M is for Manas (Epics from A to Z)

Origins
The epic of Manas is the national epic of Kyrgyzstan, and UNESCO appointed as a Masterpiece in the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. It is truly epic in every sense of the word: In some of its sixty recorded versions it is more than 500.000 lines - twenty times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey put together (!!!). It is also estimated to be more then a thousand years old,