Chapter 2 Traditional living practices: Return to the villages

Abstract

The Epic of Gilgamesh is among the oldest stories remembered. One of its tales, “Journey to the Forests of Cedar,” illustrates early accounts of forest depletion (George, 1999, pp. 30–47). For timber, to expand the city of Uruk where he rules, Gilgamesh kills Humbaba, the forest guardian, who protected a great forest. Gilgamesh and his followers then stripped the forest. The gods warned Gilgamesh in dreams they sent to him on his forest journey that floods and droughts would follow his killing of Humbaba and the cutting of the cedar forests, and so it happened.

Citation

Somma, M. (2009), "Chapter 2 Traditional living practices: Return to the villages", Leonard, L. and Barry, J. (Ed.) The Transition to Sustainable Living and Practice (Advances in Ecopolitics, Vol. 4), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 29-53. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2041-806X(2009)0000004005