Alternative History Novel Bears Strange Parallels With New Gilgamesh Tablet
Smugglers aid an Iraqi museum in recovering neo-Babylonian tablets recounting The Epic of Gilgamesh. The tablets describe a forest and its ruler, which bears a striking resemblance to the one encountered by Gilgamesh's friends in the new novel, Distant Origins. The novel tells the story of Gilgamesh and his gods in the near future, inhabiting a different world, which modern man colonizes.
Wallingford, Connecticut, December 28, 2015 (Newswire.com) - S Shane Thomas, author of Distant Origins, wrote about the gods of Gilgamesh’s era, and a monkey god who fights Gilgamesh’s team in a forest. One of the characters, a humanoid cicada also encounters Anzu birds, a lion and bird hybred creature. These events bear a striking resemblance to the new translations that Al-Rawi and George with SOAS, University of London, recently published. They purchased black market tablets from a known smuggler, in an effort to restore Iraq’s museums, and one of those tablets contained lines of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the first piece of literature known to historians.
"The new tablet continues where other sources break off, and we learn that the Cedar Forest is no place of serene and quiet glades. It is full of noisy birds and cicadas, and monkeys scream and yell in the trees," Andrew George, associate dean of languages and culture at School of Oriental and African Studies, told Live Science in an email.
"The new tablet continues where other sources break off, and we learn that the Cedar Forest is no place of serene and quiet glades. It is full of noisy birds and cicadas, and monkeys scream and yell in the trees,".
Andrew George, dean of languages and culture at School of Oriental and African Studies
With between 80-90 clay tablets in the smugglers collection, more lost pieces of the epic poem could agree with, or disprove the author’s take on the life of King Gilgamesh. Distant Origins supposes that the gods of ancient Sumer took Gilgamesh and eight of his people to their home world and held them prisoner in suspended animation until our near future.
Distant Origins is available on Amazon (ASIN: B019U63ZHY) for $2.99. It was released on 12/26/2015.
About S Shane Thomas
Shane explores the North Eastern United States regularly, which drives his passion for crafting speculative fiction. His studies in alternative history prior to completing his BSBA with Post University gave cause to think about humanity’s earliest moments in the journey to civilization.
For more information about Distant Origins, please contact Shane Thomas at 1(203)910-8091. Please email for book cover image, and/or author photo.
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