By Andrea Hargraves 
In 1872, in a quiet room on the second floor of the British Museum, George Smith was studying a dirty clay tablet when he came across words that would change his life. In the cuneiform, he recognized references to a stranded ship and a bird sent in search of land. After cleaning it, a museum worker was certain he had found a prototype of the biblical flood story.
“I am the first man to read this in over 2000 years” Smith reportedly said,.
He realized that the tablet, excavated in what is now Iraq, was a small part of a much larger work—one that some at the time believed could help clarify the book of Genesis.
The discovery made Smith, who came from a working-class family and taught himself cuneiform, famous. He devoted the rest of his life to finding the missing parts of the work, visiting the Middle East several times before dying of illness on his final trip in 1876, aged 36.
Over the 152 years since Smith's discovery, successive generations of Assyriologists—specialists in the study of cuneiform and the cultures that used it—have made it their mission to compile a complete version of the poem known today as the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Parts of the epic, written more than 3,000 years ago based on older works, have resurfaced, with tablets being discovered in archaeological digs, found in museum deposits or surfacing on the grey market.
Researchers then faced a daunting task. There are as many as half a million Mesopotamian clay tablets in museum and university collections around the world, as well as many fragments of other tablets. Because there are few experts in cuneiform, many of these writings are illegible and many others have never been published.
Thus, despite the efforts of generations, about 30% of Gilgamesh remains missing, and there are gaps in modern understanding of both the poem and Mesopotamian writing in general.
Now, the Fragmentarium AI project is helping to fill some of these gaps.
The project team, led by Enrique Jiménez, a professor at the Institute of Assyriology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, is using machine learning to piece together the digital tablet fragments much faster than a human Assyriologist could. So far, the AI has helped researchers discover new parts of Gilgamesh, as well as hundreds of missing words and lines from other works.
“This is a huge acceleration of what has been happening since George Smith’s time,” says Andrew George, emeritus professor at the University of London, who is considered the leading authority on the Epic of Gilgamesh and has produced one of the English translations of the epic.
Before 2018, only about 5,000 tablet fragments had been combined. Over the next six years, Jiménez’s team did the same with more than 1,500 tablet fragments, including those related to a newly discovered hymn to the city of Babylon and 20 Gilgamesh fragments that add details to more than a hundred lines of the epic.
The Gilgamesh fragments “offer interesting insights into the story,” Jimenez says.
At the center of the epic is the story of the friendship between Gilgamesh, a demigod, and Enkidu, the king of Uruk and his wild companion. After Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill Humbaba, the guardian beast of the Cedar Forest, the gods kill Enkidu in revenge. Gilgamesh, in denial, refuses to bury Enkidu until seven days later, when a caterpillar falls from his companion's nose.
“How can I remain silent?” Gilgamesh asks over and over again. “When my friend Enkidu, whom I love, has been turned to clay. [Devo eu não ser como] To him, and put me to sleep too, [nunca] To rise again forever?
The demigod then embarks on a journey to find his ancestor Utnapishtim, a Noah-like figure who survived the flood and learned the secret of immortality. After wandering through nature, he comes to a seaside tavern on the edge of the world. There, Siddhuri, the tavern owner and brewer, offers him sage advice, telling him to enjoy life's simple pleasures. “Look at the child who holds your hand,” she says, “and let the wife enjoy your frequent embrace.”
Gilgamesh ignores her and continues his search, eventually finding Utnapishtim. But the great flood hero is unable to help him achieve immortality. Instead, he shares the story of his life before and during the flood. The ending of the epic suggests that Utnapishtim's wisdom and the knowledge it bestows are one of the main rewards of Gilgamesh's journey.
New fragments discovered with the help of artificial intelligence reveal elements that add important details to many of these episodes. One reveals that after killing the forest monster, Gilgamesh and Enkidu traveled to Nippur, the religious center of Mesopotamia and home of the god Enlil. “They went there together, trying to appease Enlil, who was angry about the death of Humbaba, his disciple,” Jimenez says.
Benjamin R. Foster, a professor of Assyriology and Gilgamesh translator at Yale University, worked with the AI team on some of the English translations. According to him, the new lines also include details about Enkidu’s efforts to persuade Gilgamesh not to kill Humbaba. Others offer an excerpt from a prayer by Gilgamesh’s mother asking the sun god to touch Enkidu so he can guide Gilgamesh through the Cedar Forest.
Assyriologists agree that fragments of the work on Gilgamesh and other Mesopotamian literature remain undiscovered in unexcavated deposits and historical sites. Many of the tablets in museums and universities are ordinary invoices, private letters, textbook exercises, and other details from the ancient world. Yet even these everyday writings can offer literary insights, experts say.
Meanwhile, the newly discovered lines have already given Smith's successors much to think about.
Among the most thought-provoking words, according to Foster, is another line from Utnapishtim: “You, composed of divine and human flesh, created them, as did your father and mother. Have they built a palace for the fool, Gilgamesh?”
“We have no idea what he’s talking about,” Foster says. But he says he believes a new piece, discovered by AI or traditional methods, will soon help solve the puzzle.
“Who knows, maybe he'll show up tomorrow,” he says.