I think Gilgamesh looks like a lion because of II Samuel 23:20.
And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man, of Kabzeel, who had done many acts, he slew two lionlike men of Moab: he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow
Gilgamesh was Iraqi, and Moab refers the region on the other side of the Dead Sea from Israel.