The Sumerians

Sumer or the ‘Land of Civilized Kings’ flourished in Mesopotamia, now modern-day Iraq at around 4500 BC. The Sumerians created an advanced civilization with its own system of elaborate language and writing, architecture and arts, astronomy and mathematics. Their religious system was a complex one comprised of hundreds of gods. According to the ancient texts each Sumerian city was guarded by its own god; and while humans and gods used to live together, the humans were servants to the gods. The Sumerian creation myth can be found on a tablet in Nippur, an ancient Mesopotamian city founded in approximately 5000 BC. The creation of Earth (Enuma Elish) according to the Sumerian tablets begins like this:

When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;
Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven,
Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being…

Sumerian mythology claims that in the beginning human-like gods ruled over Earth. When they came to the Earth there was much work to be done and these gods toiled the soil, digging to make it habitable and mining its minerals. The texts mention that at some point the gods mutinied against their labor. Anu, the god of gods, agreed that their labor was too great. His son Enki, or Ea, proposed to create man to bear the labor, and so, with the help of his half-sister Ninki, he did. A god was put to death, and his body and blood was mixed with clay. From that material the first human being was created, in likeness to the gods. This first man was created in Eden, a Sumerian word which means ‘flat terrain’. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Eden is mentioned as the garden of the gods and is located somewhere in Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Initially human beings were unable to reproduce on their own but were later modified with the help of Enki and Ninki. Thus, Adapa was created as a fully functional and independent human being. This ‘modification’ was done without the approval of Enki’s brother, Enlil, and a conflict between the gods began. Enlil became the adversary of man, and the Sumerian tablet mentions that men served gods and went through much hardship and suffering. dapa, with the help of Enki, ascended to Anu where he failed to answer a question about ‘the bread and water of life’. Opinions vary on the similarities between this creation story and the biblical story of Adam and Eve in Eden.

Trilingual cuneiform inscription of Xerxes at Van Fortress in Turkey, written in Old Persian, Akkadian, and Elamite. In 1849, Sir Austen Henry Layard, English Archaeologist and global explorer, found himself among the ruins of ancient Bablyon in southern Mesopotamia. It was there he discovered the first pieces of what would eventually become one of Archaeology’s most controversial puzzles: Cuneiform Tablets. Within this incredible ancient text are stories that have an uncanny resemblance to the Biblical stories of creation, deities, and even a reference to a great flood and a giant ark to survive it. Specialists have spent decades trying to decipher these intricate symbols. One of the more fascinating aspects of cuneiform script is the evolution of the characters from the original pictogram Sumerian language to the wedge shaped strokes of Akkadian and Assyrian writing. But the idea that this ancient civilization knew of distant star systems and had interacted with extraterrestrial life started with a controversial researcher and author named Zecharia Sitchin. His “Ancient Alien Theory” attributes the beginnings of Mesopotamian society to a race of beings known as the Annunaki, who traveled from a distant 12th planet called Nibiru.

Gods Among Us

One element of the tablets that is hotly debated within archaeology circles is the nature of these Annunaki. Considered by the mainstream to be metaphors for a creation myth, the stories of the Annunaki can actually be found in other texts, specifically the book of Genesis in the Hebrew and Christian religions, but with many of the names altered or changed. From the creation of “heaven and earth” out of “a watery abyss” to the notion of being created in a higher being’s image, and even in the familiar “Adam and Eve” and “Noah’s Ark” stories, there is no question that these stories maintain eerily similar depictions of the origins of our species. But the question is, if these tablets are older than the Bible, then what elements of these stories are myth and how much of it is true? There is a school of thought that has concluded that not only is the planet Nibiru real, but that the Annunaki were a powerful race of extraterrestrials with the capacity for genetic experimentation and manipulation. One of the more compelling arguments for this is the fact that science has recently revealed that there probably was a global catastrophic flood that took place about 10,000 years ago. This could account for a major loss of human population and could have essentially hit the reset button on civilization as human beings were forced to start over from scratch. Was there an “Ark” or ship of some kind that was able to save a small percentage of the population, to later rebuild society? If so, was this simply a metaphor for an alien spaceship or an actual wooden boat? According to the followers of Sitchin’s school of thought, if these stories were metaphors, it was for the technology used by these powerful beings.

So Where are They Now?

But the question remains, “If our species was the result of genetic experimentation by alien life, where are they now? “Nearly 31,000 of these ancient clay tablets are now housed in the British Museum, most of which still have yet to be translated. Many of these texts are fragmented and incomplete, making context difficult to piece together at times. What’s fascinating about the Cuneiform writings is that over the course of several thousand years, from the earliest form of pictograph writings to the re-interpretation of the old characters into the wedge shaped indentations of the various later Mesopotamian civilizations, the way in which the language was written changed dramatically. There isn’t one hard and fast rule for translation.
In the above image, we see an example of the wedge shaped writing, which allowed a scribe to effectively use one tool to quickly press into a soft clay tablet from right to left. As the languages evolved, so did the writing system, and between 4,000 BC and 500 BC the meanings of words changed to reflect the influence of the Semitic people that conquered Mesopotamia. In the original pictograph form any character could have various meanings depending on context. Over time, the writing shifted increasingly and the number of characters was reduced from over 1,500 symbols to about 600 signs.

But Why Earth?

Sitchin held a pretty unique view regarding the reasons for the Annunaki presence here on Earth. According to his research, He concluded that these beings, “evolved after Nibiru entered the solar system and first arrived on Earth probably 450,000 years ago, looking for minerals, especially gold, which they found and mined in Africa. Sitchin states that these “gods” were the rank-and-file workers of the colonial expedition to Earth from planet Nibiru.” (wikipedia.com)It’s a theory that has been ruled out as quite simply preposterous by academics and peer reviewed Archaeologists around the world since it was first proposed. There are many Ancient Alien theorists who refuse to consider Sitchin’s contributions due to his lack of empirical evidence and the fact that his is a translation of the tablets that many Cuneiform experts do not agree with. However, many modern researchers believe that some of Zecharia Sitchin’s work is legitimate and could be used to help in the translation of other tablets creating a context for the names and stories of these ancient people. Among this new breed of researcher are explorers like Michael Tellinger, who claims to have found forensic evidence to support many of the unsubstantiated claims that Sitchin made in the last century. Tellinger holds that there is in fact evidence of gold mining in parts of South Africa and that some of the references in Sitchin’s translation of the Sumerian texts can be attributed to actual places there, with landmarks and megalithic structures that fit the narrative perfectly.

Sumerian Firsts

The Sumerians built the first cities that were established the first monarchies and bureaucracies. The city was ruled by the gods through the priest king who exercised divine authority. Under the king were priests who surveyed land, assigned fields, ran the complex irrigation system, and distributed the harvest. A bureaucracy was established to administer the growing complex society.

They invented writing, first in pictographs and then developing into cuneiform. and used it to keep track of trade and to create the world’s first known literature. The world’s oldest book is The Epic of Gilgamesh, a collection of stories about a Sumerian hero.

They invented the wheel which facilitated the movement of goods and trade. They invented mathematics, developing a system of numbers based on a unit of 60. We still use their development of time measurement, 60 seconds in a minute, and 60 minutes in an hour and the division of a circle into 360 degrees. This also was developed to facilitate trade.

The priests made observations of the heavens and developed a calendar based on these observations-12 lunar months with a leap year every 3 years to catch up to the solar year). These observations were the foundation of astronomy.

The Sumerians invented irrigation, which made it possible to build the first cities by creating a food surplus and a regular dependable food supply.

They invented law, a system of resolving disputes based on a code of rules and retribution by a central authority rather than relying on private retribution. The Code of Hammurabi (Babylonian) is generally believed to be based on Sumerian law.