retrieved.world/ENTER
Loading World (...)
version 02/12/2023
This is a mobile preview.
Use a VR headset for a better experience
Where can one go here? It is likely nowhere. As there are no doors to open, no walls to break, not a way to follow and not even a fence to jump over. And where can anyone be coming from here? In this world of marble deprived of life but still so perfect and heavenly.
There is only the infinite width of water disappearing in the fog and a timeless sky empty of any clouds, planets, and sun. All this is irreal, but this island is where an outer world of things is coming. And all these things are real: stories, words, paintings, and pictures.
The Temple at the perfect centre is where the rediscovery of past voices echoes perpetually. And outside from it, two paths are set over the water, where images are coming from our world, our human history, and our unique past.
Inside the Temple, four tablets with carved inscriptions are to be read by any wanderer. The tablet’s inscription, carved 4000 years ago, come with a world of images and of colours setting over the sky and the text panels are placed here to unfold more of the wide meaning they bear.
Finally, at the centre of this temple a fire is burning, it is the light that always lives, that never vanished, this is the symbol of something in humanity that is retrieved.
This story of Gilgamesh isn’t after all the story of one man, but it is the story of one “idea” of humanity. Gilgamesh is an anti-hero; he is the one who uses his power to creates pain on people. He is a King against the people, he is the dolour one’s creates on himself, on herself, and around himself, herself, without light. He is of the worst of what we are, already lair bare there in carved words in the earliest writings. He isn’t to be loved; but he is to be seen. And his mistakes, his ugliness are also to be seen, yet his imperfections are what tells us something about human beings, it unfolds a painful image of ourselves, which we can look at with a necessary humility.
Yet the ideas are resonating, death, friendship, life, and gods. Here this is a vision of humanity from 2023 and from all we have ever written and painted so far since we carve letters.
This world is displaying about 40 images, including photographs and paintings. All of the elements below were published under Creative Commons licence.
/
Fifth Tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh // SULAYMANIYAH MUSEUM, IRAQ // Photograph taken by Dr. Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin // CC BY-SA 4.0 LICENCE
Mural scultpure of Weepers, carved in the Tomb of Pharaoh Horemheb, Saqqara, Egypt // LOUVRE MUSEUM, FRANCE // Anonym author // CC BY 3.0 DEED licence
/
Artworks in the public domain
Burnley Relief - Queen of the Night/ ANCIENT MESOPOTAMIA / 19th-18th BC
-
discover this world with friends on Mozilla Hubs
