Forest

To many minds, the forest is synonymous with the untamed, untrammeled wilderness, where the writ of human civilization does not run. It is an idea that runs deep in the human psyche, going back to the very first story on written record, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Dating to the third millennium B.c.e. from the region of Mesopotamia in present-day Iraq, The Epic of Gilgamesh tells the story of a legendary but real king of Uruk, Gilgamesh, who goes on a series of adventures with his friend, Enkidu, before the latter dies and Gilgamesh embarks on a quest for immortality in order to avoid his friend's fate. On one of their adventures, they journey with fifty men bearing axes to the “Land of the Living,” which is also identified in the sources as the “Land of the cut-down Erin-trees,” suggesting that already in Neolithic times there was considerable exploitation of the forest, especially as Gilgamesh and Enkidu must cross seven mountain ranges before reaching trees of timber-bearing size. That Gilgamesh and his companions are there for timber to be used in building projects back in Uruk, which are described as going on day and night at the beginning of the poem, is indicated by the fact that they dress the logs of their branches before laying them “at the foot of the mountain.” Traditionally, the forest denuded by Gilgamesh is identified with the Cedars of Lebanon (which also feature in the Hebrew Old Testament) that still grow today in isolated pockets to the west of Iraq, either in the Mount Hermon range of the modern country of Lebanon or in the Amanus Mountains of north Syria. However, alternative theories place the Land of the Living to the east, in the land of Dilmun in present-day Bahrain or in the Zagros Mountains of south-central Iran. Likewise, while there is general agreement that the Erin tree was a fragrant, light-colored wood suitable for building timbers, the specific species with which it is to be identified are variously named as cedar, pine, juniper, or cypress. The fearsome “monster” Humbaba, who dwells in the forest and has been appointed by the gods as its guardian, is often equated with the chief deity of Elam, a rival civilization to Mesopotamia's that lay just to the east in south-west Iran. ¹ After Gilgamesh and Enkidu use a sword and an axe to slay Humbaba, despite his pleas for mercy and offer to cut down the trees himself, the Erin trees “shiver” for at least two leagues in lament for their “watcher” and the intruders next turn their weapons on the forest itself, felling trees and clearing their roots “as far as the banks of Euphrates.” Herein lies an allegory for man's innate fear of the forest and of all the wild secrets it contains, for which he seeks remedy by laying waste to the sheltering boughs of the trees. The Epic of Gilgamesh seems to establish a precedent for measuring the progress of civilization in terms of how much of the forest can be converted into arable land. ² However, under the later empire of the Assyrians, an inscription from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (c.1115–1077) describes how “groves” or plantations of pine, algum, and fruit trees imported from conquered territories as tribute were planted back in Mesopotamia, which apparently had never before been grown in the region.