The Journey

This is an instrumental song, so you will not find one of those nifty mock clay tablets here.

The Recording process:

Anthony Garone Jr. - classical guitar
Daniel Shin - keyboards
Recorded, engineered and mixed at Cow Pilot Studios, Arizona by Tony Garone

I asked Anthony if he would write an instrumental for "The Journey". With his new passion for classical guitar - and the fact that you cannot play electric guitar at the ASU dorm, he composed this beautiful piece and had his friend Daniel Shin add keyboards.

Anthony Garone Jr. playing steel string guitar - he left his classical at the dorm

What is this song about?

The Journey could have been an entire album. There is so much that happens to Gilgamesh after the death of Enkidu. After finally accepting the fact that he is mortal, Gilgamesh decides to seek out the hero of the Sumerian flood, Ziasudra/Utnapishtim. He is the only mortal to become a god (to get more info on this go to Utnapishtim and the Great Flood) and Gilgamesh was determined to find out how this was done, so he too could become a god and not suffer the fate of mortals.

He first encounters the Scorpion people, whose contanence was so terrifying one could not gaze upon them. They guard the entrance to Mt. Mashu, where the sun god Utu/Shamash rises in the east to bring light to the world.

A famous cylinder seal depicting Utu/Shamash rising from Mt. Mashu (lower center holding a saw in his left hand), standing above him to the left is the winged Inana/Ishtar, to the right is Ea/Enki (the water and fish flows from his shoulders) and to the far right his two faced minister god Usmu.

We don't know how Gilgamesh convinces the Scorpion people to allow him passage to the bowels of Mt. Mashu (the text is missing) but he does. Gilgamesh travels through total darkness for many "leagues" until he arrives in a beautiful garden of gems. After being dazzled by the trees bearing fruit of carnelian and lapis lazuli, he approaches a tavern by the sea, where he meets Siduri.

This seal depicts the wise Shamash on his throne.

The Cuneiform for "The Journey"

Dr. Pagan explains:

The first sign is the Sumerogram for "road," "journey": KASKAL. This equates with Akkadian harr~num. I have included a syllabic spelling of harr~num in the second complex of signs, spelled har-ra-núm.