Based on contrasting characterization and narrative logic between the central Huwawa episode and the remaining material for the earliest Akkadian Gilgamesh, this book challenges the accepted notion that the famous epic was composed without recourse to a previous Akkadian narrative.

Daniel E. Fleming, Ph.D. (Harvard 1990), is Professor of Assyriology and Hebrew Bible at New York University. He has published three books on ancient Syria, as represented by the archives of Emar and Mari.
Sara J. Milstein (New York University Ph.D., projected 2010) is interested in the reading of revised texts in antiquity. Working primarily from Judges and Gilgamesh, her dissertation is entitled, Expanding Ancient Narratives: Revision through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian Texts.