„He who saw the Deep, the country’s foundation, he who knew the hidden things, he who was wise in all matters — Gilgamesh ..." The beginning of this epic from ancient Mesopotamia is one of the most memorable beginnings of world literature — but until 1998, no one knew it. Hardly anything was legible beyond the words “Deep,” “country" and “wise." The powerful first lines of the four-thousand-year-old poem about Gilgamesh, the Sumerian king and ruffian in search of immortality, were effectively lost until an American researcher came across a fragment of a cuneiform tablet in the British Museum's stacks, which had been stored there unseen for more than a hundred years. In 2007, another fragment was published — and only then was the prologue complete.