Miraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as much as four thousand years the poem of Gilgamesh king of Uruk is the world's oldest epic predating Homer by many centuries. The story tells of Gilgamesh's adventures with the wild man Enkidu & of his arduous journey to the ends of the earth in quest of the Babylonian Noah & the secret of immortality. Alongside its themes of family friendship & the duties of kings the Epic of Gilgamesh is above all about mankind's eternal struggle with the fear of death.