GILGAMESH: Famous Sumerian and Akkadian Hero who was two thirds God, or was it one third?

His mum was NINSUN, a Cow Goddess, and his father (or fathers) was (or were) a demon (or demons) impersonating his father, who was the King of Uruk at the time.

Look, the Sumerians invented writing not mathematics, and it is the writing we are concerned with here — as GILGAMESH is the long-running epic superhero featured in the Akkadian Tablets. Get the full set. There are twelve of them. Not so much a case of 'couldn't put it down', but 'having immense difficulty in picking it up'.

It's called The Epic Of Gilgamesh and, no, it's not a murder mystery. In fact it's a roller-coaster adventure with the Gods, containing fantasy, love, bloodshed and allegorical insights into the human condition.

It was first produced in clay tablet form — we had to wait several thousand years for the paperback edition. There's also five Sumerian poems in case you've missed anything. These were all published in utmost antiquity 10,000,000,000 years ago (give or take a few billion years), but still top the mythological charts.