performed in Syria by both Mesopotamian and Egyptian rulers, and that the teeth might specifically be elephant-like tusks. Al-Rawi and George note that while it was already known before the discovery of the Sulaymaniyah copy that the heroes are aware that the slaying of Humbaba would be an affront of the gods, which presumably indicates it was immoral from the point of view of the compilers, the passage highlighting this is better preserved in it, revealing that after Humbaba’s death Enkidu suddenly laments that their actions “have reduced the forest to a wasteland” and fearfully imagines Enlil questioning them. The same tablet indicates that afterwards the heroes decide to get rid of the only witnesses of the battle, the seven sons of Humbaba, apparently an otherwise unattested personification of his auras, partially tree-like and partially comparable to demons. Al-Rawi and George point out the similarity between this passage and references to the seven sons of Enmesharra, a primordial deity similarly killed alongside his offspring, possibly in order to guarantee the creation of circumstances favorable to mankind. This scene seemingly reflects the perception of Humbaba as an evil force who had to be vanquished, present elsewhere in the epic, rather than the speech directly preceding it, which the translators compare to the actions a murderer rapidly coming up with a justification for the act by blaming the victim, which according to their judgment adds “to the poem’s reputation for insight into the human condition” and marks the poet behind it as a “shrewd observer of the human mind”. Subsequently Enkidu suggests to Gilgamesh that they should fashion a great door from the cedars to offer it to Enlil to avoid his wrath. They decide to transport it to Nippur to present it to this god in his temple Ekur. They also take the head of Humbaba with them. Frans Wiggermann suggests that it was affixed somewhere in the Ekur as a trophy. Daniel Schwmer in a more recent publication notes that it is not impossible this interpretation is correct, but states that the traces of the passage which would have to allude to this event do not support such a restoration of the text of the epic, making the fate of Humbaba’s head impossible to ascertain. It plays no further role in the narrative. Humbaba is nonetheless mentioned again when Enkidu relays the dream he had in which the gods judged