these shining ones of Mesopotamia what or who are the shining ones it's possibly the biggest question to come out of Mesopotamia it's such a unique specific terminology to describe a group of beings and it is or deities however the shining ones as they're referred to in so many ancient cultures and texts all supposedly independent from each other they're often given specific names in those cultures yet they're nicknamed the shining ones whatever the attribution of shining means is a nickname that stuck across vast distances and epochs in Mesopotamia they were referred to as the OP Khalu the Anunnaki or her shoe generally they're described as serpent beings seven sages fish beings feathered serpents angels watchers or elders in ancient Egypt they went by the name of Neteru or shem su hor the Dogon culture spinoff from Egypt they were called the Nomos in India they bore names like Davis or Nagas biblical accounts give them or their descendants names like Elohim Nephilim Gabor 'm seraphim or Rephaim whether world mythologies religious or ancient historical texts there is repetitive specific references to a group of divinity known as The Shining ones they're often presented as gifted individuals preservers of ancient knowledge they're often described as amazing deities who created mankind and walked among humans at the same time there are also described as serpent fish like angels or bird men however the OPCON lose certainly in later Babylonian times may have simply been some priesthood re-enacting rituals associated with the original shining ones mythology oral history and symbolism may well be the only method of knowledge keeping that lasts the ravages of time texts degrade maybe they last millennia but eventually all disintegrate mythology and symbolism is not a perfect record keeping mechanism it morphs over long epochs yet it does also preserve a core remnant of the original thought process clearly this works or we wouldn't see serpent mythology on a global scale or knowledge of a mysterious group known in antiquity as The Shining ones touch every corner of the planet eventually patriarchy took control of the planet literally most certainly from the time of the Romans onwards knowledge of the shining ones and their wisdom was effectively cleansed the church tried to erase everything they could from history at least from public view the Book of Enoch contains valuable information on the shining ones the major reason why it was excluded from the Bible it's a fact that the church denied the world any knowledge of the works true content for over a thousand years as we've already seen the majority of biblical source material comes from Mesopotamia the Gilgamesh flood epic Abraham's ziggurat of war Armenia the land of Noah the Garden of Eden serpents forbidden knowledge to name a popular few when the last great Mesopotamia culture died out with Alexander the Great conquering Persia so did a lineage of knowledge enter the greco-roman period civilization The Shining ones Mesopotamian regional name was a nuna today they are more popularly known as the Anunnaki although there are many other variations this group of deities appears in the mythological traditions of the ancient Sumerians Acadians Assyrians and Babylonians descriptions of how many Anunnaki there were and what role they fulfilled our inconsistent and often contradictory in the earliest Sumerian writings discussing the Annina comes from the post Akkadian period via nuna are the most powerful deities in the pantheon descendants of Anu the god of the heavens and their primary function is popularly accepted as decreeing the fates of humanity I knew in Akkadian or on in Sumerian literally mean sky heaven it's the divine personification of the sky supreme god and ancestor of all the deities in ancient Mesopotamian religion on who was believed to be the supreme source of all authority for the other gods and for all mortal rulers and he's described in one text as the one who contains the entire universe he is identified with the North ecliptic pole centered in Draco and along with his sons and Lille and Enki constitutes the highest divine triad personifying the three bands of constellations of the vault of the sky by the time of the earliest written records on who was rarely worshiped and the veneration was instead devoted to his son and Leo but throughout Mesopotamian history the highest deity in the pantheon was always said to possess the Anu - meaning a new power on whose primary role in myths is as the ancestor of the Anunnaki the major deities of Sumerian religion his primary cult center was the a onna temple in the city of Uruk but by the Akkadian period his authority in a roué had largely been ceded to the goddess Anana the Queen of Heaven I news consort in the earliest Sumerian text is the goddess Horus but she's later the goddess ki and in Akkadian Tech's vegan is an - whose name is the feminine form of a new Han who briefly appears in the Akkadian epic of gilgamesh in which his daughter Ishtar the east semitic equivalent to annona persuades him to give her the bowl of heaven so that she may send it to attack Gilgamesh the incident results in the death of Enkidu who becomes the driving force for the remaining portion of the epic in another legend on who summons the immortal hero adop above for him for breaking the wing of the south wind on who orders adop o to be given the food of water and immortality which Adama having been warned beforehand by Enki that on who would offer him the food and water of death an ancient Hittite religion on who is a former ruler of the gods who was overthrown by his son kumar be tesha overthrew kumar be avenged on his mutilation and became the new king of the gods in the Sumerian epic in Anna's descent into the netherworld the Anunnaki Shining ones are portrayed as seven judges who sit before the throne of a rush giggle in the underworld later Akkadian texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh follow this portrayal during the old babylonian period the Anunnaki were believed to be the cathodic deities of the underworld while the gods of the heavens were known as the egg egee the ancient Hittites identified the Anunnaki as the oldest generation of gods who had been overthrown and banished to the underworld by the younger gods the name Anunnaki is derived from on the Sumerian god of the sky the name is variously written don una don una ka da noon na meaning princely offspring or offspring of Anu the Anunnaki were believed to be the offspring of on and his consort the earth goddess ki Assyria lodgest Samuel Noah Kramer identifies key with the Sumerian mother goddess nin herzog stating that they were originally the same figure the oldest of the Anunnaki was and Leo the god of air and chief god of the Sumerian Pantheon these Sumerians believed that until and Leo was born heaven and earth were inseparable then and Leo cleaved heaven and earth and Chu and carried away the earth will his father Anu carried away the sky the Anunnaki are chiefly mentioned in literary texts and very little evidence to support the existence of any cult of them has yet been on earth this is likely because each member of the Anunnaki had his or her individual cult separate from the others similarly no representations of the Anunnaki as a group have yet been discovered although a few depictions of its individual members have been identified deities in Mesopotamia were almost exclusively anthro morphic they were thought to possess extraordinary powers and were often envisioned as being of tremendous physical size the deities typically wore Melhem an ambiguous substance which covered them in terrifying splendor Malham could also be worn by heroes kings giants and even demons the effect that seeing a deities malum has on a human is described as nee a word for the physical tingling of the flesh deities were almost always depicted wearing horned caps consisting of up to seven superimposed pairs of ox horns they were also sometimes depicted wearing clothes with elaborate decorative gold and silver ornaments sewn into them the ancient Mesopotamians believed that their deities lived in heaven but that a gods statue was a physical embodiment of the God himself as such cult statues were given constant care and attention and a set of priests were assigned to tend to them these priests would clothe the statues and place feast before them so they could eat a deities temple was believed to be that deities literal place of residence the gods had boats full-sized barges which were normally stored inside their temple and were used to transport their cult statues along waterways during various religious festivals the gods also had chariots which were used for transporting their cult statues by land sometimes a deity statue would be transported to the location of a battle so that the deity could watch the battle unfold the major deities of Mesopotamian Pantheon which include the Anunnaki were believed to participate in the Assembly of the Gods through which gods made all their decisions this assembly was a divine counterpart to the semi Democratic legislative system that existed during the third dynasty of or circa 21 12 BC to 2004 BC the earliest known usage 'iz of the term Anunnaki come from the inscriptions written during the reign of Judea 21:44 221 24 BC and the third dynasty of or in the earliest text the term is applied to the most powerful and important deities in the Sumerian Pantheon the descendants of the sky God on this group of deities probably includes the seven gods who decree on and Leo Enki neener shag Nana boo too and in Ana although certain deities are described as members of the Anunnaki no complete list of the names of all the Anunnaki has survived and they're usually only referred to as a cohesive group in literary texts furthermore Sumerian texts describe the Anunnaki inconsistently and do not agree on how many Anunnaki there were or what their divine function was originally the Anunnaki appear to have been heavenly deities with immense powers in the poem and key in the world order the Anunnaki do homage to n ki sing hymns of praise and his honor and take up their dwellings among the people of Sumer the same composition repeatedly states that the Anunnaki decree the fates of mankind time and fate deities are personifications of time often in the sense of human lifetime and human fate in polytheistic religions in monotheism time can be personified as in father time in European folklore or in Persian Zoroastrian tradition virtually every major D in the Sumerian pantheon was regarded as the patron of a specific city and was expected to protect that city's interest the deity was believed to permanently reside within the city's temple one text mentions as many as 50 Anunnaki associated with the city of Erie do an anonymous descent into the netherworld there are only seven Anunnaki who reside within the underworld and serve as judges Anana stands trial before them for her attempt to take over the underworld they deem her guilty of hubris and condemned her to death major deities and Sumerian mythology were associated with specific celestial bodies in Anna was believed to be the planet Venus Mbutu was believed to be the Sun Nana was the moon on was identified with all the stars in the equatorial sky and Lille with those of the northern sky and Enki with those in the southern sky the path of an Lille celestial orbit was a continuous symmetrical circle around the North celestial pole but those of on and Enki were believed to intersect at various points Akkadian tax of the second millennium BC follows similar portrayals of the Anunnaki from and on his descent into the netherworld depicting them as tonic underworld deities in an abbreviated Akkadian version of in Ana's descent written in the early second millennium a rush giggle the queen of the underworld comments that she drinks water with the Anunnaki later in the same poem Ereshkigal offers her servant namtar to fetch the Anunnaki from al-ghani 'no to decorate the threshold steps with coral and to seat them on golden Thrones in Mesopotamian mythology a rush Gaga literally means queen of the great earth was the goddess of core the land of the dead or underworld in Sumerian mythology in later East Semitic myths she was said to rule here kala alongside her husband Nergal sometimes her name is given as ear kala like the way the name hades was given in greek mythology for both the underworld and its ruler and sometimes it's given as nin kegel literally great lady of the earth or lady of the great earth in Sumerian texts a rush Gaga was the only one who could pass judgment and give laws in her kingdom the main temple dedicated to her was in Kufa in the ancient Sumerian poem and on his descent to the underworld a rush cagoule is described as anon as older sister the two main myths involving a rush giggle are the story of an Ana's descent into the underworld and the story of a rush giggles marriage to the god Nergal in ancient Sumerian mythology a rush goggle is the queen of the underworld she's the older sister of the goddess and Nana Nana and Ereshkigal represent polar opposites Anana is the queen of heaven but a rush goggle is the queen of air kala Ereshkigal plays a very prominent and significant role in two myths most notably and Ana's descent into the underworld in the poem the goddess and onna descends into the underworld apparently seeking to extend her powers there a rush Google is anon his older sister when natty the gatekeeper of the underworld informs a rescue girl that annona is at the gates of the underworld demanding to be let in a rush Gaga responds by ordering Nettie to bolt the seven gates of the underworld and to open each gate separately but only after Anana has removed one article of clothing Anana proceeds through each gate removing one article of clothing at each gate finally once she's gone through all seven gates she finds herself naked and powerless standing before the throne of a rush qug all these seven judges of the underworld jaja nana and declare her to be guilty and Ana's minister ninja boy however pleads with Enki and Anki agrees to rescue an Anna from the underworld Anke sends two sexless beings down to the underworld to revive in Anna with the blood and water of life these sexless beings escort and Anna up from the underworld but a horde of angry demons following on a backup from the underworld demanding to take someone else down to the underworld as an honest replacement when Anana discovers that her husband de Musa has not mourned her death she becomes ireful towards him and orders the demons to take de musa as a replacement the other myth is the story of Nergal the plague God once the gods held a banquet that Ereshkigal is queen of the underworld could not come up to attend they invited her to send a messenger and she sent her visi a nom tart in her place he was treated well by all but for the exception of being disrespected by Nergal because of this Nergal was banished to the kingdom controlled by the goddess versions very at this point but all of them result in him becoming her husband in later tradition nogales said to have been the victor taking her his wife and ruling the land himself it's theorized that the story of Inanna z' descent is told to illustrate the possibility of an escape from the underworld where the Nergal myth is intended to reconcile the existence of two rulers of the underworld a goddess and a God the addition of Nergal represents the harmonizing tendency to unite arash giggle as the queen of the underworld with the God who as god of war and pestilence brings death to the living and thus becomes the one who presides over the dead in some versions of the myths a rush gurgles the underworld by herself but in other versions of the myth a reskin gal rules alongside a husband subordinate to ER named Google Anna in his book Sumerian mythology a study of spiritual and literacy achievement in the 3rd millennium BC the renowned scholar of ancient Sumer Samuel Noah Kramer writes that according to the introductory passage of the ancient Sumerian epic poem Gilgamesh Enkidu in the underworld a rush Gaga was forcibly abducted taken down to the underworld by Corps and was forced to become queen of the underworld against her will to avenge the abduction of a rush Gaga Enki the god of water set out in a boat to slay the core the core defends itself by pelting Enki with rocks of many sizes and by sending the waves beneath Angie's boat to attack Angie the poem never actually explains who the ultimate victor of the battle is but it's implied that Enki wins in hittite mythology the Sun goddess of the earth rules as an underworld deity though the deities of likely proto-indo-european origin this is an aspect thought to have been influenced by in later times the Greeks and Romans appear to have syncretized Ereshkigal with their own goddess Hecate in the heading of a spell in the michigan magical papyrus which has been dated to the late 3rd or early 4th century AD Hecate is referred to as Hecate a rush canal and is invoked using magical words and gestures to alleviate the caster's fear of punishment in the afterlife during the old babylonian period circa 1830 bc to 1531 bc a new set of deities known as the eggie are introduced the relationship between Anunnaki and the icky ghee is unclear on some occasions the categories appear to be used synonymously but in other writings such as the poem of era there's a clear distinction between the two in the late Akkadian Atrahasis epoch via gr the 6th generation of the gods who are forced to perform labor for the Anunnaki after 40 days the aguirre Bell and the god Enki one of the Anunnaki creates humans to replace them era sometimes called era is an Akkadian plagued God known for an a pose of eighth century BCE era is the god of mayhem and pestilence who's responsible for periods of political confusion in that epoch that's given the modern title era the writer Kapiolani Marduk descendant he says of de bebé presents himself in a Calif own following the text is simply the transcriber of a visionary dream in which era himself revealed the text the poem opens with an invocation the god era is sleeping fitfully with his consort identified with memy demand not with the other goddess mani but is roused by his advisor Isum and the seven sabeti or sabeti who are sons of heaven and earth champions without peer is the repeated formula and each are assigned a destructive destiny by Anu the sabadie callout era to lead the destruction of mankind Ison tries to mollify eras weaken violence to no avail foreign people invade Babylonia but are struck down by plague even mardik the patron of Babylon relinquishes his throne era for a time tablets 2 & 3 are occupied with a debate between era and Isum era goes to battle and babylon sipar luke dork Oregon Zoo and dare the world is turned upside down righteous and unrighteous are killed alike era orders Isum to complete the work by defeating babylons enemies then the god withdraws to his own seat in m islam with the terrifying 7 and mankind is saved a proprietary prayer ends the work the poem must have been central to Babylonian culture at least 36 copies have been recovered from 5 first millennium sites a sewer Babylon Nineveh Sultan Tapei and or more even than have been recovered of the epic of gilgamesh the text appears to some readers to be a mythologies ation of historic turmoil in Mesopotamia those scholars disagree as to the historic events that inspired the poem the poet explains tablet for 3 you changed out your divinity and made yourself like a man the era text soon assumes magical functions parts of the text were inscribed on amulets employed for exorcism and as prophylactic against the plague the 7 are known from a range of Akkadian incantation texts their demonic names vary but their number 7 is invariable the five tablets containing the era I pose were first published in 1956 with an improved text based on additional finds appearing in 1969 perhaps 70% of the poem has been recovered the consonants of the purely mythic seven led by era echoes with the Egyptian seven Against Thebes widely assumed by Helenus to have had a historical basis from the middle babylonian period circa 1592 to 1155 BC onward the name Anunnaki was applied generally to the deities of the underworld whereas the name eggy was applied to the heavenly deities during this period the underworld da's dom kina mergal and Madonna are listed as the most powerful among the Annunaki alongside Mar Duke the national god of ancient Babylon in the standard Akkadian epic of gilgamesh circa 1200 BC who'd not wished him the immortal survivor of the Great Flood describes the Anunnaki as seven judges of the underworld who set the land of flame as the storm approaches later when the flood comes Ishtar the east semitic equivalent to annona and the Anunnaki mourn over the destruction of humanity in the Babylonian and numa Alice Marduk assigns the Anunnaki their positions a late Babylonian version of the epic mentions 609 Aki of the underworld but only 300 Anunnaki of heaven indicating the existence of a complex underworld cosmology in gratitude the Anunnaki the great gods built us a Gila a splendid temple dedicated to Marduk EA and Enlil in the 8th century BC poem of era the Anunnaki are described as the brothers of the god Nergal and are depicted as antagonistic towards humanity a badly damaged text from the neo-assyrian period 911 to 612 BC describes Marr do cleaning his army of Anunnaki in the sacred city of Nepal and causing a disturbance the disturbance causes a flood which forces the resident gods of Nepal to take shelter in the assumed Asia temple in Nenita and lille is enraged at Marduk's transgression and orders the gods of assume Asia to take Marduk and the other Anunnaki as prisoners the Anunnaki are captured but Marduk appoints his frontrunner mustache ear hobbling to lead a revolt against the gods of ashume Asia and send his messenger near attack meal to alert Nabu the god of literacy when the issue Meisha gods here Nabu speak they come out of their temple to search for him Margo defeats the assumed Asia gods and takes 360 of them as prisoners of war including Enlil himself and Leo protests that the estimation gods are innocent so Marda puts them on trial before the annunaki the text ends with a warning from Dom Kiana another name for dinner sog to the gods and to humanity pleading them not to repeat the war between the Anunnaki and the gods of assume Asia when we look at the ancient Hittite examples Mesopotamian Anunnaki in the mythologies of the hurry ins and the Hittites which flourished in the mid to late second millennium BC the oldest generation of gods was believed to have been banished by the younger gods to the underworld where they were ruled by the goddess Lalwani Hittite scribes identified these deities with the Anunnaki in ancient hurryin the Anunnaki are referred to as Cargill's Saiyans which means former ancient gods or Qataris Saiyans which means gods of the earth hit site and hurry entreaties were often sworn by the old gods to ensure that the oaths would be kept in one myth the gods are threatened by the stone giant illy Kumi so EA the later name for n key commands the former gods to find the weapon that was used to separate the heavens from earth although the names of the Anunnaki and hurryin and hit site X frequently vary they are always eight in number in one hit site ritual the names of the old gods are listed as a don't re the diviner zukie the dream interprets air Pizza Lord of the earth nara nam sara minke a monkey and copy the old gods had no identifiable cult in the hurry of hittite religion instead the Koreans and Hittites sought to communicate with the old gods through the ritual sacrifice of a piglet in a pit dug in the ground the old gods were often invoked to perform ritual purifications the Hittite account of the old gods banishment to the underworld ultimately became the source for the Greek poet Hesiod 's narrative of the overthrow of the titans by the Olympians in his Theogony the Greek sky God Muranos whose name means heaven is the father of the Titans and is derived from the Hittite version of in Hesiod's account or enosis castrated by his son Chronos just as Anu was castrated by his son Kumar be in the hittites story over time because of the scientific knowledge technological and spiritual wisdom and often alleged extrasensory abilities they came to be thought of as God's sons and daughters of the gods by the less developed people who lived peacefully beside them these Shining ones were said repeatedly to have civilized humankind perhaps following a global catastrophe most mainstream historians do not take seriously either the existence of this mysterious godlike culture or the global catastrophe even though many individual researchers have concluded otherwise these shining ones also embraced a rebel group known in legend as the fallen ones fallen angels or watchers who are recorded as having married and reproduced outside their own kind their hybrid offspring being known as Nephilim and described as Giants the story goes that the catastrophe that nearly wiped out humanity as a great deluge due to the wrath of God or rather the wrath of Elohim or Shining ones who somehow initiated it to destroy the rebels and their hybrid offspring although fleeting references to the shining ones can be found in the Old Testament there's much more about them in the Book of Enoch an ancient work that was omitted from the Bible The Shining ones were held in such awe by later generations that they were revered as deities and linked with the heavens they appear independently in many mythologies of Europe notably Irish Finnish Norse and Greek over millennia The Shining ones or at least knowledge of them turned into Brotherhood's or priesthoods well-versed in the propaganda skills needed to maintain both religious and political authority many of the world's unexplained mysteries in ancient cultures point to the shining ones not just mesopotamia revolving around the core belief of their advanced scientific and metaphysical knowledge I knew and the famed Mesopotamian sky God whose given the Anunnaki pantheon such notoriety in modern times has a history that reads like a science fiction movie many now believe the Greek pantheon is just a rendition of the older Mesopotamian Pantheon with a new at the helm it wasn't until much later that I knew was viewed as the father of the gods and ruler of the heavens his position as ruler of the heavens passed to his firstborn and Leo with dire consequences and it's where we get a lot of history from I know is the son of an char and quisha literally meaning heaven and earth who in turn were the second born of the primordial couple OPSEU and Tiamat at the beginning of the world scholars don't know what to make of the ruler of the heavens being a second born it doesn't sound like an all Supreme Being sounding more like a European royal dynasty he was originally a sumerian sky deity known as on which translates as sky the Akkadians later adopt him circa 2375 BC as a new heaven the almighty all-powerful Sargon the great of Akkad 23:34 through 2279 BCE speaks avenue and ananna in his writings mostly as legitimizing his rule or assisting in to the conquest as so many people revered I knew you cannot understand anything about the Anunnaki or the Sumerian Pantheon without understanding him and of course his offspring I know is most often represented in symbolism simply by a crown or crown on a throne this iconography symbolizes the status as king of the gods an honor and responsibility later conferred upon and lyl Marduk son of and he at Dion be god of wisdom and a sewer of the Assyrians all of which were profoundly elevated by Anu and thus associated with him his consort is Archer also known as for us goddess of the earth and they produced many offspring which are more commonly known as the Anunnaki lesser known as their offspring the two key which permeate the entire Mesopotamian mythology the impact of the Anunnaki and who to key is vast and complex affecting most ancient religions and tying in with so many ancient civilizations although I knew is not featured prominently in many myths he's often mentioned as a background figure this is because as veneration of the God progressed he became more and more distant I know the sky God was one of the many younger gods born of OPSEU and t-mount gradually becoming the Lord of the heavens above he was the God who maintained all aspects of existence alongside and Leal and Enki uninformed a trio which ruled the heavens birth and underworld in one version or in another heaven the sky in the earth I know rarely makes an appearance as the main character in mythology but when he's mentioned it's always a significant role the ANU ma elihss and Anu the sky god the babylonian epic of creation more famously known as an umma elihss circa 1100 BCE is the epoch regarding of birth of the gods and the formation of the world and subsequently human beings initially there was only the swirling waters of chaos which divided into a male principal OPSEU symbolized by fresh water and a female principal Tiamat salt water these two deities gave birth to lamu and l'homme known as protective deities and anshar and kishar who sired the younger guns I know belongs to this younger group and it's in this epoch we get his backstory or place in origins of it all this group is problematic and as little to jus and so amused themselves in various ways which come to anger OPSEU he cannot sleep at night for the noise and they distract him during the day he eventually decides after conferring with his Vizier that he must destroy them although the epoch of creation focuses Tiamat and creation we get an amazing backdrop to a news place in the world tomate overhears her husband's deliberation and warns her grandson Enki of the peril after pondering all his options carefully Anke puts OPSEU into a deep sleep and slays him Tiamat is shocked and disowns all the younger gods she quickly assembles an army of monsters to eliminate them the Chu armies thus clash and the younger gods are defeated and retreat again and again at this difficult position a new tries diplomacy with Tia Motte and tries to resolve the problem the younger gods seem to have every faith and a news ability but when a new face is tioman he falls apart and returns to the others to report his failure in the mission a news diplomatic failure nonetheless contributes to the younger God's ultimate victory the gods were so confident of a new success and when their hope was disappointed they come to realise they must change their habits the old paradigm must go and they must accept change or find a new way of attaining their goal Marduk the son of Anki comes forward to offer himself as their Savior only if they will elect him their king Marduk defeats the champion of Tiamat and slays her but he would not have risen to the challenge if my new had not failed in his diplomacy I knew then uh sure xin the new era which allows for the ultimate victory of the gods once piece has been reestablished maar Duke and his father said about the business of creation and the world and subsequently human beings are established the Inoue elihss is sometimes called these seven tablets of creation the many versions always describe the creation of human beings from a Mesopotamian perspective the story was found on multiple tablets that dated back to approximately 1100 BCE although indications show that the stories themselves existed much earlier than that archeologists discovered them at the Nineveh libraries although the creation myth follows the same basic path no matter which part of Mesopotamia comes from the names of the gods and other players differ whether the precise recording was from Babylon or Sumer the copies discovered and well researched come from Babylon which makes Mar Duke who was considered the patron god of that civilization one of the important characters in the story if a Sumerian copy was found for example he may not have been mentioned quite as much leonova lish is the best depiction we have of the dynamic interactions of the Enki verses and Lil Saga it tells the story of how egg Ian and Leo the Divine Brothers who first decided to create humankind as a labor force or serving class it also deals with how the gods came to be the creation of the universe and the world and every other detail that any classic creation myth would include the creation of everything this Babylonian creation myth is often considered the oldest story that exists in the entire world it tells a tale of creation that's echoed through the millennia even religions still practice in this current time in the beginning there was nothing but a fast swirl of water flowing through chaotic nothingness the first thing that happened was that salt water characterized by Tiamat the dragon goddess and fresh water characterized by the God OPSEU divided as soon as they split apart they came back together again to become the parents of additional gods OPSEU apparently enjoyed sleeping peacefully and found that younger gods were too noisy and boisterous decided to eliminate them all Tiamat warns Enki their eldest son who lulls his father to sleep and eliminates him instead Tiamat who did not expect this type of outcome gets very angry with the younger gods and begins a battle against them she hands over the tablets of destiny to her top advisor kingu who champions her in battle she also creates monsters to attack her sons and other rebellious gods finally Marduk's shows up bargains for ultimate power if he stops King goo and Tiamat and ends up defeating both the story goes that he shot the dragon goddess with an arrow and when she cried out in pain her tears form the Tigris and Euphrates rivers her body becomes the earth and heaven surrounding it when the conflict is over Marduk enslaves the eleven monsters directs various younger gods to take care of certain responsibilities and seizes the tablets of destiny for himself as a final act of payback Marduk and the High God eeeya Enki decide to create humankind from King goos body and clay of the earth parallels with judeo-christian stories as may seem oddly as the creation myth influenced the judeo-christian one to some degree Hebrew scribes used the concept of a void without form and a God that created the earth waters heavens and finally humankind in turn when Mesopotamian archaeology increased in the nineteenth century historians quickly discovered that the book of Genesis was not the oldest creation story in existence other biblical stories such as Noah and the flood and the fall of man existed in Mesopotamian times - they first appeared in Sumer were translated into ancient Babylonian transferred to the Assyrians and finally fell into the hands of Hebrews the passage of folklore through time and across locations has long been common events throughout history of course many differences exist between the story of a dragon queen and a lot of a concord god and the tales told of the monolithic god in the bible i knowa elihss describes many different aspects of the creation tale that did not make their way into the story shared by the Hebrews they edited heavily they focused on just one all-powerful God that created everything out of a chaotic universe this parallels Marduk most of all especially when it comes to the expectations of humankind to worship and thank the gods for their gift of life the priesthood of Marduk in the mid-1700s BCE the people of Babylon turned to Marduk more and more as their reference for worship and religious practices prior to this they'd focused on the goddess Anana this heralded in a time of gods replacing goddesses as some of the most prominent deities of the time as Babylon got stronger they believed that aligning themselves with the most powerful God would help their future the priesthood of Marduk expanded as political and economic power grew in Babylon as times change so two stories eventually the creation myth began to push the idea that Marduk was the only King and any of the other name deities existed only as parts of him to celebrate the new year and mardukan general many people would read from the innumerous sing songs of praise and glorify statue of this God and enshrine him in a special small house or temple among the first humans created are those skilled and wisdom and one of the very adept is Adama the myth of Adama and the meeting with Anu the myth of Adama 14th century BCE tells the amazing story of the first man a creation of eggie he was bestowed with eggies wisdom although Enki adores his creation he admits that he cannot give him everything otherwise he would be a god and so he holds back on immortality Adamo has wisdom mezes main trait but with this wisdom he understands he will die one day and nothing he can do can change that content with what he has and his priestly duties at irre do in pinky's temple he hunts and fishes and amuses himself this is the backdrop to what has become known as the myth of Adama which many have now recognized is the exact same theoretically as the Adam and Eve scenario the adopted story is so central to Mesopotamian mythology and the religion its oldest copy was mysteriously found as far as a can athon city of Amarna in egypt the myth of Adama and the food of life alongside all the other ancient stories of gods goddesses and humans comes the myth of Adama which tells of the fall of man and their existence as mortal beings the first human ever created by iya was named Adama this god of wisdom shares his gift with the man which makes him intelligent and mentally sharp another major God Anu offers the gift of immortality but iam manipulate siddhappa to decline this story from long before the judeo-christian Bible was created has some direct influence on the story of Adam and Eve they lost their place in the Garden of Eden because they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge Adama also received wisdom although as a gift instead of a discretion was refused immortality just as Adam and Eve were forced to abandon their perfect home and continue their lives as mortal humans the problem with both Adam and Eve and the myth madaba was the assumed competition between the humans and the gods Yahweh did not want his creations to be equal to him eeeh özil did not appreciate the idea that Addabbo would have all the benefits of godhood - this myth is a story about keeping mortals in their place and maintaining control of power the main character in this story is a king named Adama who comes from a reduced City on a fishing trip a strong gust blew up and knocked him overboard into the ocean enraged at losing his boat and getting all wet he battled against the south wind and broke its wing the wind which needed to recuperate for seven full days was not able to create any air movement during that time I knew the god of the sky got quite angry and demanded that adopted give him an explanation before appearing in front of a new iya tells the man what to say and gave some tips on proper behavior when visiting the God's domain iya leads adop astray with bad information however because he doesn't want to risk the King getting ahold of the food of life that would grant him immortality iya suspects that a new will offer these things to the man and he can't let that happen the instructions he gives to the mortal visitor are all wrong the first bit of information refers to a pair of guardians named Gaeta and Tammuz he is suggests that they are more likely to let him pass if he offers them compliments and says he knows them well then he should meet with Anu and refuse food and drink because as eita falsely reveals it would seriously harm him instantly this High God convinces adopem that the sky God is quite angry about the wind and will punish him quite severely eeeh does suggest that any clothing or oil given to him would be perfectly okay to accept this way he will not offend the sky got again the whole group of instructions was nothing but lies and misdirections however a gompa follows all of his directions refuses the gift of immortality that he would have gotten from the food of life and returns to earth to live out the rest of his days unfortunately the last tablet that tells the story has been broken over the centuries and makes it difficult to understand the ending this leaves the myth of a tapa opened to some interpretation while many researchers agree that iya wanted to trick the King into not accepting the immortality others say that ia's caution was quite sincere he may have genuinely believed that I knew would punish the man for breaking the winds wing logically it makes sense that someone who attacked the wind would not receive gifts from the sky God the more serious possibility does not seem to align with a news request that adapt a come for a visit and offer an explanation the story does not seem particularly volatile or violent in any way when taken with the understanding of the prideful God and the folklore that trickled down to civilizations after Mesopotamia the original description seems to make more sense özil story includes the line why is e a' revealed to impure mankind the heart of heaven and earth that demonstrates a news willingness to award Adama and wonderment about why he would act against it the puzzlement he demonstrates when the King refuses the gift does not seem to align with any nefarious plans or revenge opportunities the myth of Adama and the food of life originated in Babylon during the years when the kassite tribe controlled the area this was in the 1400s BCE various iterations of this general story passed down through the years and traveled around the area of the Persian Gulf for example a writer named Berossus shared a similar tale around 300 BCE about a demigod named Hannes who lived as a half-man half-fish some parts of the story are quite similar to the much older Adama tale especially in the fact that the main character was quite wise and shared his wisdom with surrounding people it seems that the gods and goddesses and many cultural and religious histories created humankind as compatriots and mere equals however when push came to shove the deities grew fearful or arrogant enough to deny the people godlike immortality Anke understands that human beings cannot be like the gods because that would upset the natural order and Apple must remain mortal must stay in his place for creation and function as it should be in another story the atrocity are about to see is established that humans are created with limited lifespans by the will of the gods in offering immortality to adopt a new is upsetting the natural order but he makes the offer because of his compassion he feels it's a disservice to adopt to have them wise enough to recognize his mortality but unable to do anything to escape death this compassion and understanding are characteristic of Anu as he was seen in Anu malysh where he tries to bring peace through diplomatic negotiation instead of continued war Beatrice Depok a tale of the Great Flood in a story that predates the judeo-christian Testaments the Babylonian civilization shared a dramatic tale of a massive flood delivered by the gods with the intention to kill all humans and other life on Earth the later biblical tale of Noah and the Ark follows the plot quite specifically in the story of atrocity that name received a warning from the gods to build a gigantic boat for himself his family and animals that lived on the land following the gods directions this man toiled to construct the vessel gathered together the people and animals as requested and climbed aboard to weather the massive storm these so called atrocity Bick was found to come from around 1645 to 16 26 BCE during these years King Hammurabi's great-grandson ruled in Babylon his name was a Mesa dukkha even at that time the story was well known and considered a legend of the day prior to these dates all legends and tales would have been spoken and not written down there's considerable evidence that this Babylonian flood story had made the rounds for quite some time before it was ever recorded Sumeria had its own version of the flood story it was called era due Genesis and hailed from a time even before at rasa's lived the first recorded instance of this was in the early years of the 17th century BCE if you travel back even further in time you find a report of a massive flood somewhere around 2100 to 1500 BCE in one of the earliest stories ever recorded the Epic of Gilgamesh the fact that this flood story touched so many different cultures over hundreds of years seems to indicate that the event actually happened in fact the chance of a worldwide flood so terrifying that it destroyed life on earth as we know it is so slim as to be unbelievable however the Mesopotamian Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations all existed in and around the Fertile Crescent this part of the ancient world was neatly tucked between the Tigris and Euphrates River there's no doubt that if both of these flooded it would seem like a worldwide disaster to the people of the time in truth flooded rivers are not all that odd there's archaeological evidence that clearly indicates the people living in that region had to deal with floods on a relatively regular basis these natural disasters may have continued to fuel the story of the Great Flood through the generations whatever someone suggests that the floods were actually more widespread especially in conjunction with the biblical Noah's Flood geologists and other scientists are quick to step up and mention that there's no genuine evidence of flooding that spread far beyond the Mesopotamian valley the stories themselves follow the same basic structure it all started with the gods creating humankind help them do the work of keeping the earth running as necessary in these ancient cultures different tiers of God's existed the older ones were generally more powerful and could make the younger weaker ones do tasks for them when the young gods got fed up with all that heavy toil a view of the older deities got together and created 14 people equally split between male and female unlike the latter judeo-christian stories in which God created just one man and one woman it seemed the Mesopotamians thought it more appropriate to start off with a larger community of helpers for the gods finally the gods could relax and leave all the heavy lifting to the people who lived on the ground unfortunately that people procreated too quickly and ended up being noisy and annoying this led the top God and leal to attempt to reduce their numbers first with a drought famine and pestilence and finally a massive flood one of the chief architects of humanity a god named Enki took pity on the wise one at rasa's and tipped him off of the impending doom the details about how atrocity Noah survived on the ark for so long with all those animals on board are dim and fast most of these morality tales involve more pointed meeting than explanations intricate descriptions of the storms and the reactions of the gods and goddesses filled the time between the first rain drop and the final delivery of the saved humans and animals many of the gods and goddesses considered the flood to be a bad idea and mourn the loss of their human creations and Lila is both angry at a giver saving at rasa's and sorrowful that everyone else died after quite a bit of discussion the deities agreed that they'll just make people who cannot create offspring quite so fast infertile women dedicated virgins and demons who will steal babies the legendary descriptions of these final got the decisions undoubtedly explained away some of the natural phenomenon associated with low infant mortality and infertility in general in those early days most suffering ended up with more profound meaning than simple biology the epic of a trois s and all the subsequent flood stories were created for the same reason that many ancient tales came to be first it offered an explanation for some of the natural phenomenon and human problems that the people in those long ago civilizations dealt with a second a moral warning for people to behave in a manner their gods and goddesses desired for them finally they promoted faith and understanding in the face of difficult times perhaps these reasons are why the epic tale of a massive flood sent by the gods has reverberated throughout history from the earliest days of civilization onward I knew the highest God of all gods I knew his benevolence infused the other gods as he himself withdrew higher and higher into the heavens he was finally seen as the master creator behind all the workings of the universe but distanced from both humanity and the other gods the only deity who had access to Anu was his son and Leo who gradually took on his father's characteristics and power even after and Leo became more popular however I knew continued to be venerated throughout the country in the city of a roof where anana was the patron deity Anu was honored by a large temple which continued in operation from circa 2000 BCE to circa 150 BCE and served as an astronomical observation in library ahem - I knew from early in this period illustrates the high regard he was accorded the hymn reads in part o Prince of the gods whose utterance rule authority of the gods Lord of the Horned crown which is marvelously splendid thou travela stay there and liver on the raging storm thou standest in the royal company to be admired as a king anti word of the gods cast themselves on the ground in a body like a reed on the stream they command blows like the wind and causes food and drink to thrive at the word the angry gods turned back to their habitations may all the gods of heaven and earth appear before thee with gifts and offerings may the kings of the countries bring to the heavy tribute may men stand before the daily with sacrifices prayers and iterations to aruch thy city do thou show abundant favour oh great God Anu avenge thy City and hostile lands even though he was eventually prayed to less and less directly he was still considered the power behind the power of the gods offerings continued to be brought to his temple at a ruk long after he was no longer associated closely with the daily lives of the people scholar Stephen Bertman writes Anu was the agust and revered chairman of the board of the Mesopotamian Pantheon his name literally meant heaven he was the supreme source of authority among the gods and among men upon whom he conferred kingship as heavens grant patriarch he dispensed justice and controlled the laws known as the mat that governed the universe when the Assyrian Empire fell in 612 BCE many of the Mesopotamian gods associated with their rule were abandoned the Assyrians had taken characteristics of many different gods for their own the best example of this is their great God a sewer ashore and those who felt they'd suffered under Assyrian rule vent their frustration and vengeance on a Syrian cities temples and the statues of the gods some gods continue to be acknowledged however and I knew was among these worship of a new continued into the Hellenistic period of Mesopotamian history and throughout his association with Marduk on up Jews circa 141 BCE when the Parthian z' controlled the region as the father of the gods I knew holds a key role in the mythology and its effects on literature and beliefs that followed records of a new date back to at least 3,000 BC making him one of the oldest of the gods Anu came to be regarded as the father and king of the gods Anu is so prominently associated with the city of Erik in southern Babylonia that there are good reasons for believing this place to have been the original seat of the Anu cult if this be correct then the goddess Nana or Ishtar of Erik was presumably regarded as his consort the purely theoretical character of Ainu is thus still further emphasized and in the annals and votive inscriptions as well as the incantations and hymns he's rarely introduced as an active force to him a personal appeal can be made his name becomes little more than a synonym for the heavens in general and even his title as king or father of the Gods has lost a little of the personal element in it [Music] [Music] to the ancient Sumerians Babylonians and Assyrians the Anunnaki were part of a pantheon of gods and goddesses who ruled over the day-to-day lives of humans down on earth while the different civilizations claimed and worshipped various numbers and kinds of deities the Anunnaki were generally considered the most powerful intriguing and mysterious in their own right modern researchers have uncovered some unusual characteristics and claims about the Anunnaki most authors have focused on these ancient deities as extraterrestrial beings who came down mated with or created modern humans and designed most of the great wonders of the world including the Egyptian pyramids with advanced technology while some dismiss their ideas and translations some very intriguing evidence still exists in the records and artifacts of various places on earth on the rock carvings of ancient Sumeria Egypt South America and Turkey mysterious similarities emerge one such pattern is the use of small satchels by many of the main gods and goddesses from those civilizations these days people use small satchels for both fashion and function but what were the gods using them for and why did deities worshipped in places far apart in both position and time use them too the earliest depiction of these satchels of the gods appeared in Mesopotamia generally considered the birthplace of civilization intricate carvings of their deities showed a bearded humanoid with vast wings an elaborate headdress long robe satchel and even a wristwatch travel halfway around the globe to find evidence from the Aztec and Maya civilizations in ancient South America here archaeologists have found depictions of their gods as humanoid with beards and headdresses and also carrying the exact same small bag other gods with bags locations include Tula from the Toltec empire gobekli tepe and Turkey and even Egypt the Anunnaki explanation the striking similarities between cultures logically point to some connection or common influence with the ancient tales of the Anunnaki the explanation becomes clearer these Sumerian gods were said to not only control and guide human civilization but also to bestow on them great gifts of knowledge and technology with them people were able to build massive pyramids and temples all over the world the Egyptians Mayans and other civilizations whose gods and goddesses looked nearly the same and carried the same bags would know nothing of Sumerian deities unless they were something more the evidence for alien Anunnaki coming to earth in various locations increases as historians and archaeologists uncover more information did extraterrestrial beings come down from some mysterious planet out there in the universe with the express purpose to develop our world and guide the people in it many guesses about the contents of these mysterious bags exist some mundane ideas include water seeds or that the carvings depicted deities receiving offerings from worshippers other explanations include the bags being tool boxes with high-tech gadgets battery packs to power them breathing apparatus so the aliens can survive more comfortably and simply magic although no researchers can find evidence that clearly states what's inside these handbags that show up all over the ancient world one thing is certain something about them was extremely important if it was regularly carried by the gods in the end the similarities between the stone carvings and reliefs found across multiple civilizations all over the world are striking due to the curiosity they arouse nothing was ever inscribed on a table or scroll that indicated what the gods handbags really were but their presence indicates one logical conclusion these diverse and faraway civilizations were visited by these same humanoid creatures carrying important items whom they claimed as deities and worshiped the 22,000 tablets of Nineveh if carvings and images do not provide enough proof of the mysterious beings and their contributions to ancient civilizations around the world the earliest known library may help from the kingdom of Nineveh which existed somewhere in what is now modern Iraq comes a vast collection of over 20,000 clay tablets inscribed with information and stories from that ancient land found in 1850 by a British archaeological expedition led by Austen Henry Layard and Sir Stratford caning the clay tablets are now held in the British Museum over the years many historians have worked to decipher the tiny writing that fills the slabs from top to bottom where did these tablets come from Nineveh was part of Assyria that existed from 6000 BC until the 1500s C II this successful city had many rulers and belief systems throughout the centuries a king named Ashurbanipal in the mid 600's BCE created a vast library with these clay tablets at its centre there's no question that ancient Nineveh and the Assyrian civilization at large was one of the finest and most advanced in those years it fought wars traded built magnificent palaces temples and other buildings including the library that held these clay tablets what do the tablets say the ruler Ashurbanipal left nothing out when collecting his vast library not only did he oversee the composition of every piece of cuneiform text on the tablets but he also collected various artifacts his goal was apparently to record the history of humankind from the earliest days to his present time researchers pieced together the ancient Sumerian language largely from these tablets much as others use the rosetta stone for Egyptian and Akkadian languages some of the Ashurbanipal tablets were written in Akkadian which made the translations easier among records of historical events scientific ideas of the time and fictional legends and stories the clay writings also spoke of the deities worshipped in the area the revelations of unusually advanced building mining agriculture and other studies are answered by the stories of the Anunnaki that have also been found the AI nanaki's hand in Assyria a special selection of seven tablets from the vast library was called the seven tablets of creation this together with a list of ancient Sumerian Kings who supposedly ruled for hundreds of thousands of years clearly speak of non-human beings with special lives and powers the Anunnaki gods ruled until the biblical flood which was also described in the tablets historical tales collected here includes Sumerian associations with the gods and goddesses who either helped to build or completely built the modern cities for the people and taught them advanced ways to prosper translations by a Sumerian scholar reveal a lot of information about these ancient aliens who traveled through space from their home planet to land on earth and prepare it for humans in Nana as Statue of Liberty unique carvings ancient clay tablets and the studies of various researchers have shown considerable similarities between origin and expansion stories of different civilizations around the world Europe and North America do not escape the ancient Sumerian and Anunnaki influences one of the most iconic symbols of the United States of America is the massive Statue of Liberty that now graces New York Harbor it was originally designed by Frederic Bartholdi a sculptor from France the idea came from the Civil War era edouard laboulaye a freemason who wanted to create a statue of that group's favorite goddess Lady Liberty's earlier inspirations libertas the Roman goddess of personal freedom is often depicted robed in a toga similar to one Lady Liberty wears sometimes she was shown naked as her other role in Rome was as mother to harlots women freed from prison often found themselves doing all sorts to survive thus for them freedom equaled service of another kind Libertas holds aloft a torch guiding people to their own ideals of freedom but the Romans did not invent this concept nor the deity herself as with many religious ideals and images throughout history Libertas was borrowed from a more ancient belief system who the goddess was through time the Roman Libertas is a recreation of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar the Greeks also worshipped this goddess but the writings of Cicero reveals that she was borrowed from earlier Middle Eastern civilizations in Greece she became Aphrodite in Samaria the oldest civilization with records of this goddess she was called an Nana which meant queen of heaven and she was said to have flown among the stars how the Statue of Liberty connects to ancient Babylon Ishtar or Anana the combination of la ballets Freemasonry and the influence of ancient civilizations through time helped form the structure of what Lady Liberty looks like for example these seven spikes on her crown were said to spread enlightenment over these seven continents of the earth the tablets at her feet represent law in a loose sense Emma Lazarus is poem hatched into the statues base calls it the mother of X Isles which is very close to the Roman designation of Libertas as being the goddess of immigrants these similarities cannot come about by mere chance the physical appearance historical comparison to other cultures goddesses and the source of her design and building all combined to create a strong association between the Statue of Liberty and ananna or Ishtar the Babylonian goddess of personal freedom the Anunnaki in the tree of creation ancient sumerian gods and goddesses played a role in the formation of modern religious beliefs - in the christian bible and various Gnostic texts the origin story of Adam and Eve and the tree of creation or the tree of knowledge of good and evil is repeated with various changes tales from Sumer of long ago describe how the original God Enki was actually the one who launched humanity by impregnating Eve as the cultures borrow from ones in the past the people who penned Genesis were probably influenced by Sumerian epic of creation that came before it makes sense since this was around 600 BCE when many Hebrews were enslaved in Sumeria or Babylon each follows a similar path of creating the heavens land plants and animals and then a man first and woman after the Sumerians story however includes multiple gods helping to create everything including multiple planets multiple gods and the planets at the dawn of time the Hebrews were monotheistic and unlikely to adopt the idea of more than one God working on the first people so they just took that part out when they made the story their own still in multiple places in the Bible including the creation story there is an us or we mentioned in relation to God who were these multiple gods and what were the planets the Babylonians spoke off on seven of the clay tablets found in the library of Ashurbanipal their creation story is laid out clearly somehow the Sumerians were told by these deities coming from the heavens that there were multiple planets out there including one called Nibiru this tale of the tree of creation is strikingly similar to the Anunnaki extraterrestrial idea that states the aliens came to earth to create a race of beings who would become humans the reason to mind gold for them which is uniquely mentioned in the Bible's first book of Genesis why the Anunnaki in their quest to create a population of gold miners the alien rulers create Adam and Eve which could either be the first two people ever or representative of a group of people these Sumerian gods Anke and Enlil respectively gods of earth and waters and of air and earth are the main forces in the Anunnaki under their father Anu who was the top god in the creation myth it was Enki and Enlil who wanted to make people they were supposedly alien genetic engineers creating their master race the blending of Sumerian myths and the idea that the Anunnaki were actually extraterrestrial beings follow the same path instead of gods creating and then impregnating Eve for the first time the aliens did it in their attempt at getting the labor they needed to get the gold the tree of creation was symbolic of not only the dawn of what the Bible calls the Nephilim offspring of humans and Anunnaki angels or aliens but also of the highly advanced knowledge that the alien leaders gave them the Sumerian rod and the ring of divine kingship symbolism carved stone Stella's seals and other artistic pieces frequently show a god or goddess handing over a rod and ring item to a new or reigning king this is frequently shown as a type of gift to a ruler who's sacrificing or presenting something to the deities the general impression from the carvings and accompanying tales indicate that this rod and ring bestows divine kingship to the recipient role of religion in Sumerian royalty in this powerful ancient civilization the priests and priestesses held much the same power as the king they made and upheld laws organized and lorded over trade agreements and held other important jobs priests could also be scribes priestesses perform dental and medical assistance to the people more importantly these religious leaders were the go-between for humans and the gods and goddesses who made up the Sumerian Pantheon as the people believed that deities controlled everything this was an exceptionally vital role the idea of divine kingship in truth the priests may have been more important than the Kings since they decided and who the gods and goddesses gave divine kingship to essentially much like the later Pharaohs of Egypt Sumerian Kings were bestowed their regal status by the gods directly this is what the rod and ring symbol represents symbolic meaning of the rod and ring structure circles frequently mean eternity and the ring in these sumerian divinity king relationship echoes that the shape also brings to mind the Egyptian symbol for eternity or continuity although there's no way Sumerian Kings ruled forever since they were mortal perhaps it indicated that they would be blessed by the gods for that long the rod is akin to the classic royal scepter or staff that many rulers throughout history of used in conjunction with the eternal nature of the ring the rod may symbolize a period of time that has a beginning and an end for mortal rulers this would indicate his lifetime this idea is supposed to be a tale of Inanna gathering her measuring rod before descending into the world below combined the message that the Anunnaki bestowed upon the rulers of ancient Sumeria could have been that they had the favor of the gods who were eternal but only for their lifetime these Sumerian rod and ring design used on stone carvings and other artwork represents the idea of divine kingship and support while still keeping the eternal gods separate from the mortal Kings although there's no direct connection between this symbol and the theory that the Anunnaki were extraterrestrial beings it would make sense that visitors from other worlds intent on creating a race of humans for their own purposes would present them with special gifts to indicate their perceived power on earth the Sumerian origins of Eastern Christian's in these modern days celebrate Easter as the day Jesus rose from the dead they worship at church and engage in various symbolic activities such as hiding Easter eggs and leaving baskets of candy from the Easter Bunny obviously the Bible mentions nothing about painted eggs and cleverly wrapped chocolates what many Christians may be surprised to know is that Easter started well before Jesus was said to have lived Easter comes from Ishtar the ancient Babylonian goddess of spring and fertility in Samaria she was called annona who was the granddaughter of one of the major gods and Lille in their pantheon Ishtar the most commonly known name of this multi culture goddess was also called the Queen of Heaven she was a pivotal figure in the first religion ever to arise on earth her godly husband named Nimrod was described as a Sun God and was represented by many names across many ancient religions how does Ishtar relate to Easter besides the word itself coming from the goddesses name and the celebration being for the return of the king of heaven there are other similarities between our modern-day celebration of this spring holiday and what the people would do way back in ancient Babylon it seems eggs played an important role in the early celebrations of course they are a symbol of rebirth and renewal an ancient legend also tells of a massive egg that falls from the sky and landed near their civilization center this sounds suspiciously like some sort of extraterrestrial aircraft that aligns with the alien theory of the Anunnaki the legend continues by saying when Ishtar emerged from the egg she would bestow gifts whoever found it other similarities between celebrations besides tales of a mysterious egg from the heavens much of the same things we're done to celebrate the return of spring and the queen and king of heaven people and especially priests dress to their finest clothes beautiful flowers were strewn about and people held special ceremonies at sunrise throughout the ages all around the world civilizations celebrate the return of the Rising Sun and the warmth that brings new crops and new baby animals these symbols associated with these things rabbits who breed readily eggs and flowers were used equally in Babylonian celebrations of Ishtar and modern Easter worship as well either this means that some real connection exists that strings together ancient Anunnaki deities or beings with our modern belief systems or that cultures are very good at borrowing from one another for assimilation purposes either way when modern Christians search for painted eggs enjoy springtime candy or pan out to church to celebrate the rising of Jesus Christ they may be surprised to know that it all began thousands of years ago with a son guys who may have actually been an extra try the Annunaki family tree and immortality way back at the dawn of civilization in ancient Mesopotamia and around the area of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers these Sumerians arose as a strong and considerably advanced group of people who worshipped a pantheon of God's called the Anunnaki as all gods usually are these celestial beings were immortal and quite powerful their family tree stretches through many generations their immortality means that more and more gods and goddesses were added to the group all the time the High God Anu the name of this God simply means sky he ruled over the heavens the Stars and all the other gods in the Anunnaki family tree his wife's name was ki translated as earth together they ruled the whole of existence and the people who worship them Anu was not only the main God worshipped by the Sumerians but his name is also the first part of the term Anunnaki which means sky or heaven descend earth thus the name of the family tree that describes the gods and goddesses of later generations was literally those who descended from heaven and came to earth they were described as physical beings who existed alongside the humans and helped them ancient Sumerians may have been superstitious but they were not unintelligent they described the extraterrestrial visitors who came to bestow them gifts and knowledge to advance their civilization as deities both would come out of the sky down to land where they lived generations of Anunnaki the Sumerians had an explanation from where Anu came from he descended from more nebulous forms that were not physically present with the people of that day such as Tiamat alternately called a dragon in the saltwater sea and absolute the personification of freshwater which is the source of all life different sources have different family trees of the ancient Anunnaki based on location and source an alternative one puts Anu the sky god above t amount and OPSEU as well as their most well known sons Enki and Enlil the Lords of earth and wisdom and air respectively alien bloodlines when exploring the idea that the Anunnaki were really extraterrestrial beings that came down to early humans genetically engineer them to be more intelligent advanced and guide the creation of ancient civilization the pantheon of gods and goddesses reads more like a description of specialties than magical powers although the source of the alien beings is lost to legend and myth they still may have appeared immortal to the humans due to their very long lifetimes which legends say measured in the thousands or tens of thousands of years as with most ancient religions and shared with the alien theories of the Anunnaki the gods bred with humans and created rulers and helpers the Anunnaki demigods the up Khalu before there were human-alien hybrids or the Anunnaki themselves there were the OPCON loom or demigods these were the creatures who existed before all human knowledge began they were described as Fishman and Birdman who attended to the tree of life their job was to give humankind the knowledge they needed to advance the moral codes necessary to do so within the God's acceptance and also protect them from the demons and illnesses Enki the holy son of the high god anu was sent to me directly in charge of these demigods in various myths of those times they were referred to as his priests or sages the up kala themselves were not deities the Apollo is biblical nepheline when combined with religious doctrines from around the world many see them as the biblical Nephilim who descended from heaven to protect and provide services for mankind this is also supported by the tales of them causing harmful situations as well as helpful ones the intricate combination of the legends from various sources tells of watchers who fell from heaven or the skies and thus retain their quasi divinity while losing their immortality these basic characteristics apply to angels who fell with Satan the up Khalu fish man and the biblical Nephilim who were described as men of renown heroes of old all of these tales also mention a story similar to the Garden of Eden and the first creations of God falling from grace The Tree of Life is a common theme in ancient Sumerian legends as the people in the garden disobey they put on fig leaves or a fish cloak lose their immortal status and are cast out onto earth thus the later story from the Christian Bible is a retelling of the Sumerian tale of a dapper Adam becoming human he was watched over by the fish men near the Tree of Life but when he failed to follow the divine rules they facilitated his removal other common legends of the app Khalu besides the dawn of humankind these fish and bird men opt Khalu also had an influence on other common tales attributed more recently to a monolithic God for example the story of Noah's Ark and a great flood showed up first in Mesopotamian literature it was even mentioned in the quite famous epic of gilgamesh generally thought to be one of the first full stories ever created on earth the fact that the Anunnaki demigods legends transferred so readily to future civilizations and religions give us an indication of how essential they were to their function and belief system were these fish men and bird men truly fallen angels who rebelled against God to join with the mortal beings on earth were they primordial beings that simply tended the Tree of Life or were they the first alien visitors who orchestrated the rise of human civilization from its earliest roots either way the OPCON liu remain an intriguing idea with threads that wind through history the serpent of life wisdom and ninja schita the intertwining stories that surround the tree of life and creation myths have another characteristic in common the inclusion of a lurking serpent in the biblical tales the snake was a trickster sometimes a symbol of satan himself who tempted Eve with the knowledge of good and evil he invited her to become like God something she could ultimately not withstand in sumerian lore ninja schita directly translates to Lord of the good tree instead of an evil force he was a God of vegetation and the underworld and not particularly unpleasant he sometimes said to be a great dragon instead of a simple snake and was responsible for planting the Tree of Life himself but this was also attributed to Enki the creator of mankind and the store of wisdom mingi jito in other cultures earlier civilizations in the Indus River Valley had very similar tales of their origin however instead of accepting that they were borrowed or influenced by Sumerian and Mesopotamian Lord they considered it a local story instead of a snake this figure looked more like a ball which is of course quite popular even today in Indian religious teachings it shared characteristics with the serpent even though these characteristics were varied and dual in many examples of folklore the dragon serpent or Baal could speak possibly transformed into a humanoid shape and act as a go-between for the gods in Indus Valley beliefs people needed to sacrifice the ball in order for it to reach heaven some considered ngoz to represent a closer version of mingi jina symbolism of the serpent of life and wisdom although the similarities between the various ancient cultures are intriguing and point to some greater overreaching truth it's the symbolism of the origins serpent shape that tells us the most about its meaning the early Indians used a ball because it aligned with their personal interests the much older sumerian serpent stands as the true origin of this character have you ever seen a medical caduceus this icon as a vertical rod at the center wings spread on top and two intertwining serpents wrapped around it some indicate that the rod is the spine the serpents part of the nervous system and the wings represent the brain the two snakes are also indicative of DNA this image actually comes from the Anunnaki God Enki who was said to be the creator of all things and the Lord of all wisdom many attributes of a snake are attributed to him the idea of rebirth through the shedding of skin cunning and cleverness and the ability to survive despite hardship symbolically they also stood for wisdom and eternal light when this symbol of Enki is inserted into the Garden of Eden story the serpent takes on new meaning that clever trickster who tempted Eve was not a demon intent on the downfall of humankind instead it was a changeable force intent on bestowing great knowledge and wisdom on them this in turn supported them after they were cast out to earth and enabled them to create the advanced civilizations frequently contributed to the Anunnaki direct influence on humans Sumerian Anunnaki influence on world cultures from the very beginning when sumaré was one of the best and only civilizations of the world its deities legends and folklore affected other ones that arose around or after it while many people know the more common stories of the Christian Bible and can now see how even they were influenced by Sumerian tales other cultures throughout time have thus been affected the Anunnaki had an ongoing and integral influence on everyone from the first human beings on earth to the modern age historical evidence gives clues that support this theory in ancient Egypt the greco-roman period and even all the way across the ocean in South America Annunaki influence in Egypt one intriguing style of artwork found in Egyptian tombs and temples is a winged disc motif well generally said to represent raw the sun-god its similarity to the sumerian idea of the extra-terrestrial gods coming down to protect them is quite stark some say it even represents Nibiru which is the name of the planet the Anunnaki come from greco-roman Anunnaki the ancient Sumerian tales obviously have great influence on the early Christians and their Bible as well as Gnostic texts like the Jewish Book of Enoch there are also similarities between various members of the Anunnaki family tree and the gods and goddesses worshiped by both the Greeks and the Romans for example the Greek tales of the Gods overthrowing titans included one very reminiscent of Anu he was a God of the heavens and had a very similar progeny the concept of primordial gods that existed before the ones the people worshiped directly may have come from Sumerian tales South American signs of Anunnaki influence it makes undeniable sense that ancient civilizations that were geographically close to each other should share certain cultural tales and beliefs for those people who do not believe in the possibility of the Anunnaki being extraterrestrial in origin the religious beliefs surrounding their deities could travel from Sumeria to Egypt to Greece over a period of some time with relative ease however when these same influences jump the Atlantic Ocean and end up in Central and South America it becomes more difficult to disbelieve some supernatural or alien influence when investigating both the folklore and artifacts from the Mayan Aztec and Olmec civilizations it becomes obvious that the Anunnaki influence stretch much farther ancient South American lore tells the tale of three gods named Kukulkan quetzel Codel and Veera kocha mostly humanoid with white skin reddish beards and usually blue eyes these would be very unusual features for a native South American person to have in those days not only were these gods unusual looking but they were also depicted with startling similarities to Sumerian gods partially reptilian or bird-like faces feathered wings and holding what could be pinecone and a small bag these similarities are difficult to ignore how did people all the way around the globe explain their gods in such a similar way if the Anunnaki were not just Sumerian deities and actually were extraterrestrial visitors who helped launch and grow humanity and civilization it makes sense that people's depictions and stories of them were quite the same to some the Anunnaki are ancient history nothing more than an interesting story of deities worshipped by long dead civilizations all around the globe however there are intriguing pieces of a massive puzzle that seems to indicate there's more to the tale from the Middle East and South America Africa and New York City come clues to a mysterious connection were the IRA naki gods and goddesses who oversee human lives or are they extraterrestrials who created modern people for their own purposes the obvious similarities between ancient artifacts and art across cultures aroused curiosity and definitely warrant more investigation [Music] before we discuss anything regarding astronomy or astrology we must understand that in the ancient world there was no distinction between these two subjects they were one in the same in civilization today we seem to be heavily focused on astronomy and have little regard for astrology our view of astrology however is distorted to the one in the past with the addition of variant forms of astrology Chinese Vedic and Western the astronomy astrology of the past was known as the Royal science it was the rulers pharaohs and God kings of the ancient world who possessed the power of these subjects an elite sect of astronomer priests who were under the command of the Royal emperors it was an innocent science and practice developed by the Sumerians that became abused by later successors by the time of neo Babylonia the astrology was a dominant aspect primarily for divination and control of the populace utilizing the framework of astronomical study like all information that's passed between cultures there's an advancement metamorphism either through manipulation or evolution in concept or both particularly the god kings of mesopotamia you've seen the names of gods and their attributes are interwoven with astronomical detail as detailed in the kings list you'll have seen the academic procedures of the clever Sumerians with incredible advancements we still struggle to comprehend we see advanced calculus being used to calculate positions of planets now we're going to get into the body of astronomical knowledge they had the hard core framework of what they knew about the stars planets motions of the heavens precession comets and cycles is earth shattering we will address the Nibiru and nygma briefly reserving full analysis for a special episode as it's such a huge controversial subject masked in layers of mystery it's a little-known fact but the Babylonians had a comprehensive star catalog for academic study something we do today in the modern world of astrophysics the 18th century Messier catalog was the first compiled by Charles Messier and lists 100 objects nowadays we have much bigger ones the NGC catalogue of 7000 objects and the monstrous icy index catalogue the Babylonian version we call the moola pin star catalog the conventional title from cuneiform texts is conceptually a masterpiece of what we call modern thinking it wasn't rivaled until messy A's catalog in 1771 the moola pin was likely compiled around 1000 BC the tax lists the names of 66 stars some versions 71 and constellations and further gives several indications such as rising setting and culmination dates that help to map out the basic structure of the sophisticated Babylonian star map again the Babylonians inherited this legacy from the Sumerians as a hand-me-down both cultures are both often referred to as star mappers of the ancient world the Babylonian star map and the moola pin catalog are testament to this the moola pin taxed is named for their incipit corresponding to the first constellation of the year moola pen also known as the plough identified with Triangulum plus gamma Andromeda constellation the earliest copy of the text so far discovered was made in 686 BC however most scholars now believe that the text was originally compiled around 1000 BC with the latest copies of moola pin are currently dated to around 300 BC astrophysicist Bradley Shafer claims that the observations reported in these tablets were made in the region of a sewer at around the Year thirteen 70 BC the moolah pinned by this standard was an ancient library document record tablet one of the mullah pen has been instrumental for reconstructing the Babylonian star chart another genius concept to aid in mapping the Stars its various sections locate the constellations in relation to each other and to the calendar all the major stars and constellations are listed and organized into three broad divisions according to celestial latitude allocating each star to three paths utilizing the names of deities and gods the northern path of Enlil containing 33 stars or constellations the presumably equatorial path of Anu containing 23 stars or constellations and the southern path of EA containing 15 stars or constellations most of these stars and constellations are further attributed to a variety of Near Eastern deities the Halal rising dates of 34 stars and constellations are given according to the 360 day ideal calendar year the hawaii phil rising is what gives us Swiss watch precision of dating as the Halal rising occurs only once every twenty five thousand nine hundred twenty years accounting for precision the obsession with measuring the Halal rising is yet another commonality with Egypt and other cultures [Music] the details on the mule up in text is unprecedented the list of stars and constellations that rise and set at the same time the number of days between the risings of various stars and constellations these stars and constellations that rise and culminate at the same time these stars on the path of the moon being the major constellations close to the ecliptic which includes all the Babylonian forerunners to these zodiac constellations the Dendera zodiac in Egypt and its mysterious origins is already there in textual form on cuneiform in Sumeria the intricate links between these two sister cultures are abundant even though the Babylonians used a loonie solar calendar which added an occasional 13th month to the calendar Mulla pen like most texts of babylonian astrology uses an ideal year composed of twelve ideal months each of which was composed of an ideal 30 days in this scheme the equinoxes were set on the fifteenth day of the first and seventh month and these solstices on the fifteenth day of the 4th and 10th month the second tablet of Mullah pen is of greater interest to historians of science as it delivers many of the methods and procedures used by Babylonian astrologers to predict the movements of the Sun Moon and planets as well as the various methods used to regulate the calendar details of the names of the Sun the planets and the assertion that they all travel the same path as the Moon which stars are rising and which contain the full moon on these solstices and equinoxes to judge the disparity of the lunar and solar cycles recommendations for observing the appearance of certain stars and the direction of the wind at the time of their first appearance very approximate values for the number of days that each planet is visible and invisible during its observational cycle the four stars associated with the four directional winds the dates when the Sun is present in each of the three stellar paths two types of intercalation scheme one uses the rising dates of certain stars while the other uses position of the moon in relation to the stars and constellations the relative duration of day and night at the solstices and equinoxes and the lengths of shadow cast by an omen at times of the day at the solstices and equinoxes a basic mathematical scheme giving the rising and setting times of the Moon in each month a selection of astrological omens there's some evidence that a third and so far unrecovered tablet was sometimes appended to the series it started with a section of scholarly explanations of celestial omens which brings us to the ultimate doomsday omens of the heavens evidence on a Babylonian cuneiform tablet recorded Halley's Comet in 164 BC came to light in recent years written by a Babylonian scribe about a rare phenomenon familiar to use as Halley's Comet the only short period comet visible to the naked eye the comet which previously had been in the East reported the ancient scribe in 164 BC became visible and passed along the path of EI in the West his words chronicled the appearance of Halley's Comet the tablet recorded the 164 BC passage of Halley's Comet is displayed alongside another describing the Comets return in 87 BC well the British Museum has had these Babylonian tablets for over a century their references to the comet were only recognized in modern times these 76 year comet was also monitored by the Chinese for 2150 years from 240 BC onwards the significance of both these cultures is the precise dating and verification of the astronomical detail in chronologies the other significance is that comets have always been perceived as harbingers of doom for very good reason deeply embedded in the psyche of all ancient cultures and mythology we see astrology move away from behaviorism of people born at certain months people born under constellations and in June divination of the neo-babylonian period as there was a systematic demand for omens good or bad from the kingdoms rulers the origins of Western astronomy can be found in Mesopotamia and all Western efforts in the exact sciences modern knowledge of sumerian astronomy is indirect via the earliest Babylonian star catalogues dating from about 1200 BC the fact that many star names appear in Sumerian suggests a continuity reaching into the early Bronze Age we have a date for the Babylonian star map putting it mysteriously in the 3rd millennium BC technically it should be called the sumerian star map for its era yet it was found in the library of Ashurbanipal in assyria in the 7th century BC what we can tell with this Babylonian star map is that in the 3rd millennium BC there was a sophisticated astronomy somehow astronomy went underground only to blossom again in the Babylonian era 1800 BC onwards Babylonian astronomy was like a Renaissance period which finally became embroiled in divination astrology in the neo-assyrian and neo-babylonian empire amazingly upon examination of the Babylonian star map clay tablets it reveals a mysterious object in the skies it displays astronomical work as it has drawings of constellations on it and the text is known constellation names it has attracted a lot of attention but in over a hundred years yet nobody has come up with a convincing explanation as to what it is with modern computer programs that can simulate trajectories and reconstruct the night sky thousands of years ago the researchers have established what the planisphere tablet refers to it's a copy of the night notebook of an unknown Sumerian astronomer as he records the events in the sky before dawn in June 3123 BC Julian calendar half the tablet records planet positions and cloud cover the same as any other night but the other half of the tablet records an object large enough for its shape to be noted even though it's still in space presumably an asteroid during the eighth and seventh centuries BC Babylonian astronomers developed a new empirical approach to astronomy they began studying philosophy dealing with the ideal nature of the universe and began employing an internal logic within their predictive planetary systems this was an important contribution to astronomy and the philosophy of science and some scholars of thus referred to this new approach as the first scientific revolution this new approach to astronomy was adopted and further developed in Greek and Hellenistic astronomy classical Greek and Latin sources frequently used the term Chaldeans for the astronomers of Mesopotamia who were priests scribes specializing in astrology and other forms of divination the significant point of all this is that mere fragments of Babylonian astronomy have survived consisting largely of contemporary clay tablets containing astronomical Diaries ephemerides in procedural texts hence current knowledge of Babylonian astronomy is in a fragmentary state these surviving fragments show that Babylonian astronomy was the first successful attempt at giving a refined mathematical description of astronomical phenomena and that all subsequent varieties of scientific astronomy in the Hellenistic world in India in Islam and in the West depend upon Babylonian astronomy in decisive in fundamental ways just how old is Babylonian astronomy then old Babylonian astronomy was practiced during and after the first Babylonian Dynasty circa 1830 BC and before the neo-babylonian empire Circus 626 BC from the Sumerian names and the Babylonian star chart showing Sumerian night skies in 3123 BC from Ashurbanipal library of 700 BC area it's obvious that Sumerians passed knowledge to Babylonians which by the time of 700 BC was descending into the dark ages it's best to think what we can learn from the fragments left behind instead of attributing who invented what and when clearly on multiple levels we see time and again the Babylonians as inheritors of knowledge of these Sumerians the Babylonians were the first to recognize that astronomical phenomena are periodic and apply mathematics to their predictions tablets dating back to the old babylonian period document the application of mathematics to the variation in the length of daylight over a solar year centuries of babylonian observations in celestial phenomena were recorded in the series of cuneiform tablets known as a Numa Anu Enlil the oldest significant astronomical text that we possess is tablet 63 of the Anu ma Anu Enlil the Venus tablet of Amissah dukkha which lists the first and last visible risings of venus over a period of about 21 years this is the earliest evidence that planetary phenomena were recognized as periodic the moola pin contains catalogues of stars and constellations as well as schemes for predicting Hilal risings and settings of the planets and lengths of daylight as measured by a water clock genome n' shadows and inner calculations the Babylonian text arranges stars in strings that lie along declination circles and thus measure right ascensions or time intervals also employs the Stars of the zenith which are also separated by given right ascension differences there are dozens of cuneiform Mesopotamian texts with real observation of eclipses mainly from Babylonia the Babylonians were the first civilization known to possess a functional theory of the planets the oldest surviving planetary astronomical text is the Babylonian Venus tablet of a Mesa dukkha a 7th century BC copy of a list of observations of the motions of the planet Venus that probably dates as early as the 2nd millennium BC time and again we see 7th century BC copies survived of 2nd millennium BC data the Babylonian astrologers also laid the foundations of what would eventually become Western astrology via Numa Anu Enlil written during the neo-assyrian period in the 7th century BC it comprises a list of omens and their relationships with various celestial phenomena including the motions of the planets in contrast to the worldview presented in Mesopotamia and Assyria Babylonian literature particularly in Mesopotamian and Babylonian mythology very little is known about the cosmology and world view of the ancient Babylonian astrologers and astronomers this is largely due to the current fragmentary state of Babylonian planetary theory also due to Babylonian astronomy being independent from cosmology at the time nevertheless traces of cosmology can be found in Babylonian literature and mythology in Babylonian cosmology the earth and the heavens were depicted as a spacial hole even one of round shape with references to the circumference of heaven and earth and the totality of heaven and earth their worldview was not exactly geocentric either the idea of geocentrism where the center of the earth is the exact center of the universe did not yet exist in Babylonian cosmology but was established later by the Greek philosopher Aristotle on the heavens in contrast Babylonian cosmology suggested that the cosmos revolved around circularly with the heavens and the earth being equal and joined the Babylonians and their predecessors these Sumerians also believed in plurality of heavens and earths this idea dates to Sumerian incantations in the second millennium BC which refers to there being seven heavens and seven Earth's linked possibly chronologically to the creation by these seven generations of gods neo Babylonian astronomy refers to the astronomy developed by Chilean astronomers during the neo-babylonian recommended Seleucid and Parthian periods of Mesopotamian history a significant increase in the quality and frequency of Babylonian observations appeared during the reign of Navin a sir 747 to 734 BC these systematic records of ominous phenomena in Babylonian astronomical Diaries that began at this time allowed for the discovery of a repeating 18-year Saros cycle of lunar eclipses for example the Greco Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy later used Navin a sirs reign to fix the beginning of an era since he felt that the earliest usable observations began at this time Babylonian astrology as well as in Assyrian was a direct offshoot of Babylonian culture astrology takes its place as one of the two chief means at the disposal of the priests also known as the inspectors for ascertaining the will and intention of the gods using solar and lunar eclipses precise position of planets Babylonian astrology was the first organized system of astrology arising in the second millennium BC there's speculation that astrology of some form appeared in the Sumerian period in the 3rd millennium BC but the isolated references to ancient celestial omens dated to this period are not considered sufficient evidence to demonstrate an integrated theory of astrology this is largely a misunderstanding as ancient astrology the behavioral Sun sign astrology from Sumerian and old Babylonian standards was completely different to neo-babylonian divination astrology the history of scholarly celestial divination is therefore generally reported to begin with late old Babylonian texts circa 1800 BC continuing through the middle babylonian and middle assyrian periods circa 1200 BC by the sixth century BC the extensive employment of omen based astrology can be evidenced in the compilation of a comprehensive reference work known as Enuma Anu Enlil its contents consisted of 70 cuneiform tablets comprising seven thousand celestial omens text from this time also referred to an oral tradition the origin and content of which can only be speculated upon at that time Babylonian astrology was solely mundane and prior to the 7th century BC the practitioners understanding of astronomy was rudimentary there was clearly a dissent in the astronomy and an ascent in the omen astrology giving rise to two different fields because of their inability to accurately predict future celestial phenomena and planetary movement very far in advance interpretations were done as the phenomena occurred or slightly before by the 4th century however their mathematical methods had progressed enough to calculate future planetary positions with reasonable accuracy at which point extensive hemorrhoids began to appear the gods were also believed to present themselves in the celestial images of the planets or stars with whom they were associated evil celestial omens attached to any specific planet were therefore seen as indications of dissatisfaction or disturbance of the god that planet represented such indications were met with attempts to appease the God and find manageable ways by which the gods expression could be realized without significant harm to the king and his nation an astronomical report to the King Esarhaddon concerned a lunar eclipse of January 6 73 BC shows how the ritualistic use of substitute Kings or substitute events combined an unquestioning belief in magic and omens with a purely mechanical view that the astrological event must have some correlation with the natural world as follows in the Kingdom of the Year a flood will come and break the dikes when the moon has made the Eclipse the king my lord should write to me as a substitute for the king I will cut through a dike here in Babylonia in the middle of the night no one will know about it ulla weston halts in her 1995 book Mesopotamian astrology argues that this ambivalence between a theistic and a mechanic's worldview defines the Babylonian concept of celestial divination as one which despite its heavy reliance on magic remains free of implications of targeted punishment with the purpose of revenge and so shares some of the defining traits of modern science its objective and value free it operates according to the known rules and its data are considered universally valid and can be looked up in written tabulations kok weston holds austell establishes the most important distinction between ancient babylonian astrology and other divination disciplines as being that the former was originally exclusively mundane being geographically oriented and specifically applied to countries cities and nations and almost wholly concerned with the welfare of the state and the king as the governing head of the nation planets and gods of the planets five were recognized Jupiter Venus Saturn Mercury and Mars to name them an order in which they appear in the older cuneiform literature in later texts mercury and Saturn change places these five planets were identified with the gods of the Babylonian Pantheon as follows Jupiter with Marduk Venus with the goddess Ishtar Saturn with Nenita mercury with Nabu and Mars with Nergal the movements of the Sun Moon and five planets were regarded as representing the activity of the five gods in question together with the moon god sin and the sun-god shamash in preparing the occurrences on earth if therefore one could correctly read and interpret the activity of these powers one knew what the gods were aiming to bring about the Babylonian priests accordingly applied themselves to the tasks of perfecting a system of interpretation of the phenomena to be observed in the heavens and it was natural that the system was extended from the moon Sun and five planets to the more prominent and recognizable fixed stars Association of ideas involving sometimes merely of play upon words in connection with the phenomenon or phenomena observed thus if on a certain occasion the rise of the new moon in a cloudy sky was followed by victory over an enemy or by abundant rain the sign in question was thus proved to be a favorable one and its reoccurrence would that's forth be regarded as a good omen though the prognostication would not necessarily be limited to the one or the other of these occurrences but might be extended to apply to other circumstances on the other hand the appearance of the new moon earlier than was expected was regarded as on favor of prognosticating in one case defeat in another DEATH among cattle and a third bad crops none of this necessarily because the events took place after such a phenomenon but by an application of the general principle resting upon association of ideas whereby anything premature would suggest an unfavorable occurrence in this way a mass of traditional interpretation of all kinds of observed phenomena was gathered and once gathered became a guide to the priests for all times however not all these ideas are still used in astrology as it is usually practiced today a lot of astronomy tablets survived because of Ashurbanipal cuneiform library Ashurbanipal was a king of Assyria who ruled in the 7th century BC from 668 to 625 he was famous for assembling a great library of cuneiform tablets in Nineveh about astrology history mythology and science some of us urbana pauls astrologers such as romano sumasar and Nabu mu CC became so adept at deducing omens from daily movements of the planets that a system of making periodical reports to the King came into being the saucer ba Nepal received swift messengers detailing all occurrences in heaven and earth throughout his kingdom and the results of his astrologers examinations of them he then used this information as a political weapon and for the practical day-to-day running of his kingdom after his death Nineveh fell to the Medes and the Sheldon Babylonians and Oscar monopoles library was destroyed or dispersed how astronomical information was handled and manipulated is something you must deeply consider when we discuss our final topic of the notorious Nibiru from various Babylonian star catalogues the lepen and others we have numerous resources that mention Nibiru what exactly Nibiru is open to heated debate Babylonian astronomy collated earlier observations and divinations in two sets of Babylonian star catalogues during and after the castle rule over Babylonia these star catalogues written in cuneiform script contained lists of constellations individual stars and planets the constellations were probably collected from various other sources the earliest catalogue three stars each mentioned stars of Akkad and Amuro or a LOM and others it must be noted that these several times Nibiru is mentioned from all sources like the moola pin and astrolabe B star catalogues the pneuma elihss and others we are likely dealing with different authors and completely different intentions honorable or otherwise for writing the references of Nibiru we know these catalogues are referring to real astronomical phenomena such as constellations and planets various sources have theorized a Sumerian origin for these Babylonian constellations but an ala might origin has also been proposed a connection to these star symbology of Kassite kuduro border stones has also been claimed but whether such cuju ruse really represented constellations and astronomical information aside from the use of these symbols remains unclear the Babylonian star catalogues entered Greek astronomy in the 4th century BC via Eudoxus of Sanitas and others a few of the constellation names in use in modern astronomy can be traced to Babylonian sources by a Greek astronomy among the most ancient constellations are those that marked the four cardinal points of the year in the middle Bronze Age in other words Taurus the ball from Mogu an na the steer of heaven marking vernal equinox Leo the Lion from mole or gula the lion marking summer solstice Scorpius the scorpion from mole gear table the scorpion marking autumn equinox Capricornus horned goat from Vosseler mas the goat fish marking winter solstice it's a mythological hybrid depicted on boundary stones from before 2000 BC as a symbol of EA there are other constellation names which can be traced to Bronze Age Origins including Gemini the twins from mamas table bought goggle the Great twins Cancer the crab from moola little the crayfish among others answer the crab from moola little the crayfish among others to pinpoint Nibiru like constellations is nearly impossible the Mesopotamian sources clearly and repeatedly referred to something called Nibiru the mention of Nibiru several times as an observed astronomical object is fact it's both referred to as a star and as a planet at various times outside astronomical texts Nibiru can mean several things place of crossing in the Gilgamesh epic we read the line straight is the crossing point Nibiru a gateway and narrow is the way that leads to it new bureau is referring to an astronomical body that can be complicated superscripted d the cuneiform sign for God dinger and so Nibiru may refer to a God recall that Sumerians and Mesopotamians associated heavenly bodies with deities superscripted Mool the cuneiform sign for star and so Nibiru is a star Nibiru is preceded by both D and Mool and so is referred to as a deity and a star in the text that follow Nibiru was regarded as a planet specifically Jupiter but one says mercury a God specifically Marduk and a star distinguished from Jupiter scholars of cuneiform astronomy have not been able to determine with certainty what exactly Nibiru is there are critics skeptics and believers of the planet ax or planet of the crossing theory this planet of the crossing is a fair interpretation of the Mesopotamian data as muddled and confusing as it is it's not proof nor is it disproved that the critics based on Sumerian texts to ignore there are several authors of Nibiru observations and ignore the descent into astrology is misleading the earliest sources of Nibiru are likely the correct ones and like the astrology business for the rulers and later descending cultures there was less focus on astronomical fact and more on omens references to Nibiru as Jupiter are likely deceptive even in ancient times they could pinpoint Jupiter with advanced calculus in the old babylonian period they knew exactly what it was the only thing critics have done is proven that Nibiru is a planet of the crossing is a viable theory there's also the slight problem of the iris data the discovery of an infrared object possibly a brown dwarf in our nearby solar system now swept under the rug in addition the fact that they've discovered planet x in 2016 but calling it planet 9 as a deliberate misleading trick the Royal science of astronomy was high and became convoluted with a focus on astrology originally the fixing of the zodiac constellations on the equator with the Taurus Scorpio axis never deviating over eons was revolutionary these Sumerians Akkadians at Scorpio axis never deviating over eons was revolutionary these Sumerians Acadians and Babylonians were star mappers of the ancient they observed everything in the heavens most likely asteroids comets and rogue planets amongst the rest of the day to day astronomy our world would have never advanced without them the arre to Genesis Ziusudra epic the arre to Genesis also known as the Ziusudra epic is a fragmentary Sumerian version of the flood epic written in cuneiform although it dates to around 1600 BC it's probably a shortened copy of a much older poem that's dependent on an even older account samuel noah kramer concluded that Ziusudra had become a venerable figure in literary tradition by the middle of the third millennium BC the hero Ziusudra found long life is listed as the last king of Sumer in the old Babylonian Empire in the sumerian king list its content covers the creation of humanity animals and building of the earliest cities of erie do bada birra Larsa sipar and Sheree pock following a break in the tablet the narrative picks up with a decision by the gods to send a deluge to punish humanity the narrative records the god Enki directing Ziusudra to build a large boat followed by a missing section and picking up with a description of the flood a seven-day storm tosses a huge boat about on the water until the Sun due to appears in the hero Ziusudra worships and offers an animal sacrifice to the gods following the flood Ziusudra thanks the gods on sky god and Enlil captain of the gods who bless him with breath eternal and take him to live in dill moon the mention of this place in lines 258 through 261 is unique in the flood epochs in this version the boat floats down the Euphrates River into the Persian Gulf to come to rest on the island of dill moon modern Baran rather than resting on a mountain in Sumerian the word core line 140 means country well in Akkadian Gilgamesh epic it's understood to mean Mountain the remainder of the tablet is unfortunately missing the flood tablet the historical object is the flood tablet part of the greater series of tablets known as the epic of gilgamesh which relates the story of the Great Flood made roughly in the 7th century BCE during the neo-assyrian empire it was discovered in Nineveh now part of northern Iraq the flood tablet is a ceramic tablet made of clay written in cuneiform a blunt read called a stylus is used to impress wedge-shaped writing onto wet clay and the tablet can cure either by baking outside in the Sun or being fired in a kiln several forms of cuneiform exists each form is written in a different language the flood tablet is written in Akkadian the language of the neo-assyrian empire cuneiform has existed for nearly 5000 years and was about 2,500 years old when the flood tablet was written the flood tablet was discovered in the mid 19th century by a Turkish Assyria logist named Hormuz rasam during the excavation of key eunuch a-fallin ransacked city 13 miles wide it was then shipped to the British Museum with other broken bits of pottery and similar pieces in 1872 George Smith discovered this piece of the Epic of Gilgamesh among the bits of rubble he's said to have jumped up and rushed about the room in a great state of excitement and to the astonishment of those present began to undress himself the flood tablet comes from the neo-assyrian culture of the 7th century BCE Mesopotamia modern date northern Iraq during this time Assyrians are dominating Meza taymiyah with a vast army comprised of over 50,000 mixed infantry cavalry and chariots efficience several uprisings challenge the armies of Kings Ashurbanipal a 34 mile aqueduct was constructed to carry water into Nineveh in advance of the technology of this Empire King Ashurbanipal ruled from 669 to 631 BCE he'd been trained to be an adviser to his older brother who were in line to rule the Assyrian Empire because he was trained in the scribal arts Ashurbanipal was aware of the importance of vast knowledge he used his power to assemble a library containing the accumulated wisdom of Mesopotamia which included the Epic of Gilgamesh from which the flood tablet comes very little is known of the creator of the Epic of Gilgamesh or who wrote these tablets although the Epic of Gilgamesh is the longest piece of literature in Akkadian known to modern historians the flood tablet is significant in world history in that it tells nearly the same exact story as the flood and Noah in the Bible to some historians the multiple accounts of this world event proved its existence to others it meant that one culture borrowed the story from another it's unclear which culture broke down this account first the discovery of the flood tablet has raised questions beyond Nineveh in fact it's raised questions of massive religious and world historical importance the Sumerian king list the king list is a detailed account of king ships stretching into the prehistory of the Sumerian people beset beside telling us that they descended from heaven and features non-human rain lengths the first fragment a 4,000 year old cuneiform tablet was found in the early 1900s by German American scholar Herman hill Precht at the site of the agent of poor and it was published in 1906 since Hill bricks discovery at least eighteen other examples of the Kings list have been found no two of these documents are identical however there's enough common material in all versions of the list to make it clear that they're derived from a single account of Sumerian History researchers initially thought that they were straightforward historical documents but as more complete versions came to light it became obvious that many of the Kings were either wholly or partially mythological or maybe there's another possibility yes aliens the document starts at the beginning of history the time when kingship descended from heaven and made a redo the seat of the kingship the list is characterized by extremely long durations for the different rains especially the earlier ones 1/4 of a million years is assigned to the first 8 Kings before the flood and more than 25,000 years for the first two dynasties after the flood the Sumerian king list provides a list of 8 Kings who reigned for lengthy periods of time before the flood ranging from eighteen thousand six hundred to forty three thousand two hundred years this is like Genesis five worthy generations from creation of the flood are recorded interestingly between Adam and Noah there are eight generations just as there are eight kings between the beginning of kingship and the flood in the Sumerian king list many tried to debunk this as simple mythology but one must raise the right questions why would the Sumerians combine mythical rulers with actual historical rulers in one document why are there so many similarities with Genesis why were ancient kings described as rule for thousands of years [Music] Shema tablet and reliefs the tablet of shamash is a stone tablet recovered from the ancient babylonian city of sipar in southern iraq in 1881 it's now a major piece in the british museum's ancient Middle East collection it's dated to the reign of King Nabu oblah Adeiny circa 888 to 855 BC when novel polis are discovered the tablet it was enclosed in this fired clay cover originally made by Naboo oblah adeana after replacing the cover Naboo polis are buried the original alongside the tablet the template was discovered during excavations by Hormuz rasam between 1878 and 1883 the tablet was found complete but already broken into two large and six small pieces by the time of King novel polis are between 625 and 605 BC he replaced it with a new one and placed the original in an inscribed earthenware casket along with some related items and insured them under the asphalt temple floor it was encased in a clay cast or squeeze that created impressions when placed over the face of the stone and protected it this indicates that the tablet was an item of reverence possibly stored due to newer traditions the tablet has serrated edges like a saw which was the symbol of both shamash and Saint Simon Zelotes in earlier tradition the best relief on top of the obverse pictured shows shamash the sun-god beneath symbols of the Sun moon and star the God is depicted in a seated position wearing a horned headdress holding the rod and ring symbol in his right hand there's another large Sun disc in front of him on an altar suspended from above by two figures of the three other figures on the left the central one is dressed in the same fashion as shamash and is assumed to be the Babylonian king Nabu apply Idina receiving the symbols of deity the scene contains three inscriptions the first at the head of the tablet reads one image of shamash the great Lord Chu who dwells in Abu baraa 3 which is in sipar above the sun-god a second inscription describes the position of the depicted moon Sun and stars as being over against the heavenly ocean on which the scene sits the cuneiform text beneath the stele is divided into fifteen passages blending prose poetic and rhetorical elements in the fashion typical of Mesopotamian royal inscriptions it tells how sipar and the a Babar temple of shamash had fallen into disrepair with the loss of the statue of the god this cult image is temporarily replaced with the solar disk it's further described how a new figure of shamash was found in an eastern part of the Euphrates from which Naboo habla Deena has constructed a new statue of a OPS's Azul II in gold to restore the cult similar iconographic and prosaic parallels have been evidenced by Mesopotamian and later Jewish sources where the king who restores the cult is seen like a deity passing on divine symbols [Music] VA 243 solar system tablet one of the most controversial seals ever discovered and discussed among scholars is dubbed VA 243 and seems to depict according to many 12 planets within our solar system with the Sun at its center the seal which dates back at least from the 3rd millennium BC can be found at the State Museum in eastern Berlin and was catalogued as VA 243 according to numerous researchers this ancient Akkadian cylinder seal is one of the most ancient cylinder seals ever discovered and appears to be one of the most mysterious as well the seal is the centerpiece of Sitchin's theory that the Sumerians had advanced astronomical knowledge of the planetary bodies in our solar system this knowledge was allegedly given to Sumerians by extraterrestrials whom Sitchin identifies as the Anunnaki gods of Sumer Mesopotamian mythology in the upper left hand corner of the seal Sitchin argues one sees the Sun surrounded by eleven Globes since ancient peoples including the Sumerians according to Sitchin held the Sun and Moon to be planets these 11 Globes plus the Sun and up to 12 planets of course since we now know of nine planets plus our Sun and Moon part of Sitchin's argument is that these Sumerians knew of an extra planet beyond Pluto this extra planet is considered by Sitchin to be Nibiru an astronomical body mentioned in Mesopotamian texts Sitchin's work details as contention that Nibiru passes through our solar system every 3,600 years and so some believe in Sitchin's theory contend that Nibiru will return soon some followers of Sitchin's ideas also refer to new Bureau as Planet X [Music] [Music] [Music] the cylinder seal of a sure the winged disc in the relief is probably that of the moon since both the full and crescent moon phases are shown the tassels hanging down from the solar disk are like the tassels from which the solar disk of shamash is suspended as shown below a moon symbol would be appropriate to a relief of sana cherub who's named after the moon God the winged disc here therefore must be of the moon God no doubt the protector of sana cherith this relief from the Northwest Palace of Ashurbanipal ii 883 to 859 bc showing anointing of the Tree of Life a wing at God holds what appears to be a pinecone and a pot with the anointing oil above the Tree of Life is the royal signet of the god asher the god asher is depicted as a man with a bow inside a winged solar disc or as a winged solar disc in Assyrian reliefs we can see the anointing of the Tree of Life and the anointing involved a pot probably containing the anointing oil and a pinecone we see the ceremony being conducted both by an attendant of the palace and an eagle headed God the item held in the hand of the Eagle headed God is probably a bunch of grapes as it appears to that effect in another relief of him which shows the bunch of fruit being plucked from the Tree of Life where other bunches are depicted thus the item in the hand of the Eagle headed God would not likely be a pinecone [Music] the Sumerian star map the Sumerian star map or planisphere recovered from the 650 BC underground library of King Ashurbanipal in Nineveh Iraq in the late 19th century although late Babylonian in origin computer analysis has matched the tablets depiction of the heavens with the Mesopotamian sky of 3300 BC showing it to be a copy of an ancient Sumerian original the tablet is a form of astrolabe the earliest known astronomical instrument it consists of a segmented disk shaped star chart with marked units of angle measured inscribed upon the rim unfortunately considerable parts of the planisphere on this tablet are missing approximately 40% damage which dates to the sacking of Nineveh the reverse of the tablet is not inscribed still under study by modern scholars the planisphere provides extraordinary evidence of sumerian astronomy and a very sophisticated astronomy at that in 2008 two authors alan bond and mark kemp sille published a book about the tablet called a sumerian observation of the Koval's impact event raising a storm in archeological circles they retranslated the cuneiform text and found that the tablet is far more than a standard astrolabe it records an ancient asteroid strike known as the Koval's impact which travelled across the Middle East and struck Austria in 3100 BC the researchers believed it to be the same event which rained molten rock fire and ash upon Egypt and the ancient biblical cities of sodom and gomorrah the tablet depicts a circle divided by radial lines into eight equal sectors the lines radiating from the center to find eight stellar sectors of 45 degrees each star figures are found in six of these sectors God names are used to signify Orion and the Milky Way in addition to known Sumerians Star constellation names the eight sectors include constellations depicted in addition to being written along with star names and their attendant symbols the intact sections display cuneiform text naming stars and constellations as well as points and diagrams including arrows triangles intersecting lines and an ellipse which compromise schematic drawings of six stars and constellations the constellations depicted in each sector are drawn as dots representing stars connected by lines constellation figures are identifiable in these six undamaged sectors these stars and constellations shown are identified as one Libra Chu not identified three serious arrow for Pegasus and Andromeda field and plough five not identified six plea eights seven Gemini 8 Hydra Corvis and Virgo thus the circular star map divides the night sky into eight sectors that illustrates the most prominent constellations and their direction of movement the instructions of Shura POC the instructions of Shura POC are a set of 46 hundred year old Sumerian proverbs given by a king to his son which essentially set out how he should behave the ancient inscriptions were engraved in cuneiform script on clay tablets and today they're among the oldest surviving literary texts in the world several researchers have compared the instructions of Shura POC to the Ten Commandments and some of the Proverbs in the Bible the inscription reads in part do not buy an ass which brace too much do not commit rape upon a man's daughter do not answer back against your father even at the dawn of the written word people look to a more ancient past Shura PAC's instructions begin by recalling those far remote days and those far remote years as the source of the wisdom it imparts linguists estimate that the proto-indo-european language was spoken around fifty five hundred years ago but they've dated another ancient language proto afro-asiatic the grandparent of languages like ancient Egyptian Hebrew and Arabic to 10,000 to 20,000 years old [Music] the stele of the vultures is one of these sections of a monument from the reign of Ian Adam in the early dynastic third period 2600 220 350 BCE in Mesopotamia celebrating the victory of the city-state of lagash over its neighbor state puma the stella shows various battle and religious scenes and is named after the vultures that can be seen in one of them the steel was originally carved out of a single slab of limestone only seven fragments exist today they were found at Telo ancient gear sue in southern iraq in the late 19th century and are now on display in the Louvre other sectors of the cellar depict various incidents of the war in one register the king stands in his chariot with a curved weapon formed of three bars of metal bound together by rings in his right hand his kilted followers with helmets on their heads and Lance's in their hands marched behind him in another register a figure presumed to be that of the king rides on his chariot in the thick of battle on the other side of the steel is an image of Nenita a God of War holding the captive Umi eights in a large net this implies that Ian's Atum attributed his victory to Nenita and thus that he was in God's protection [Music] the Bernie relief also known as the queen of the night the queen of the night also known as the Bernie relief is a high relief terracotta plaque of baked clay measuring nineteen point four inches forty nine and a half centimeters high fourteen and a half inches 37 centimeters wide with a thickness of one point eight inches four point eight centimeters depicting a naked wing and woman flanked by owls and standing on the backs of two lions it originated in southern Mesopotamia modern-day Iraq most probably in Babylonia during the reign of Hammurabi 1792 to 1750 BCE as it shares these qualities in craftsmanship and technique with the famous diorite stele of Hammurabi's laws and with the piece known as the God of War from that same period the woman depicted in the relief is acknowledged to be a goddess as she wears the horn headdress of a deity and holds the sacred rod and ring symbol in erased hands not only as the woman wing it but her legs taper to bird talents which seemed to grip the Lions backs and she's shown with a do claw on her calves along the base of the plaque runs a motif which represents mountains indicating high ground who the winged woman is however has not been agreed upon those scholars generally believed her to be either Anana Ishtar Lilith or a rush Google VP's is presently part of the collection of the British Museum room 56 in London [Music] the steel of king or namu or namu was king of or in ancient Mesopotamia southern Iraq around 2000 BC in 1925 a joint expedition from the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the British Museum discovered dozens of fragments of monument in honor of or namu because such works have rarely survived the Stella became one of the most famous examples of Near Eastern art a status it retains today these still had been 10 feet high with registers in relief of scenes of religious practices on both front and back by 1927 the best pieces had been restored in Philadelphia into an imagined version of the Stella with plaster filling in the gaps but more than twice as many small or worn pieces were omitted from the restoration and dutifully stored in boxes at the Museum Genie voice can be realized that the early reconstruction had been too hasty and her meticulous painstaking re-examination reveals a wealth of new scenes that revised our understanding of the monument the book includes the justification of the reconstructions description of the scenes speculation on the ancient fate of the Stella as well as a description of each piece with photograph and drawing these vigorous innovative scenes contradict the long-held view from the old reconstruction that the monument was dull and repetitive in fact it's fresh and vibrant with dynamic scenes peopled by beautifully sculpted actors entirely new evidence is presented here in scientific detail including appendices from Steven tinny of the museum's babylonian section and tom's and fuller conservationists the books conclusions will be of major significance to historians archaeologists art historians biblical scholars and anthropologists working in the ancient Near East and to scholars concerned with institutions of kinship religion and everyday life Babylonian map of the world the Babylonian map of the world is a labelled depiction of the known world from the perspective of Babylonians the map is incised on a clay tablet showing the city of Babylon somewhat to the north of its centre the clay tablet is damaged and contains a section of cuneiform text it's usually dated to the 5th century BC it was discovered at SAP our southern region Iraq 60 miles or 97 kilometers north of Babylon on the east side of the Euphrates River and published in 1899 the clay tablet resides at the British Museum it is conjectured that the island locations though possibly referring to real areas may also represent a mythological interpretation of the world the map is circular with two outer defined circles cuneiform script labels all locations inside the circular map as well as a few regions outside the two outer circles represent water in between and is labeled as river of bitter water the salt sea Babylon is at the center of the map parallel lines on the bottom seem to represent these southern marshes and a curved line coming from the north northeast appears to represent Zagros Mountains there are seven small interior circles at the perimeter area within the circle and they appear to represent seven cities seven triangular sections on the external circle water perimeter represent named islands but the damaged clay tablet has lost the three islands on the tablets lower edge the three islands are named the place of the Rising Sun the Sun is hidden and nothing can be seen beyond the flight of birds [Music] the Royal game of or also known as the game of twenty squares refers to an ancient game represented by two game boards found in the royal tombs of or in Iraq by Sir Leonard Woolley in the 1920s the two boards date from the first dynasty of war before 2600 BC thus making the Royal game of or one of the oldest examples of board gaming equipment found although Senate boards found in Egyptian graves predated by as much as nine hundred years the or style twenty squares game board was also known in Egypt as a Sabbath and has been found in Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb among other places discovery of a tablet partially described the gameplay has allowed the game to be played again after over two thousand years although reconstructions of the detailed rules have differed widely one of the two boards from or is exhibited in the collection of the British Museum in London the Royal game of war was played with two sets of seven markers one black and one white and seven tetrahedral dice some interpretations of the rules suggest three dice for each player others for after around 1000 BC the layout of the twenty squares was altered to make the end course for the markers a straight line the rules of the game as it was played in Mesopotamia are not completely known but there have been several reconstructions of gameplay based on a cuneiform tablet of Babylonian origin dating from 177 to 176 BC by the scribe it seemed our Duke Bella - it's universally agreed that the Royal game of or like Senate is a race game both games may be predecessors to the present-day backgammon a graffito version of this game was discovered on one of the human headed winged bull gate sentinels from the palace of Sargon the second 721 to 705 BC in the city of Khorsabad now in the British Museum in London see illustration some games have since been discovered on other sculptures and other museums [Music] [Music] statue of Judea Judea was king of the Sumerian city-state of lagash around the 22nd century BCE after 200 years of servitude to Akkadian overlords the Sumerians gained a measure of freedom when northern tribes called the GU Tian's started raiding the Acadians it is in this window of opportunity that gujhiya rule sumaré was politically in decline but this period is dubbed by some as the golden age for the Sumerian arts because of the artifacts of great artistic quality that have been discovered judea was known to be a shepherd king the title shepherd king was often used by sumerian rulers as a way to distinguish themselves from neighboring cultures in Egypt for example the King was regarded as a god such Kings would lord over their subjects in Sumer however Kings tended to depict themselves as servants of the people Shepherds tend to the flock and protect them from predators as such the rulers in Sumer saw themselves as herders of men the rulers would take care of his subjects and protect them in return these subjects would willingly give their allegiance to their ruler ghujiya however took this concept a step further he refused the title of lougle king and instead adopted the title of NC governor the NZ was subservient to the locale given that gujia was the highest man in power some believed that he chose the title NC because he saw himself not as a king but as a servant of the god Ning Gear sue a God of law farming and hunting many inscriptions have been discovered where gujia details construction projects including numerous temples to this deity Judea was concerned for issues of social justice and the social welfare of his people both in the Steel's and the statues that have remained it's interesting to note that GU dia resembles a priest more than he does a king the garments he wears the bald head and clean-shaven face points you characteristics more common to priests than kings we can see in Gudea how the role of high priest and King was merged into one we also know that during this period Judea had an active trade life with the Mediterranean coast specifically the regions encompassing modern Syria Lebanon and Israel much of the cedar wood and stone used in his construction projects were brought from this area by now you may be realizing where this is going there are some unavoidable similarities in play between the biblical Melchisedec and Judea of lagash statue of Judea of lagash Melchisedec seems to reflect the philosophy of Sumerian rulership much like Judea in Melchizedek we see fusion between the roles of King and high priest who rules for the welfare and peace of his people the named Melchizedek itself means king of righteousness or justice [Music] the oral Coquina artifacts Luke Agena was a ruler and CEO of the city-state lagash in Mesopotamia he assumed the title of king claiming to have been divinely appointed upon the downfall of his corrupt predecessor lougle andhe he is best known for his reforms to combat corruption which are sometimes cited as the first example of a legal code in recorded history although the actual text has not been discovered much of its content may be surmised from other references to it that have been found in it he exempted widows and orphans from taxes compelled the city to pay funeral expenses including the ritual food and drink libations for the journey of the dead into the lower world and decreed that the rich must use silver when purchasing from the poor and if the poor does not wish to sell the powerful man the rich man or the priest cannot force him to do so the TEL asmar hoard sumerian worshipers the twelve statues known collectively as the TEL asmar hoard early dynastic one to two circa 2900 to 25 50 BC were unearthed in 1933 at ash noonah modern Tellez Mar in the Diala Region of Iraq despite subsequent finds at this site and others throughout the greater Mesopotamian area they remain the definitive example of the abstract style of early dynastic temple sculpture 2900 BC to 2350 BC in the late 1920s antique dealers in Baghdad were acquiring copious quantities of unusual high-quality artifacts from the desert east of the Diyala River just north of its confluence with the Tigris in 1929 the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago obtained a concession to excavate the area James Henry breasted 1865 to 1935 the founder of the Institute invited the Dutch archaeologist Henry Frankfort 1897 to 19 fifty-four to lead the expedition they uncovered temples palaces administrative buildings and houses ranging in date from about 3100 to 1750 BC the hundreds of artifacts recovered from the stratified ruins of these ancient Civic structures greatly enhanced understanding of early dynastic period ization among the most well known and best preserved objects are the twelve statues known collectively as the Tellez amar hoard the hoard was found during the 1933 to 1934 excavation season at Tellez Mawr beneath the floor of a temple dedicated to the god abu these statues were neatly stacked in an oblong cavity beside an altar in the sanctuary the careful placement suggests that they were buried intentionally however the reason for the burial and person or persons responsible for doing so remains unclear Frankford who wrote extensively on the subject suggests that a priest periodically buried old or badly damaged statues to make room in the temple for their replacements these statues of the telus maar horde range in height from 21 centimeters 8.2 inches to 72 centimeters 28.3 inches of the 12 statues found 10 are male and to our female 8 of the figures are made from gypsum 2 from limestone and one the smallest from alabaster all the figures except for the one that is kneeling are rendered in a standing position thin circular bases were used as supports and large webbed shaped feet provide the larger statues with added durability the male's wear kilts with a pattern hem that covers the midsection and thighs their broad shoulders and thick circular arms frame the bare chest which is partially covered by a black stylized beard all the male's except for one that is bald and clean-shaven have long hair rendered in two symmetrical halves that frames the smooth surfaces of the cheeks and forehead the large eyes which are undoubtedly the most striking stylistic feature that the statues share are made from inlays of white shell and black limestone one figure as pupils of lapis lazuli these materials are secured to the head with bitumen which was used as a pigment to give the beard and hair its characteristic black color both the hair and the clothing though abstracted accurately reflect Sumerian styles of the early dynastic period the hoard was discovered in a temple dedicated to Abu the ancient near-eastern god of fertility evidence from early dynastic ruins at confession suggests that these statues may have been arranged along the walls of their sanctuary either on the floor or on a low mud-brick bench before they were buried some of the statues are inscribed on the back and bottom with a name and personalized silica torii message while others simply state one who offers prayers these inscriptions indicate that the statues function as a surrogate for male and female worshipers who wish to leave their prayers with the God Frankfort argued that the largest figure in the horde is not an effigy of a human worshipper but rather a representation of the patron deity abou he calls attention to several features that set this statue apart from the rest including the size the unnaturally large eyes especially the pupils and the emblematic carving of an eagle with outstretched wings flanked by two recumbent mountain goats carved on the base the most famous sumerian gods Anke and Gilgamesh Anke who was alternately called iya and king nin siku and newton mood was one of the primary gods in the sumerian pantheon he was in control of fresh water wisdom and intelligence mischief creation fertility and virility healing hand crafts and art most of the artistic depictions of him show him as an old man with a long beard a horn hat and rich robes he's climbing a majestic mountain with the Sun rising over it while clear water runs from his arms and symbolic trees decorate his path the trees indicate the masculine and feminine sides of existence these streams of water represent the Tigris and Euphrates rivers Enki is loosely translated as Lord of the earth he began his existence as a god in Sumer focused solely on freshwater and was closely associated with the city of ear ado this demonstrated his supreme importance because all life comes from the water and that particular city was considered the first one ever created the earliest mentions of Enki showed up around 2600 BCE during the early dynastic period illa he was reimagined as iya my Acadians approximately two hundred years later archaeological explorations however found some evidence of smaller shrines to the original water God as far back as 5000 BCE his different purposes and names journeyed with him through a variety of cities and empires Enki's origin i knew the god of the sky for both Akkadian and Sumerian religious worship was given as an geez father in those cultures in Babylonian stories his father was considered OPSEU who created existence itself and his mother was not moved who gave birth to the earth in the sky Anke was weighed to nimma and they bore us our louis god of magic and be lulu god of canals Marduk the king of the gods and adop who is a human wise man according to the myth about Enghien in her song the God also sired eight additional children with her please included a boo god of plants and in chula the god of precious metal and in situ goddess of healing Ninkasi the goddess of beer non she the goddess of justice and divination Asamoah another goddess of healing and wife of the god of the underworld I'm shocked got a fertility and nin tea the goddess who has considered the giver of life Anke was frequently said to be the father of banana a very popular goddess of fertility love this very productive God showed up in a wealth of legends and myths with his wife or one or more of his offspring and aside these include inscriptions specifically created for various kings throughout the years and those written creatively by literary experts and scribes of the time in general the main themes seem to be the creation of the world and people and stories of Marduk specifically and his battle against chaos Anke özil features in the famous epic of gilgamesh the anu mulisch origin story written about 1100 BCE babylonian story called an umma elihss features Enki is the son of the primordial gods existed since the beginning of time the origin of everything started with the masculine existence of fresh water called OPSEU and the feminine existence of salt water called Tiamat as they came together they created the earliest seven gods and goddesses together unfortunately these young deities were occasionally noisy bothered OPSEU so much while he was trying to sleep that he decided to destroy all of them Tiamat being the doting mother that she was found this idea horrific and warned dunkey about his father's plans to thwart the impending murder he was able to kill OPSEU after he fell asleep TMI became equally horrified that her son would do such a thing to her husband and immediately disowned all of her children creating a demonic army got her consort Quinn go to lead them and sent them against Anki and the other early gods this is where Marduk son of Anki stepped in in exchange for his might and leadership skills he insisted that he could lead the holy army against the demonic horde and destroy them instead of the younger gods taking turns as the leader and failing every time they decided to take this new opportunity and elected Marv Duke is the king he was able to destroy Quinn gooo shoot TM out with a magical arrow that divided her into two pieces which would ultimately become the Tigris and Euphrates rivers the remaining parts of her body became the landmasses of the earth the gods all got together and used Quinn goos remains to fashion the first people although Marduk did most of the action surrounding the origin of the world in humans he asked Anke how to do things and for his blessing throughout the entire process therefore Enki is usually considered the creator god the Atrahasis of Babylon and acadia sometime in the sixteen hundreds BCE another creation story called the otra houses was written well the exact process of creation of the world and people were considered different it was still Anki who was considered the top God and orchestrator of it all it all starts with a description of older gods lazing about and doing nothing well the younger ones have to struggle day in and day out to maintain the world that was created they cannot raster take a break Anke brings up the great idea to create a race of beings subservient to them who could do the work instead however they cannot figure out how to make them until one of the gods named Lilu decides to sacrifice himself for the formative physical materials the goddess nin herzog transforms his body and blood into a type of pottery clay with which she forms seven men and seven women they procreate ratalie and fill the land with thousands of people doing the work for the gods and goddesses at first this all seems like a very good thing the younger gods do not have to toil all day anymore however so many people are born that they make so much noise and are so active that it disturbs and leo the father god and makes it difficult for him to relax and enjoy his leisure time activities so he sends a few plagues including droughts famines and pestilence across the land to kill a large number of the people so they're quieter Anke takes pity on the people and gives them instructions about how they can stop all these problems and restore balance once more and lille notices that as plagues are not having the desired effect it minimizing the number of people on earth anymore they just keep multiplying after much discussion with the higher God's he sends a massive worldwide flood across the world in order to destroy all life that the younger God's created Anki tries to stop him but in the end he's unsuccessful therefore he journeys down to earth and tells a man named Atrahasis who will become the inspiration for Noah in the Christian Bible to build a massive ship for his family and many animals when the great flood comes he and his family alone are saved both the people and the lesser gods are distraught over so much death and destruction they cry and beg and leal to stop the serife ik idea but he does not realize the folly of his ways until everyone's dead the flood retreats to reveal that otra Haase survived because of Angie's warning he and the animals emerge from the ship and he and his family worship the gods and make sacrifices to appease them and Lia was both impressed at the man's piety and severely angry that Enki defied him by telling one human how to escape his wrath eventually Enlil calms down and the gods decide to create a new type of being that will not populate the earth as quickly as the one sacred before in order to control the population they create less fertile people allowed demons to carry babies away make some of the women miscarry and other women perpetually virgin because they were claimed by the gods the lifespan of human beings was also minimized and the risks increased while Enki seems to be on the side of humanity in these stories he also does a lot of beneficial things for other gods and goddesses both in his direct lineage and outside of it for example he helps the gods of destruction Nergal remain outside the underworld for half of every year he also arranges for his daughter and Nonna's rescue from the netherworld after her death throughout various tales and legends is usually shown as a very wise and cunning God who can figure out the solutions to a diverse range of problems he's dedicated to his family especially Anana and frequently helps to restore balanced to situations that seem generally out of control one example of this comes from the poem the descent of Inanna ultimately she's saved from death and has given various understandings and gifts that she can do so on humanity Anke makes choices that are seemingly against with the other God's desire and he's temporarily considered a trickster in these stories however it's generally shown by the end they as a considerably enlightened outlook and takes actions based on the end result in the epic of gilgamesh he allows and cue to get killed for example when Anana tries to seduce Gilgamesh and is rebuffed Enki protects his daughters ego by allowing the ball of heaven to destroy him well this does not originally sound like something that Anke would allow for such an epic and heroic figure as Gilgamesh the end result justifies the means he recognizes that Gilgamesh will therefore learn about loss in such a way as to affect his understanding of life in general and how to live a good one Anke is generally considered a sympathetic character in the tales he appears and even when his actions seem morally challenging worship of Enki is the patron of ear ado ear ado was largely considered the first city on earth Anke was therefore adopted as the patron god of the city it was first created around 5,400 BCE and would stand strong as a political religious and commerce area for thousands of years it features heavily in tales and legends stretching from Mesopotamia all the way through the Hebrew creation of the Old Testament and beyond what our geologists and researchers reached irri do many millennia after its founding they were surprised to find a large number of shrines dedicated to Enki that have been in use for centuries in fact some of the earliest ones were constructed and augmented or rebuilt for over a thousand years during all this time and Kidd become exceptionally popular God outside of the city as well nevertheless ear ado remained his essential home and hub of worship he was associated with subterranean fresh water that flowed in this region the temples of ankor were controlled by an entire network of priests who did a variety of tasks associated with shrine maintenance worship except and the use of sacrifices healing in public care when it came to things like food distribution and serving the poor they did not hold regular ceremonial services but did organize festivals and special events the people who lived in the city would have private services or offer prayers to Enki on their own Anke was so much more than the protector of the city and ruler of the subterranean waters because he was one of the high gods that existed since virtually the beginning of time people found him considerably important in a variety of ways therefore they attributed to him a host of powers that attracted a variety of creatures and beings into his service these would include giants mermaids and mermen demons and more representative as they were of the towering heights of civilization at the time and see deep dark deaths a reality Agee was considered a source of universal wisdom and protection he was ultimately a very human focus God who used his power for the benefit of people rather than for his own whims the only other God more famous than Enki if not equal is Gilgamesh much of what we learn of him comes from his famous poem the Epic of Gilgamesh commonly considered one of the first pieces of fictional literature in the world the Epic of Gilgamesh has influenced many later stories and writers knowing this today it may come as a surprise that the story was lost for the majority of the time it existed around 1612 BCE the needs and Babylonians attacked the Assyrian Empire destroying many of its cities including Nineveh and took over the land Nineveh had been considered the capital of the Empire at that time and had an extensive library full of clay tablets upon which were written all the stories collected from the civilization despite the Babylonians attempting to destroy it all by fire the clay tablets were simply baked instead of ruined although they failed to get rid of all this literature and records the building did collapse on top of them and buried them all for thousands of years they were finally unearthed again in the mid 1800s when European explorers started their archeological digs the goal of these early historians researchers and representatives of museums and governments was to prove biblical stories from the Old Testament the Christian holy book did mention many of the rulers and cities from the Mesopotamian civilization so the people in power believed that there must be other stories of these great times buried in the ruins excavations took years and many interesting artifacts were found the interest in discovering biblical evidence ramped up considerably when Charles Darwin published his scientific treaty used in 1859 seee interestingly enough the researchers did not discover what they were looking for instead of locating proof that the biblical stories were original and true they found evidence that most of them had been borrowed from earlier tales the things that Christians believed such as the story of the Garden of Eden and Noah's Ark we're not ultimately a part of that religion at all instead they came from the pantheistic beliefs of the Sumerian people they were derived from the legends and myths of a society that the Christian believers would have denounced as ungodly due to their beliefs and multiple gods and goddesses and how the entire realm of spirituality functioned when the library of clay tablets and what was Nineveh was first discovered it showed the world that the Christian Bible was not the source of all literary information about how the world was created or how their singular God ruled over it instead the earliest civilization on earth already had many of the innovations literature styles agricultural advancements technologies and belief systems in place that were later attributed to others for example many people believe that Homer the great Greek literary expert was the father of the heroic epic tale he created the stories around 800 BCE with the finding of the clay tablets from Mesopotamia it became obvious that this form of writing was around for hundreds if not thousands of years before then Austen Henry Layard brought the epic of gilgamesh to light in 18-49 C II while there were multiple formats of the story the most complete one was written in Akkadian and covered twelve tablets buried under the Fallen library building in what had been a sure ban upon the Epic of Gilgamesh story on eleven of the twelve tablets historians could decipher the now well-known tale about Gilgamesh the twelfth tablet is an alternative form of the story in which a man named Bill games which had been an accepted form of Gilgamesh according to other archaeological finds journeyed to the nether world in a different way in most cases the first eleven tablets are taken as the bulk of the story that was written all at the same time the whole thing started as an epic poem in Sumer these scribes later on translated into Akkadian the original name for the story was he who saw the deep or surpassing all other Kings the original writing occurred anywhere from 700 to a thousand years after King aruch reigned it's said to have been the story about him specifically there were earlier stories about the same character who was described as a human hero and a demigod who was related to annona one of the highest goddesses of the Mesopotamian Pantheon although the human equivalent of Gilgamesh is not sufficiently precise it's obvious to researchers that he was a powerful symbol of humanity in general his epic might was considered tempered by the types of struggles that everyday people had to go through these included loss death and existential dread the man who wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh was named sin lucky Unni knee or moon god accept my plea he lived somewhere in the period between 1300 and 1000 BCE and is considered one of the first literary writers in the world he's also considered the originator of the heroic epic form of story more so than other writers who came before him he was by some considered a Mesopotamian Homer who contributed just as important types of literature to the world as any of the grates that followed after him the epic of gilgamesh follows the king of Uruk and his friends and kido on a quest through various landscapes in order to find the secret of eternal life the person who supposedly holds the secret of life was named upin episteme the entire story includes journeys through massive forests across great rivers and for many interesting and mystical locations because Gilgamesh was said to be this particular king there are factual historical records of his reign in life besides the piece of literature that includes fictional events the king who was supposedly the son of a priest and the goddess nin soon or great holy mother would have made him a demigod and thus quite powerful on earth a lot of Mesopotamian kings took on the role of deity in order to make themselves seem more powerful the combination of godly power and mortal humbleness would have been especially interesting to the people reading or hearing the story back then in the story itself the king was cruel and egotistical he did not treat the people under him with much kindness or consideration in order to teach him humility he sent a wild man named Enkidu to the king to challenge his power in a very physical way the story describes how and Ketu was lured into the palace by sham hot and then brought before the king there's a physical challenge a fight that in Quito loses and a new bond of friendship between the two men gilgamesh's mother even adopts in Quito into their family the rest of the story includes quite a lot of other physical battles when journeying through the cedar forest together they come across a fierce demon named oom baba and the bull of heaven who insults Anana and states that in quito must die because of this blood price that must be paid Gilgamesh realizes his own mortality and the weak mortal failings of the flesh having lost his best friend and brother he becomes distraught and despairs that he will one day die like inky who did the quest for eternal life begins Gilgamesh struggles through various other obstacles such as the land of night and the waters of deaths until he comes to town episteme a man who is said to know the secrets of eternal life he is the origin of Noah in the story of the Christian Bible about the great flood and one man being saved by building an ark after iya told to him bouton episteme constructed the massive boat and brought many animals on board to save them the ancient immortal gives Gilgamesh various tasks to do to prove that he's worthy of eternal life the first is to stay awake for six days but he's unable to do so he then tells the hero to fetch a magical plant Gilgamesh succeeds but the plant is machined by a snake that sneaks in during the night after these failures Gilgamesh was sent back home with the knowledge that there's nothing he can do to avoid tests in the future the entire story is a teaching tale that shows how people can strive and fight against the passage of time and eventual death all that evil to tribal it's ultimately about finding your own purpose in life and the reason to journey on and overcome the challenges presented to the epic of gilgamesh is ultimately a story of failure but it teaches a lot using allegory and symbolism that demonstrates a very rich literary form for the first heroic African history people can relate to his struggles both nearly 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia and today throughout all those millennia he's shown up in different stories and books across multiple civilizations in this way it seems the Gilgamesh or the King Farouk has achieved the immortality he was originally after the Amarna letters the Amarna letters were inscribed on clay tablets somewhere in the 1400s BCE the style of writing used on them was Mesopotamian style Kili form in the Akkadian script interestingly enough these tablets were not found in the center of Mesopotamian civilization instead they were discovered by archaeologists and tell el-amarna of prominent city in Egypt that was the capital when Amenhotep the fourth was the pharaoh this style of writing was that developed in ancient Egypt at that time instead the Amarna letters show that diverse groups of people adopted this language as their own in places outside of those controlled this is quite an interesting discovery for researchers who are studying the early formation of written language and inscription it seems appropriate for a group of tablets called the Amarna letters most of them were communications to and from the egyptian king and rulers in other Mediterranean civilizations of the time not only did they include greetings and ordinary things like that but they also hold records of myths and legends poetry lexical texts and what appears to be writing lessons or even vocabulary lists today the Amarna letters tablets are scattered across the world in various museums the discovery of these letters occurred around 1887 but there's not a definitive story about how they were found some of the reports contradict each other and others seem to give credit to people who are not involved many of the reports are secondhand and indicate that the tablets which would become the Amarna letters were found by peasants farmers and other commoners they may have been discovered by private adventures who are not associated with a particular museum or company what archaeologists went back to tell el-amarna to learn more about the discovery they encountered more confusion and discrepancy some of the local population indicated that they were found in a so-called records office or the place of the correspondence of Pharaoh although there are clear records that some other tablets and texts were found here the amarna letters were probably not all in this location at any time the general consensus is that not all the tablets came from one place instead they were scattered about multiple official buildings in the administrative complex in the Egyptian city the experts who have studied these cuneiform letters have found quite a lot of interesting historical evidence and information about Egypt other Mediterranean groups and the communication they shared in some ways these tablets show some of the earliest international relations in the world they come in two varieties most of the letters seem to come from vassals or lesser nobility in the Egyptian controlled area these cities and kingdoms were called the Levant it's easy to see that the people who wrote these were very interested in paying homage to the king as they frequently identified him as Lord and the son they frequently signed the letters with the words your servant as would be expected from any entered kingdom communications letters mostly complained about political issues nearby rulers and trade the smaller portion of these letters came from outside kings and rulers and were addressed to the Egyptian ruler or these smaller leaven teams in these the kings of Assyria Babylonia haughty and Mitani did not show deference to the Pharaoh instead they called him brother and spoke about mutually beneficial exchanges in trade some of these tablets mentioned gold lapis lazuli jewelry chariots and other valuable resources there were even a few letters that discuss the possibility of royal marriages to bind different countries houses together perhaps the most unique letter in the collection was from Ashur Ubbe leet the first a leader in Assyria that represents the first communication between him and the Pharaoh it would be appropriate he also offered to find horses and chariots lapis lazuli stone trinkets and asked if he could send a messenger to visit Egypt on his behalf most of the requests in the letter work half practical and half promotional the rulers wanted to establish trade and get protection from other countries nearby but they also wanted the benefit of raising their status because of these associations in order to impress the recipient as much as possible the scribes were undoubtedly told to use highly elaborate and respectful greetings included multiple titles honors and wishes for good health and a long life to both the king and his family although the Amarna letters are usually looked upon as historical documents that show political and economic connections between the ancient civilisations many believe they were probably read out loud to the king in the court which would transform them from mere historical documents into ceremonial artifacts to the appearance of some of the tablets seemed to indicate that format itself was often augmented to impress most of all Egyptian writing was painted in pictorial hieroglyphics on papyrus paper the Akkadian and Mesopotamian script was carved with wedge-shaped symbols into flat clay some indications of sprucing things up comes from the extra-large tablets decorative margins and sections of the letter that were marked off for other purposes although these and other changes may have simply been decorative they may have also indicated different rulers personal style or stamp of identification not only with the tablet itself making impression on the Pharaoh but the messenger with a unique outfit and presentation style would show the quality of the person sending them and their respect and honor for the recipient luckily for modern researchers the amount of letters were stored quite safely in the records office and nearby buildings in Egypt there were over 350 different letters in total and they were probably saved so carefully so that the rulers could check back through the files to see who gave what gift and when our respectful a particular Levant or foreign ruler was and to verify requests and marriage offers conversely perhaps saving these unique foreign missives was part of the status seeking behavior of the rulers who receive them after all if they were important enough to get dozens of cuneiform tablet letters from other important people there surely worthy of respect and admiration [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
