The city had never before and has never since witnessed such a celebration as that which greeted the adventurers on their return from the battle with Humbaba. A holiday was declared. All work ceased. Feasts were laid out everywhere, and the people went up and down the streets carrying standards and bright banners. The young and the old gathered in the family house and sat crosslegged while the two heroes told the story repeating it again and again and answering all the questions that were asked. Singers immediately made up long songs about the adventure; dancers acted it out; and scribes laboriously engraved it on stone, or pressed the words and letters into tablets of wet clay. Runners carried the clay tablets from city to city...