Short answers, pulled from the story.
The earliest known epic poem written on a tablet fragment from ancient Sumer is Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. This artifact dates to the Neo-Sumerian Empire and represents one of humanity's earliest written epics.
The Mahabharata stretches over 100,000 ślokas or more than 200,000 verse lines across its ancient Indian composition. This massive work spans roughly three centuries from the 4th century BC to the 3rd century AD.
The Finnish Kalevala emerged in 1835 when Elias Lönnrot compiled national folk songs into a single volume. This work uses trochaic tetrameter known as Kalevala meter for Finnish national epics.
Aristotle defined epic poetry in his work Poetics as one form alongside lyric poetry and drama. He identified characteristics such as invocation to a muse and stories beginning in medias res.
Virgil, Apollonius of Rhodes, Dante, Camões, and Milton created derivative works that self-consciously continued Western traditions. Modern examples include Derek Walcott's Omeros published in 1990 and William Carlos Williams' Paterson released between 1946 and 1958.