the first evidence that the stories of the Near East are older than any known books.