Anunnaki
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- This article is about the Sumerian gods. For the fictional Anunnaki from Demon: The Fallen, see Annunaki (White Wolf). For The Annunaki as depicted in The 12th Planet, see Zecharia Sitchin.
The Anunnaki (also transcribed as: Anunna, Anunnaku, Ananaki and other variations) are a group of Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian deities. The name is variously written "da-nuna", "da-nuna-ke4-ne", or "da-nun-na", meaning something to the effect of 'those of royal blood'[1] or 'princely offspring'.[2] Their relation to the group of gods known as the Igigi is unclear - at times the names are used synonymously but in the Atra-Hasis flood myth they have to work for the Anunnaki, rebelling after 40 days and replaced by the creation of humans.[3] Jeremy Black and Anthony Green offer a slightly different perspective on the Igigi and the Anunnaki, writing that "lgigu or Igigi is a term introduced in the Old Babylonian Period as a name for the (ten) 'great gods'. While it sometimes kept that sense in later periods, from Middle Babylonian times on it is generally used to refer to the gods of heaven collectively, just as the term Anunnakku (Anuna) was later used to refer to the gods of the underworld. In the Epic of Creation, it is said that there are 300 lgigu of heaven.".[4] The Anunnaki appear in the Babylonian creation myth, Enuma Elish. In the late version magnifying Marduk, after the creation of mankind, Marduk divides the Anunnaki and assigns them to their proper stations, three hundred in heaven, three hundred on the earth. In gratitude, the Anunnaki, the "Great Gods", built Esagila, the splendid: "They raised high the head of Esagila equaling Apsu. Having built a stage-tower as high as Apsu, they set up in it an abode for Marduk, Enlil, Ea." Then they built their own shrines. According to later Babylonian myth, the Anunnaki were the children of Anu and Ki, brother and sister gods, themselves the children of Anshar and Kishar (Skypivot and Earthpivot, the Celestial poles), who in turn were the children of Lahamu and Lahmu ("the muddy ones"), names given to the gatekeepers of the Abzu temple at Eridu, the site at which the creation was thought to have occurred. Finally, Lahamu and Lahmu were the children of Tiamat (Goddess of the Ocean) and Abzu (God of Fresh Water). [edit] Notes 1.^ Leick, Gwendolyn: A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology (NY: Routledge, 1998), p. 7 2.^ Black, Jeremy and Green, Anthony: Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary University of Texas Press (Aug 1992) ISBN 978-0292707948 p.34 3.^ Leick, Gwendolyn: A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology (NY: Routledge, 1998), p. 85 4.^ Black, Jeremy and Green, Anthony: Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary University of Texas Press (Aug 1992) ISBN 978-0292707948 p.106 [1] Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anunnaki" Categories: Mesopotamian deities | Enuma Elish
Genesis 6:1-4 reads: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose... There were nephilim in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” [emphasis added] Nephilim is often translated as “giants”, a legitimate and appropriate interpretation, but one which may be only partially accurate. A better definition might be “those who came down”, “those who descended”, or “those who were cast down.” The Anunnaki of ancient Sumerian texts is similarly defined as “those who from heaven to earth came”. Sitchin [1], Gardner [2], and Bramley [3] have all identified the Nephilim as the Anunnaki, more specifically, essentially the rank and file. For Updates and more thoughts, visit the Halexandria Forums Virtually all open-minded historical and theological scholars agree the Old Testament’s book of Genesis was extracted from the older Sumerian records, if only because of the similarity in their Comparative Religions. The Enuma Elish, the Sumerian Epic of Creation, and Genesis have a variety of common elements. Stories of a Great Flood and Deluge, among other stories, are also common to both Sumerian and Biblical accounts. An inevitable conclusion is that the Anunnaki were as real as Noah, Moses or Abraham. Laurence Gardner [2] has written: “Every item of written and pictorial attestation confirms that the ancient Sumerians were absolutely sincere about the existence of the Anunnaki, and those such as Enki, Enlil, Nin-khursag and Inanna fulfilled earthly functions with designated community duties. They were patrons and founders; they were teachers and justices; they were technologists and kingmakers. They were jointly and severally venerated as archons and masters, but there were certainly not idols of religious worship as the ritualistic gods of subsequent cultures became. In fact, the word which was eventually translated to become ‘worship’ was avod, which meant quite simply, ‘work’. The Anunnaki presence may baffle historians, their language may confuse linguists and their advanced techniques may bewilder scientists, but to dismiss them is foolish. The Sumerians have themselves told us precisely who the Anunnaki were, and neither history nor science can prove otherwise.” The Sumerian records recorded in great detail the stories of the Anunnaki, and among these, that of Enki, Enlil, Ninki, Inanna, Utu, Ningishzida, Marduk, and many others. Chief among these stories was the continuing conflict between Enki and Enlil, the sons of the supreme god of the time, Anu. Much of ancient human history, and the Biblical Genesis, can be explained as the militant differences between these two half-brothers, and how they affected the life of all sentient beings on Earth. But the Anunnaki were more than just a pair of squabbling half-brothers. They were the council of Gods and Goddesses, who periodically met to consider their future actions with respect to each other, and probably as a smaller, nondescript item on their agenda, the fate of mankind. The Anunnaki, depending upon the context, were the Nephilim, the gods that Abraham’s father, Terah, (according to the book of Joshua) was reputed to have served, the fallen angels, the lesser individuals of the race from which Anu, Enki, Enlil, Inanna and the other notables had sprung, and the “judges” over the question of life and death. They were in fact the bene ha-elohim, which translates as “the sons of the gods”, or equally likely, “the sons of the goddesses.” For example, from Psalm 82: “Jehovah takes his stand at the Council of El to deliver judgment among the elohim.” “You too are gods, sons of El Elyon, all of you.” The Anunnaki have also been equated with the “Watchers” (who are also mentioned in the books of Daniel and Jubilees), i.e. “Behold a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven.” -- Daniel 4:13 According to Zecharia Sitchin [1] and his interpretation of ancient Sumerian texts, the Anunnaki were extraterrestrials (aka “angels”?), who were an extremely long-lived race, potentially living as long as 500,000 years. Laurence Gardner [2] reduces this to more on the order of 50,000 years, and notes specifically that the Anunnaki were not immortal. He point out that no records are currently extant which relates to their natural deaths, but the violent deaths of Apsu, Tiamat, Mummu, and Dumu-zi are provided in some detail. (Sitchin and Gardner also disagree on the date of the Great Deluge/Flood; Sitchin assuming a time frame of 11,000 B.C.E., while Gardner assumes one of 4,000 B.C.E.) Sitchin’s book, The 12th Planet, published in 1976 was the first modern volume to begin to describe the Anunnaki, their arrival on Earth supposedly some 485,000 years ago, and from where they had come -- a planet called Nibiru. Sitchin believes Nibiru to be in an orbit about our sun, but in a strongly elliptical orbit which requires 3,600 Earth years to make a complete orbit. Nibiru’s perihelion (closest point of approach to the Sun) is thought to be within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, at a distance from the Sun of approximately 2.75 A.U. (an A.U. being the distance from the Sun to the Earth). (the Annals of Earth include a detailed description of how Nibiru created the asteroid belt by destroying a planet, Tiamat, in roughly the same orbit, and which created the Earth in the aftermath, the Earth being a remnant of the greater, destroyed planet.) Nibiru is not known to modern astronomy primarily due to the extreme elliptical nature of its orbit and the fact its aphelion (furthest point in the planet’s orbit from the Sun) is more than eight times the distance from the Sun to the planet Pluto (the latter being some 40 A.U. away, and thus the former, some 320 A.U. distant). Furthermore, Nibiru may be now far out in deep space and unlikely to be detected. (Or close by, e.g. Planet X.) While Sitchin and Gardner may disagree with the extent of the long lives of the Anunnaki, it is clear that these gods and goddesses, baring accidents or “Anunnaki-cide”, lived a very long time. It has also been theorized that because of their long lives, they do not quite move in “the fast lane” -- at least to the extent humans do. This could be fundamentally important in that, quite possibly, the human life span, while enormously brief as compared to the Anunnaki gods and goddesses, might nevertheless be compensated by the humans possessing the ability to achieve a great deal in a relatively short time. The creativity of a shortened, and thus highly motivated lifespan is likely to be enormously greater than that of a god or semi-god resting on their laurels. This may also relate to the idea of why the gods and goddesses of the Anunnaki even bother with mankind. Humans may, on the one hand, act as workers to accomplish the Anunnaki’s agenda, but an accelerated creativity may be well worth the trouble for the Anunnaki to manage a crew as motley as the human race. But the connection between humans and the Anunnaki is much more profound than that of masters and slaves. All the evidence strongly advocates the concept that Adam and Eve and their ancestors, cousins, and what-have-you were created by genetic engineering and mixing the DNA of Anunnaki with that of Homo erectus, the reigning progenitor of man at the time. Fundamentally, this was because the Anunnaki needed someone to work the mines in search of gold and other Precious Metals, and in all likelihood the ORME. http://www.vibrani.com/Anunnaki.htm provides what just may be an insider view of the Anunnaki -- but from the perspective of Enki. The advantage of this link is that it provides extensive details on pre-Anunnaki history. While such channeled information is always speculative, it is nevertheless worthy of serious consideration. (2/5/9) Another speculative source of possible implications is William James' website, Zero Point - Power of the gods in which he has provided a possible answer to the logical question of what was the Anunnaki's energy/power source. In effect he has linked physics and ancient history by means of "an adventure series which focuses on the unlimited potentials of Zero Point Energy and the ancient gods of civilizations long past." By means of supporting evidence, this combination of science and history effectively provides greater credibility to both. Additionally (and in many respects importantly, Mr. James' writings can also "stir the reader’s imagination to consider the possibilities of this fantastic energy source"... not to mention giving an intriguing insight into the practitioners of the energy source, the Anunnaki. The most fundamental question with respect to the Anunnaki is whether or not they’re still on Earth! Sitchin [1] has pointed out that he never said they left (and there is no evidence that they did). There was, however, an apparently fundamental Anunnaki policy shift circa 600 B.C.E. wherein the overt, day-to-day interference in human affairs by the Anunnaki disappeared. There is also the scenario encapsulated in Richard Wagner's classic opera The Ring of the Nibelung, which included Night Falls on the Gods and the Entrance of the Gods Into Vahalla -- titles which are suggestive of possible changes in status of the Anunnaki. Finally, there is evidence to suggest that this state of affairs may be temporary, and may be scheduled to end with the end of the Mayan Calendar on or about 2012. A.D. From mankind’s point of view, the dysfunctional nature of the Anunnaki family, and the continuing rivalry of Enki and Enlil, may still be ongoing and having enormous effects on the quality of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual lives. It’s a very important question, and one that needs to be answered by each of us. Written 1500 years before the Homeric sagas, the Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the great classics of literature. Discovered in the late nineteenth century among the Nievah Library -- “Written down according to the original and collated in the palace of Assurbanipal, King of the World, King of Assyria” -- the Epic was the first clue to a Sumerian version of the Great Deluge/Flood, whose hero was King Zi-u-sudra (aka Noah, Uta-napishtim). From a literary poem of view, the Epic of Gilgamesh is as secular as the Odyssey, and as contemporary as any heroic tale of an exciting life. Gilgamesh is in mature manhood when the Epic begins, but being semi-divine (2/3rd god and 1/3rd human -- or alternatively, 2 parts deity, one part man) and vastly superior to other men, he can find no worthy match in love or war. Accordingly, as the fifth king of Uruk following the Great Flood, he lords it over his people to the point where they pray for relief. They receive it in the form of a “natural man”, Enkidu, who has been reared by the animals and is enormously strong and swift as a gazelle. Enkidu is sought out and seduced by a female (either priestess or harlot, depending upon the predilections of the translator), and with his subsequent loss of innocence, he takes the first step toward becoming civilized (i.e. the animals reject him). This quickly brings him into direct conflict with Gilgamesh. After a knock-down-drag-out fight, the two become the greatest of friends (it’s a guy thing), and ultimately set out on great quests. The most notable is going into the forest where Humbaba dwells. “Because of the evil that is in the land, we will go to the forest and destroy the evil.” Unfortunately, the evil Humbaba is the protégé of Enlil (of Enki and Enlil fame), and the forest episode is a cruel trap set by Enlil in order to destroy Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Gilgamesh survives, but Enkidu doesn’t. Because it was Enkidu’s hubris in refusing the prayer of Humbaba for mercy, Enlil brings the case before the Anunnaki, the council of the gods, and retribution is accordingly doled out. In an independent poem, Enkidu and the Underworld, Enkidu goes down alive into the underworld to bring back a mysterious drum and drumstick that Gilgamesh has let fall into it. In spite of warnings, Enkidu breaks all the taboos and finds himself ultimately held by the underworld. The loss of Enkidu is devastating to Gilgamesh. The lost of the great friendship and the knowledge that death is inevitable sets Gilgamesh out on a bold undertaking to find ever- lasting life. His first clue is the legend of the day which insisted that King Zi-u-sudra (aka Noah) had not only survived the Flood, but had entered the company of the gods and been taken faraway “to live at the mouth of the rivers”. Gilgamesh’s trek, akin to Odysseus’s journey, constitutes the last half of the Epic, where he encounters a variety of obstacles -- including one god’s advise that his quest is certain to fail. Gilgamesh also encounters a woman named Siduri, an enigmatic figure living in a place “where east and west were confused”, and who dispenses the philosophy of eat, drink and be merry, “for this too is the lot of man”. Siduri, nevertheless provides Gilgamesh with the instructions on how to cross the waters of death, using the boatman Urshanabi to ferry him across in much the same manner as that of the sun’s journey into the west each day. An important and notable event occurs during the meeting between Gilgamesh and the ferryman, involving the “Things of Stone”, which Gilgamesh rashly smashes, making it then necessary for the ferryman to use “punting poles” -- the latter which are somehow connected with “wings” or “winged beings or figures”. [This fascinating aside is suggestive of the idea that the “Things of Stone” were akin in some manner to “The Philosopher’s Stone” or the ORME, whereby Levitation would have been a foregone conclusion as a means of transportation. (See also Zero-Point Energy, The Fifth Element, and Inertial Propulsion.) Without the “Things of Stone”, other means of flying, e.g. wings, apparently would be necessary.] Gilgamesh’s meeting with Zi-u-sudra (Noah) begins with more “wisdom” of the type that man should be content with his lot in life (however short it might be). [This is typical advice from immortal or very long-lived beings. But from the Anunnaki, who apparently depend upon Star Fire or ORME for their longevity -- and humans carrying some of their DNA -- this advice is considerably more suspect as being bad advice.] Zi-u-sudra then does an accounting of his experience in the Flood. According to Zi-u-sudra, the Flood came about after a meeting of the council of the gods -- any such meeting typically implying really bad news for mankind -- in which Enlil again took the part of the advocate for destroying mankind, while Enki apparently was silent, and spoke his mind by aiding Zi-u-sudra in surviving the Flood. It is noteworthy that the dreadful havoc of the Deluge and Flood appalled even the gods. Enlil had, apparently, spared no effort to use the horrors of storm, lightning, hailstones, and coals of fire raining down in order to exterminate mankind. And unlike the Biblical story, the Sumerian version is based on a group of factious, flustered, and fallible deities. Importantly, there is no Covenant that the gods will not do as much again, but Inanna’s exclamation that she will not “forget these days”, and the immortality and semi-divine status which Zi-u-sudra obtains from the gods, might be indicative of some respite from anxiety. As a matter of face, “Noah” means “respite”! Gilgamesh eventually obtains the plant of Youth Regained from the bottom of the sea, but inexplicably does not immediately eat it at once. He eventually loses it, when a snake eats it and thereby becomes the symbol for self-renewal. In the end, Gilgamesh has no choice but to return without the secret of eternal life, and even as the King of Uruk, even he must accept the human lot of limited longevity. The Epic -- with this moral basic to it -- might thus be a form of propaganda. But there is also the hint that mankind might have an ace after all! Perhaps, the human life span, while enormously brief as compared to the Anunnaki Gods and Goddesses, might also possess the ability to achieve a great deal in a relatively short time. The creativity of a shortened, and thus highly motivated, life span might be enormously greater than that of a god or semi-god resting on their laurels. One final curiosity is the fact Gilgamesh was two-thirds god! The ability to achieve a 1/3 and 2/3 mix is mathematically extremely difficult. If only two -- a male and a female -- are involved, then the 2/3 god goal would be difficult to even approximate. But, if there were three involved, the combination of thirds is entirely plausible! This is, in fact, extremely important! Assume, for example, the combination of a goddess' egg and a human male’s sperm, with the fertilized egg then being inserted into another Goddess for the nine-month process of going from a fetus through childbirth. In this way, the Goddess connection is the two-thirds god status (with the one humans being the remaining one third). Another variation would be a god and goddess achieving a fertilized egg, which could then be implanted into a human female for the nine month process... which if you're the goddess, might have a lot of appeal. The key is that the Goddess would be means by which the human embryo is fed -- and potentially, the human being after birth continuing to receive nourishment from the Goddess. This is, in effect, the blood connection of the Star Fire! Gilgamesh was thus receiving the ORME equivalent in his status as King, and the one-third god portion gave him extraordinary powers (such that he had no equal with any human). There are also stories of Inanna and Gilgamesh, in which Gilgamesh apparently refuses her sexual overtures. Her subsequent wrath is understandable (no woman likes to be turned down!), but her initial approach should be considered as noteworthy. After all, if Gilgamesh was running on 2/3 of his god-like cylinders, he would be more attractive to a Goddess who tended to have her way in all things. Are the Anunnaki real? Are they aliens? Or are they part of a bigger picture? The "Anunnaki" are the major players in a paradigm making its way into popular folklore, via the work of the late Zecharia Sitchin, an economist by education and profession, and the author of several best-selling books, including Genesis Revisited, that explore ancient mythology and the mysterious megalithic ruins found around the globe. These various books also seek to demonstrate that there was in ancient times an extraterrestrial race that genetically manipulated mankind for various reasons. The Sitchin thesis ("Sitchinism"), now embraced by numerous other writers, who have incorporated it into what is apparently a new worldview, essentially asserts that these ancient Sumero-Babylonian gods, the Anunnaki, are aliens from the planet Nibiru (Sitchin's "12th Planet"), which passes by the earth every 3,500 years or so, at which time they planet-hop to the earth and create mischief. Although the idea of the ancient gods being aliens may seem novel, the tendency to make the gods of old into "real people" or "flesh and blood" is not at all new, dating to before the time of the Greek historian Herodotus (5th c. BCE) and developed by the Greek philosopher Euhemeros or Evemeras (@ 300 BCE). This tendency is called, in fact, "euhemerism" or "evemerism," which claims that the numerous gods of various cultures were not "mythical" but were in reality kings, queens, warriors and assorted heroes whose lives were turned into fairytales with the addition of miraculous details to their biographies. The current Anunnaki thesis is a modern version of evemerism, although it seeks to explain the miracles as not fabulous "additions" to the tales but genuine attributes of advanced extraterrestrials. Unfortunately for those who would wish to see concrete evidence of such exciting notions as extraterrestrial visitation in Earth's remote past, the Anunnaki will not be the place to look, as the true nature of these various gods and goddesses was already known long before the era of modern revisionism. Ancient Astronaut Theory The tireless researcher Charles Fort was widely known as the chronicler of what are now called "Forteana," bizarre anomalies and mysteries that throw the current perception of reality on its ear, whether it be religious or scientific. In an attempt to explain these anomalies, which include weird stories or "myths" and enormous, astonishing ruins worldwide, a number of people, including Swiss writer Erich von Daniken and Zecharia Sitchin, have created the "ancient astronaut theory," which dictates that alien visitors have been influencing human life for thousands if not millions of years, even to the point of genetic manipulation. von Daniken, it should be recalled, was one of the first moderns to put forth the ancient astronaut theory and was widely ridiculed and vilified for his observations. Because of Sitchin's apparent scholastic training, he becomes more credible for many, even though he is one of those renegades not scholastically trained in his field. Furthermore, it should be noted that neither man came up with the ancient astronaut theory, which was largely developed by a German occultic society, for one, during the 19th century. Supporters ("Sitchinites") claim that Sitchin is one of the few people who read the Sumerian language and that because he can read Sumerian, he must be interpreting the data properly. The assertion that he is one of the few scholars of Sumerian is not true. Moreover, the idea that someone may be able to read a language and therefore can interpret its data properly is a specious argument, because the one certainly does not guarantee the other. Years before Sitchin, biblical and Dead Sea scrolls scholar John Allegro studied Sumerian intimately and came to very different conclusions: To wit, that many of the words revolved around sex and drugs. Hence, it is not the "mere" ability to read the Sumerian that will produce an accurate rendering of it. Biblical Bias? Like so many other paradigms that make it into popular culture, the alien astronaut theory has been agenda-driven. In fact, it seems that the most recent attempt may be prompted by the same type of motivation that produced the Bible, a chronicle largely consisting of the plagiarized myths of other cultures that were reconstituted as "humans" of a particular ethnicity. It appears that the Anunnaki thesis has now led to the conclusion that, while the Bible is not infallible, its god Yahweh is valid and its various characters are the superhuman alien-hybrid progenitors of "the chosen." In reality, there was no reason to recreate the ancient gods as aliens or humans, because the ancients themselves were quite clear about what it was exactly they were worshipping and fancifully describing in epic poetry. The speculation is not needed, as, for example, the Sumero-Babylonians themselves said that the gods were the planets, not people, and that their stories were myths representing personifications of these bodies. It is believed that by "dismissing" the myths of the ancients as myths, we are somehow robbing them of their "history." This claim is ludicrous, as it is those who insist that there are no myths who are actually defaming the ancients. It seems as if everyone has already forgotten the work of the learned and esteemed mythologist Joseph Campbell. Campbell knew that major biblical tales, such as that of Moses and the Exodus, were mythical. In his book Occidental Mythology, following a discussion of the Bible, Campbell turns to the "Gods and Heroes of the European West," and says, with apparent resentment: "Fortunately, it will not be necessary to argue that Greek, Celtic or Germanic myths were mythological. The peoples themselves knew they were myths, and the European scholars discussing them have not been overborne by the idea of something uniquely holy about their topic." Perhaps mythology is simply not as exciting as the UFOlogical paradigm, whereby ancient astronauts were buzzing all over the place, being worshipped for their extraordinary capacities. However, the desire to see such a "history" often seems to be coming from exposure as a youth to comic books and sci-fi movies—and even the History Channel these days, featuring "Ancient Alien" shows! Astrotheology of the Ancients The ancients were not the dark and dumb rabble commonly portrayed. They were, in fact, highly advanced. As such, they developed over a period of many thousands of years a complex astronomical/ astrological system that incorporated the movements and qualities of numerous celestial bodies, which could be called the "celestial mythos." The celestial mythos is found around the globe in astonishing uniformity. In fact, it served as the manner by which life on Earth was ordered, as it contained information crucial to life, such as the movements and interrelationship of the sun and moon. Without the mythos, no people would have been able to become sea-faring, and planting and harvesting would have been difficult. And the mythos needed no alien intervention to be developed by humans, nor did it need moderns to come along and reinterpret it contrary to what its creators intended. For example, the Anunnaki play a part in the mythos, but they are not "people," human or otherwise. The Anunnaki, in general, represent the seven "nether spheres" and guardians of the seven "gates" through which the "sun of God" passes into the netherworld or darkness. They are also the "tutelary spirits of the earth." So, immediately we encounter a problem which reveals that what Sitchin is putting forth is not what the ancients themselves said of the traditions they themselves developed. Like so many before him, Sitchin also wants to make the main character of the celestial mythos, the sun, into a person. Actually, he wants to make it into several extraterrestrials. These various gods found around the globe, such as Apollo, Osiris, Horus, Krishna, Hercules, Jesus and Quetzalcoatl, are not people or aliens but personifications of the solar hero, as was stated by the peoples who created them. The ancients were not so dumb that they mistook planets for people, even though they personified those planets and, where the knowledge or gnosis of the mythos was lost, they hoped for "the incarnation," or the carnalization or appearance of a "god." There is no need to recreate the wheel here by speculating upon what the ancients "really" meant. The Anunnaki and Assorted Other Characters Contrary to popular belief, the Sumerian culture has been known for centuries and did not appear suddenly out of nowhere with the discovery of the cuneiform tablets found at Ur, capitol of Sumeria, for example. If anything, the tablets and others verified what we already knew about Sumeria from its inheritors, the Akkadians and Assyro-Babylonians. The Sumerians were not a lost civilization, except that their older physical remains such as at Ur had not been remembered through the ages but were rediscovered only in the mid-19th century. Their mythology and culture were fairly well preserved in the succeeding civilizations: For instance, some 300,000 tablets of the Babylonians have been found thus far, which include much commentary on their gods. The main characters in the Sumero-Babylonian religion/mythology are Enlil/Ellil, Utu/Shamash, Marduk/Merodach, Gilgamesh, Nanna/Sin, Inanna/Ishtar, Ea/Enki and Dumuzi/Tammuz. A number of these deities are in the class called "Anunnaki" and/or "Igigi." The Anunnaki are numbered variously: 7, 50 and 900. None of these characters is a historical person, as, again, the Sumero-Babylonians correctly identified their own gods as being the "planets," which, of course, included the sun and the moon to the ancients. Says the Catholic Encyclopedia regarding Babel: "The storied tower of Birs Nimrud counts seven of these quadrangular platforms painted in seven colors, black, white, yellow, blue, scarlet, silver and gold, and in the same order sacred to the stellar gods, Adar (Saturn), Ishtar (Venus), Merodach (Jupiter), Nebo (Mercury), Nergal (Mars), Sin (the Moon), Shamash (the Sun)." Enlil/Ellil/Bel The "king of the Anunnaki," Enlil is the storm/wind god, also essentially the same as the later Bel or Baal, the Canaanite sun god/solar hero. Enlil and Ninlil give birth to the moon god Nanna, "a major astral deity of the Sumerians," who was called "Sin" in Babylonian. Sin is the same moon god encamped at Mt. Sinai, as well as worshipped at Ur and Harran, where purportedly lived the mythical Abraham, progenitor of the Hebrews, who "borrowed" many of their gods (Elohim) from Mesopotamia (and Canaan, Egypt, etc.). Obviously, neither the moon nor "his parents" are real persons/aliens; nor are the rest. Regarding Enlil/Bel, the Encyclopedia Britannica says: "Bel "(Akkadian), Sumerian Enlil, Mesopotamian god of the atmosphere and a member of the triad of gods completed by Anu (Sumerian An) and Ea (Enki). Enlil meant 'Lord Wind'- both the hurricane and the gentle winds of spring were thought of as the breath issuing from his mouth, and eventually as his word or command [cf. Christian "logos" (John 1:1)]. He was sometimes called Lord of the Air. "Although An was the highest god in the Sumerian pantheon, Enlil had a more important role: he embodied energy and force but not authority. Enlil's cult centre was Nippur. Enlil was also the god of agriculture: the Myth of the Creation of the Hoe describes how he separated heaven and earth to make room for seeds to grow. He then invented the hoe and broke the hard crust of earth; men sprang forth from the hole. Another myth relates Enlil's rape of his consort Ninlil (Akkadian Belit), a grain goddess, and his subsequent banishment to the underworld. This myth reflects the agricultural cycle of fertilization, ripening and winter inactivity. "The name of his Akkadian counterpart, Bel, is derived from the Semitic word baal, or "lord." Bel had all the attributes of Enlil, and his status and cult were much the same. Bel, however, gradually came to be thought of as the god of order and destiny. In Greek writings references to Bel indicate this Babylonian deity and not the Syrian god of Palmyra of the same name."
Although there were many Baalim, the singular Baal apparently came to represent the sun in the age of Taurus (@4500-2400 BCE), whence, it is said, comes the word "bull." Sin and Shamash The moon god Sin is the father of Shamash, the Babylonian sun god, who was called Chemosh in Moabite and who was worshipped by the Israelites. Indeed, "sun" in Hebrew is "shamash." The sun god Shamash was called the "sublime judge of the Anunnaki." Enki/Ea The "commander of the Anunnaki" and son of Enki/Ea, the god of "the waters" (cf. Gen. 1:1), was Marduk, or Merodach, who is apparently the Mordecai of the biblical book of Esther (Ishtar). Also called a "king of the Igigi," Marduk was the supreme Babylonian god and often represented Jupiter, although as "Bel-Marduk" he incorporated aspects of the sun god as well and was considered as such at a late period in his worship. One of Marduk's 50 names was "Nibiru" or "Nebiru," in which Robert Temple in The Sirius Mystery sees the Egyptian term "Neb-Heru," meaning "Lord of the sun." The god Horus or "Heru" is indeed largely a sun god, depicted as a hawk with wings outstretched and the solar orb on his head. Rather than representing the "12th planet," the description of Nibiru in the Enuma Elish does indeed seem to depict the personification of the sun and its "exploits." "Nebo" was the Babylonian version of "Moses," actually a solar hero, and Nibiru, in fact, is represented by a winged disc, a common motif depicting the sun. According to the consensus of astronomers worldwide, both amateur and professional, there is no evidence for the 12th planet/Nibiru as Sitchin presents it. (In other words, "Planet X" is not a known, astronomical reality.) Gilgamesh The demigod/hero Gilgamesh is depicted as wrestling the "celestial bull," said to represent the sign of the age of Taurus and is similar to the motif of the Perso-Roman sun god Mithra slaying the bull. In mourning the death of Enki, Gilgamesh "goes to the mountains of Mashu and passes by the guardian scorpion-demons into the darkness." Mt. Mashu was where "every evening the sun sought repose." Per Robert Temple, "Mashu" may be derived from an Egyptian term meaning, "Behold, the sun." Like "Moses," derived from mashah in Hebrew (Strong's h3871), "Mashu" is apparently related to "Shamash" and represents the sun. The "scorpion-demons" or scorpion-men are evidently the stars in the constellation of Scorpio, in the darkness of the night sky. Gilgamesh has also been associated with the Egyptian sun god Osiris, as has the biblical "Nimrod" or "Nemrod." The Catholic Encyclopedia (CE) states: "Gilgamesh, whom mythology transformed into a Babylonian Hercules [the Greek solar hero], whose fortunes are described in the Gilgamesh-epos, would then be the person designated by the Biblical Nemrod. Others again see in Nemrod an intentional corruption of Amarudu, the Akkadian for Marduk, whom the Babylonians worshiped as the great God..." ("Babylonia") Inanna/Ishtar One of the "seven who decreed the fates," Inanna/Ishtar was the Goddess, alternately Venus, the moon, the constellation of Virgo, the earth, etc. Ishtar was "Astarte" in Phoenicia, and, as Frazer says in The Worship of Nature, "Her Phoenician worshippers identified her with the Moon..." Like the Greek god of the underworld, Hades, who allowed his beloved Persephone to return to the surface in order to create spring, Inanna was the creator of seasons, as she is depicted as permitting the solar-fertility god Dumuzi/Tammuz to remain in the underworld for only six months out of the year. Dumuzi/Tammuz One of the lesser Anunnaki, the "shepherd god" Tammuz was worshipped also in Jerusalem, per the book of Ezekiel (8:14). As the Babylonian records state concerning their "garden of Eden" or "Edina," of Eridu: "a dark vine grew; it was made a glorious place, planted beside the abyss. In the glorious house, which is like a forest, its shadow extends; no man enters its midst. In its interior is the Sun-god Tammuz. Between the mouths of the rivers, which are on both sides." (CE "Babylonia") The Netherworld Seven In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Anunnaki appear thus: "The Flood: Nergal pull down the dams of the nether waters, Ninurta the war lord threw down the dykes, and the SEVEN judges of hell, THE ANUNNAKI, raised their torches lighting the land with their vivid fire." The "nether waters" represent the heavens, and the Anunnaki were called "the fates" and light-bearers of the night sky. They were the "seven judges of hell" and "seven nether spheres," as Barbara G. Walker relates in her entry on Mary Magdalene (The Woman's Encyclopedia, 614): "The seven 'devils' exorcised from Mary Magdalene seem to have been the seven Maskim, or Anunnaki, Sumero-Akkadian spirits of the seven nether spheres, born of the goddess Mari. Their multiple birth was represented in her sacred dramas, which may account for their alleged emergence from Mary Magdalene. An Akkadian tablet said of them, 'They are seven! In the depths of the ocean, they are seven! In the brilliance of the heavens, they are seven! They proceed from the ocean depths [Maria] from the hidden retreat!" Walker also relates, in The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects, 13: "A generally accepted view of the universe in antiquity was the doctrine of the planetary spheres, conceived as great crystal domes or inverted bowls nested inside one another over the earth, turning independently of one another at various rates, and emitting the 'music of the spheres' with their motions. The theory was evolved to explain the apparently erratic movement of planets against the background of the fixed stars. Reading from the innermost sphere outward, arranging them according to the days of the week, they were the spheres of the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and the sun. Outermost was the eight sphere, the Empyrean, the home of fixed spheres and the ultimate God: the highest heaven. "As a corollary to this theory, it was also assumed that there were seven nether spheres descending under the earth: the 'seven hells' to which Dumuzi and Inanna (or Tammuz and Ishtar) journeyed; whose seven gates were guarded by the seven Anunnaki or Maskim, the nether counterparts of the planetary spirits. According to an Akkadian magic tablet, 'They proceed from the ocean depths, from the hidden retreat.' From the ancient idea of the seven nether spheres, Dante took his vision of the descending circles of hell.' "Early Christians taught that each human soul descends from heaven, picking up one of the seven deadly sins from each planetary sphere along the way: lust from Venus, anger from Mars, and so on. After death, the soul returned to the highest heaven, shedding the same sins one by one, while passing the 'innkeeper' of the spheres - providing, of course, that the soul was Christianized and therefore properly enlightened."
When we study what the ancients said about them, we discover that the Anunnaki, et al., are part of the celestial mythos, not "aliens." Here the Anunnaki are the "seven nether spheres" or mirror images of the seven "planets." These seven judges are a common mythical motif, also found in Slavic/Serbian mythology, for example, where they are clearly identified as the planets: "Among the Serbs the Sun was a young and handsome king. He lived in a kingdom of light and sat on a throne of gold and purple. At his side stood two beautiful virgins, Aurora of the Morning and Aurora of the Evening, seven judges (the planets) and seven 'messengers' who flew across the universe in the guise of 'stars with tails' (comets). Also present was the Sun's 'bald uncle, old Myesyats' (or the moon)." New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, 284 As we can see, the reality of this issue is much more colorful and luminous than a group of bizarre aliens terrorizing cavemen. This information is what the ancients themselves wrote. They did not write, "And so the Anunnaki were sky people from another planet who landed here and mated with humans, etc." In fact, "Anunnaki" is a generic term for gods, especially secondary gods, and means "gods of heaven and earth," not "those who from heaven to earth came." "An" or "Anu" means "sky" and represents the name of the "god of heaven," while "Ki" means "earth" and is the name of the earth goddess. The Host of Heaven and Sons of God As noted, the Anunnaki were numbered 900 as well, some of whom apparently represented the stars, i.e., the zodiac, or "heavenly host," as worshipped by the Canaanites and Hebrews. In this regard, Benson writes in The History of God From Abraham to Moses: "The Anunnaki were analogous to the 'host of heaven' of the Hebrews. Marduk allotted portions to the Anunnaki: 'To the Anunnaki of heaven and earth [Marduk] had allotted their portions.' Likewise, the Canaanite-Hebrew god El Elyon allotted portions to his sons: 'When the Most High [Heb. Elyon] gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. For the LORDs portion is his people, Jacob [Israel] his allotted heritage.' (Deuteronomy 32:8-9 RSV) These 'sons of God' in the following verse are also called the 'host of heaven,' to whom God divided to all the nations: 'And lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see...all the host of heaven...which the LORD your God has divided to all nations under the whole heaven.' (Deuteronomy 4:19 KJV) These gods were secondary gods: 'For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords...' (Deuteronomy 10:17 KJV) 'O give thanks to the God of gods...' (Psalm 136:2 KJV)"
Yahweh Also, the biblical god Yahweh is not a person, alien or otherwise. "He" too is in large part a solar myth. Regarding Yahweh, the Catholic Encyclopedia says: "It seems likely that the name of Ea, or Ya, or Aa, the oldest god of the Babylonian Pantheon, is connected with the name Jahve, Jahu, or Ja, of the Old Testament." The Babylonian "Ea" is equivalent to Enlil, whom, as we have seen, is a sun god. (The following regarding Yahweh is an excerpt from The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold .) Prior to being labeled Yahweh, the Israelite god was called "Baal." signifying the sun in the Age of Taurus. When the sun passed into Aries, "the Lord's" name was changed to the Egyptian Iao, which became YHWH, IEUE, Yahweh, Jahweh, Jehovah and Jah. This ancient name "IAO/Iao" represents the totality of "God," as the "I" symbolizes unity, the "a" is the "alpha" or beginning, while the "o" is the "omega" or end. In fact, the name Yahweh, Iao or any number of variants thereof can be found in several cultures: "In Phoenicia the Sun was known as Adonis...identical with Iao, or, according to the Chinese faith, Yao (Jehovah), the Sun, who makes his appearance in the world 'at midnight of the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth month.'" YHWH/IEUE was additionally the Egyptian sun god Ra: "Ra was the father in heaven, who has the title of 'Huhi' the eternal, from which the Hebrews derived the name 'Ihuh.'" Thus, the tetragrammaton or sacred name of God IAO/IEUE/YHWH is very old, pre-Israelite, and can be etymologically linked to numerous gods, even to "Jesus," or "Yahushua," whose name means "salvation" or "Iao/YHWH saves." Yahweh had yet another aspect to "his" persona, as at some early stage the "sacred tetragrammaton" of "God" was bi-gendered. As Walker states: "Jewish mystical tradition viewed the original Jehovah as an androgyne, his/her name compounded as Jah (jod) and the pre-Hebraic name of Eve, Havah or Hawah, rendered he-vau-he- in Hebrew letters. The four letters together made the sacred tetragrammaton, YHWH, the secret name of God.... The Bible contains many plagiarized excerpts from earlier hymns and prayers to Ishtar and other Goddess figures, with the name of Yahweh substituted for that of the female deity." Thus, even Yahweh was at one time plural, but "he" eventually became an all-male, sky god. This singular Yahweh was a warrior god, representing the sun in Aries, which is ruled by the warlike Mars and symbolized by the Ram-the same symbolic ram "caught in a thicket" near Abraham and used by him as a replacement sacrifice for his son Isaac. This warrior god Yahweh was not only Jealous but Zealous, as his name is rendered in Young's Literal Translation: "...for ye do not bow yourselves to another god-for Jehovah, whose name [is] Zealous, is a zealous God." (Exodus 34:14) In fact, the same word in Hebrew is used for both jealous and zealous, although is transliterated differently, "qanna" being jealous and "qana," zealous. As El Elyon was but one of the Canaanite Elohim, the Most High God, so was "Yahweh," as "El Qanna," the Jealous/Zealous God, which is why in the Old Testament he keeps sticking his nose in and shouting at everyone. The title "Jealous/Zealous" is also appropriate for a god represented by a volcano, as was Yahweh by the smoky and fiery Mt. Sinai. Hence, Yahweh's followers themselves were intolerant and hotheaded zealots. Conclusion There was in reality never any need for sci-fi explanation or speculation as to these various figures and their stories. Nor was there a need to take the Bible as a literal, historical document. Indeed, the behind-the-scenes elite have known the allegorical, mythical and astrological nature of the Bible and its characters from the beginning. It is evident that the ancients recording these myths were in fact often smarter than the average "useless eater," to use a CIA phrase. They knew the difference between planets and people/aliens. The architecture, art, writings and traditions of these various ancient cultures, including Sumero-Babylon, India, Egypt, Chaldea, Phoenicia, Canaan, etc., show an advanced degree of civilization surpassing that which followed it. Such later degradation is particularly true when it comes to biblical peoples. The Bible, in fact, represents a dumbed-down version of the mythology of the aforementioned cultures. In reality, in terms of cosmic knowledge, in many important ways modern man has devolved. One of the major problems is the compulsive and irrational historicization and vulgarization of the planetary bodies and of the celestial mythos and ritual, a body of knowledge and wisdom concerning the cosmos and specifically the solar system, which filled the ancients with awe and reverence. This mythos and ritual is found worldwide, reflecting a global culture in ancient times. This body of knowledge is discovered in stone and story all over the world, reflected in the mysterious megalithic ruins. To reduce this glory to a band of aliens and/or humans is a serious mistake, as it robs the ancients of intelligence and wisdom, among other things, including the quality of humanity itself. Furthermore, part of the brainwashing to get people to accept the story of Jesus Christ, for example—which is significantly the story of the sun—was to make "myths" appear to be foolish stories with no basis in reality. This mental programming or "meme" has been displayed abundantly, but the fact is that myths are not mere fantasies and hallucinations. They are stories designed to pass along vital information from generation to generation. It is easier to remember the "exploits" of the sun, moon and stars, for example, when they are personified and told in a fun story than when presented in a dry dissertation. It is only when the knowledge, or gnosis, has been lost that humans start believing these entities to be real people —and the gnosis was very effectively driven underground by organized religion, such that it was lost to the masses, who now must piece it together, often coming up with erroneous and inaccurate interpretations with occasional hits now and then.