<div><div><b>Adventurers, explorers, kings, gods, and goddesses come to life in this "useful, entertaining and informative" story of the first great epic (<i>The Washington Post</i>)</b></div><div> </div><div><div>Composed in Middle Babylonia around 1200 BCE, <i>The Epic of Gilgamesh </i>foreshadowed later stories that would become as fundamental as any in human history: <i>The Odyssey </i>and the Bible. But in 600 BCE, the clay tablets that bore the story were lost to the world, buried beneath ashes and ruins.<br> <br>David Damrosch begins with the rediscovery of the epic in 1872 and from there goes backward in time, all the way to Gilgamesh himself. <i>The Buried Book </i>is an illuminating tale of history as it was written, stolen, lost, and--after 2,000 years and countless battles, conspiracies, and revelations--finally found.</div></div></div>