Introduction
Enkidu is a wild man created by the goddess Aruru at the gods' request specifically to check King Gilgamesh's excesses and give the restless king an equal to contend with.
Family
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From Rival to Beloved Companion
Enkidu was civilized through his encounter with the temple priestess Shamhat, who taught him human ways before he traveled to Uruk. Rather than remaining rivals, Enkidu and Gilgamesh became inseparable friends after an initial wrestling match, undertaking the expedition to kill Humbaba and, later, the Bull of Heaven together. Enkidu's subsequent death from a divinely-sent illness, sent as punishment for the pair's killing of Humbaba and the Bull, devastates Gilgamesh and directly motivates the epic's second half: his desperate, ultimately unsuccessful quest for immortality.
Mesopotamian religion spans Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian sources composed and recopied across nearly three thousand years, so names, genealogies, and even a deity's role often shift between traditions (Sumerian An/Enki/Inanna alongside their Akkadian/Babylonian forms Anu/Ea/Ishtar); the account above follows the most widely attested version, usually as consolidated in the Babylonian Enuma Elish or the standard Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh.