The term monster derives from the Latin verb moneo, meaning "to remind, warn, instruct,
or foretell.”
So it makes sense that the monsters our ancestors spoke of in hushed tones weren’t just random
beasts, but reflections of dominant fears in the cultures that birthed them.
In the words of Tina Marie Boyer, professor at Wake Forest University, "monsters do not
emerge out of a cultural void; they have a literary and cultural heritage."
And monsters have been part of human culture since our beginnings.
Incomplete carvings of mythic beasts from river valley civilizations date back further
than the first written language.
And going even further back, this anthropomorphic Lion-Man statue, carved out of a mammoth tusk,
might be a depiction of a monster from the Upper Paleolithic period—about 35 thousand
years ago.
Exactly what the statue depicts is debated, however.
Our focus today is instead to identify the oldest monster explicitly recorded in written
history.
The creature is likely one you’ve never heard of.
It comes from the Epic of Gilgamesh, or “He Who Saw the Unknown” — an epic poem from
ancient Mesopotamia, and quite possibly the oldest surviving piece of notable literature.Written
on various clay tablets dating back to 3rd millennium BCE, the epic chronicles the deeds
of Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, and Enkidu, a wild-man who fights at Gilgamesh’s side.
Throughout the ancient poem, the two warriors encounter various creatures.
No monster, however, is as powerful or fascinating as the very first one they meet: Likely the
first monster in recorded history — Humbaba The Terrible: No physical descriptions of
the creature known as Humbaba exist in the oldest Gilgamesh tablets, but future myths
depict the being in more detail.
Various records describe his face as a single coiling line like that of the intestines of
animals.
Other scattered translations describe him with “the paws of a lion,” “the claws
of a vulture,” “the horns of a bull,” and a tail which ends “in a snake’s head.”
A truly horrific mixture of different features.
Some older carvings of the creature’s face contain lines which likely represent the coiling
intestines described in the passages, so we can be pretty certain that that detail, disturbingly,
dates back to the oldest versions of the myth.
And while most ancient carvings of Humbaba resemble a humanoid, this is likely the result
of stylization — with the being’s ‘true’ form far more fantastical.
So, just how dangerous was the first thing which goes bump in the night?
Our best account of Humbaba The Terrible being, well, terrible comes from the second Tablet
of the original Epic – 'This Humbaba, his voice is the Deluge, his speech is fire, his
breath is death!
He hears the forest murmur at sixty leagues’ distance:
who is there would venture into his forest?”
Here, ‘The Deluge’ relates to a flood motif which appears repeatedly in various
cultures, including the later Greek and Norse mythologies.
Even the great flood mentioned in the Hebrew Bible was likely influenced by Mesopotamian
accounts.
So, the voice of Humbaba alone is comparable to an apocalyptic force, which, in many myths
ends the world.
This helps illustrate just how terrifying the first monster in written history truly
is.
Furthermore, in saying ‘His speech is fire, his breath is death.’
Humbaba almost seems like a force of nature.
A natural disaster given form.
And perhaps that’s what he’s intended to be.
Humbaba, like all monsters who followed him, was an amalgamation of what the society who
dreamt him up feared.
Emerging from a river valley civilization, Humbaba was likely a personification of humankind’s
fears of floods, wildfires, and other natural phenomena.
The story of the world’s first monster doesn’t end there, however.
In Tablet V of the original Epic, Gilgamesh and Enkidu finally confront Humbaba in his
home of the Cedar Forest.
According to the tablet, Humbaba is the forest’s guardian, and kills anyone who enters his
home.
Humbaba then shows he’s capable of speech, saying to Gilgamesh.
"I will slit the throat and gullet of Gilgamesh, I will feed his flesh to the locust bird,
ravening eagle and vulture!’”
The battle begins.
The hero-king and the monster trade various heavy blows, destroying the forest Humbaba
cares for.
In the end, Gilgamesh kills Humbaba by severing its head with a knife.
…But there’s a lot about the account of Humbaba’s death which seems strange.
Gilgamesh slays Humbaba with a single dagger — an unusual end for a supposedly all-powerful
and murderous monster.
Furthermore, Gilgamesh isn’t battling the demon to defend the innocent — he seeks
out the being in its own home for personal glory, and acts as the aggressor in challenging
Humbaba to a fight.
Furthermore, Gilgamesh destroys the forest Humbaba protected.
It’s seems to go against the classic good versus evil dynamic we associate with monsters
in ancient myth.
A more recently uncovered tablet from second or first millennium BCE offers an alternative
perspective on the battle.
In this version Humbaba is described as inhuman, but a being beloved of the gods and a benevolent
protector of the forest — and Humbaba, though powerful, seems at peace and in tune with
nature before Gilgamesh invades his home.
The tablet then portrays Gilgamesh not as a hero, but as a reckless trespasser who destroys
the forest without purpose.
Humbaba's death is even mourned by Gilgamesh’s partner Enkidu, as described here: "Enkidu
opened his mouth to speak, saying to Gilgamesh: 'My friend, we have reduced the forest to
a wasteland.
In your might you slew the guardian, what was this wrath of yours that you went trampling
the forest?'”
So, is Humbaba, whose voice is the Deluge, whose speech is fire, and whose breath is
death!, truly the oldest truly monster in written history, or does that distinction
perhaps belong to Gilgamesh himself?
Throughout the narrative, Gilgamesh performs other immoral actions for personal gain.
In the end, The Epic of Gilgamesh is such an incomplete and fractured narrative, we’ll
likely never know for certain who they wanted audiences to root for.
But the narrative’s ambiguity suggests The Ancient Mesopotamians understood both the
inhuman and the human have the potential to act monstrous.
So that’s the tale of the oldest monster in written history.
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Thank you so much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video.