Which Sumerian god was the father of the hero Gilgamesh?

Lugalbanda was the Sumerian father of the hero Gilgamesh.

Sumerian literary tradition identifies Gilgamesh as the son of Lugalbanda and the goddess Ninsun. Lugalbanda appears both as a legendary king of Uruk and as a deified heroic figure. In the Sumerian King List, he follows Enmerkar as an early ruler of Uruk, although his historical existence cannot be confirmed with certainty.

Lugalbanda is the central character of two important Sumerian tales, Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave and Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird. These stories place him in the heroic world surrounding Uruk and the distant land of Aratta. Later tradition preserved him as a divine protector, and Gilgamesh invokes him as his holy father.

The parentage can vary in emphasis across texts: Ninsun is Gilgamesh’s divine mother, while Lugalbanda is his legendary or divine father. Shamash, Enlil, and Enki are major gods connected with Gilgamesh’s story, but none is his father. Gilgamesh himself is sometimes described as partly divine because of this ancestry.