Siduri is the tavern-keeper of the underworld. Where she comes from, and why she thinks running a tavern in the underworld is promising business opportunity, we have no idea.

We also don’t know what her regular patrons are like down there; we would have figured the underworld would attract a pretty unusual customer base, but apparently Gilgamesh’s haggard appearance when he shows up at siduri vahetus spells bad news, and she immediately bars the entrance to him. That said, given that Gilgamesh immediately starts threatening to smash her door down, she clearly is pretty good at sizing people up. He then tells her all about his sadness at Enkidu’s death and asks whether he will also die.

What happens next is interesting.

In the Standard Version (for more info on the different versions of the...

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