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November 2017 from Ancient-Origins Website � �
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� � � � � � Who Were These Beings of Ancient Astronaut Theory? November 19, 2017 Updated May 20, 2021 � � � Top Image: Ordered universe and cuneiform (Public Domain) and Akkadian cylinder featuring Anunnaki.
Public Domain - Deriv. �
� Fueling this ever-growing trend are the writings of a number of researchers who propose connections between several Sumerian myth cycles and the theory that the human race was engineered or created by a group of extraterrestrial beings. �
Known as Ancient
Astronaut Theory, this field is largely reliant upon the
translations of cuneiform tablets supposedly made by
Zecharia Sitchin, whose series
of Earth Chronicles books form the foundation upon which the
modern church of the alien gods has been built. �
Today these Anunnaki are
often portrayed as the equivalent of the Old Testament creator
God. �
(Public
Domain)
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How does the version of
these beings and their activities presented in Ancient Astronaut
media compare with how they were truly represented in the ancient
world? �
� The Anunnaki are "the Sumerian deities of the old primordial time;" a pantheon of gods who were the children of the sky god Anu and his sister, Ki. � Significantly, some scholars have come to realize that the Anunnaki should more appropriately be considered demi-gods or semi-divine beings. �
Apparently, Anu's sister
Ki was not originally considered a deity and was only ascribed the
status of a goddess much later in the history of the myth cycle. �
depicting the deities Inanna, Utu, and Enki, three members of the Anunnaki.
(Public
Domain)
Essentially, this would
mean that the Anunnaki were born of a union between a sky god and a
mortal female, who was later deified in mythic traditions.
Four copper-alloy statuettes dating to c. 2130 BC, depicting four ancient Mesopotamian gods, wearing characteristic horned crowns. (Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin/ CC BY-SA 3.0) � � �
The concept of a group of
half-divine beings born of mortal women is very similar to the
Biblical and extra-Biblical tradition of the Nephilim. � Enoch is considered an apocryphal text today, and is rejected by most mainstream theological establishments, but this was not always the case. � Many of the early Church Fathers, such as Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus and Tertullian accepted the book as scripture, and fragments of 10 copies of 1 Enoch in Aramaic have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. �
1 Enoch is also quoted in
the Biblical Book of Jude, and it has been estimated that there are
as many as several hundred more references throughout the New
Testament itself.
Joshua 1:1 as recorded in the Aleppo Codex, 10th century AD (Public Domain) � � �
� According to 1 Enoch, a group of 200 fallen angels known as the Watchers, led by an individual named Semyaza (or Semjaza) descended upon Mount Hermon, where they swore an oath to father lineages with human women. � Each of these,
These giants eventually,
These activities provoke the action of God, who curses the giants to war against one another,
As is well known today, the Hebrew texts refer to the powerful beings born to the Watchers as The Nephilim. � �
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� In 1971, Edward Lipinski published a scholarly analysis of several ancient texts, including the Old Babylonian version of The Epic of Gilgamesh, all which feature important details revealing the true location of the sanctuary of the Anunnaki in ancient Eastern thought and cosmology. � Lipinski found that:
He emphasizes lines 12-21 of the Old Babylonian Gilgamesh, which tell of the destruction of Humbaba, the guardian of the abode of the gods at the hands of Gilgamesh's companion Enkidu, after which the text states that the two,
While later mythologies suggest alternate locations for the home of the Anunnaki, Lipinski explains that the oldest Mesopotamian and Near Eastern Canaanite texts point to the Cedar forest of Mount Hermon:
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(Public
Domain) � � �
Heaven and Earth Join � Incorporating apocryphal texts such as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and 1 Enoch into his study, Lipinski concludes:
Mount Hermon is located at the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range, straddling the borders of Syria and Lebanon. � Hermon's highest peak reaches 9,232 feet (2814 meters). The area abounds with ancient altars going back millennia, and was still the host of shrines and rituals as recently as the time of Constantine the Great. � Of further significance is the fact that Gilgamesh was renowned in the ancient world for obtaining knowledge from the pre-flood (or "antediluvian") world, as stated by the Ugarit Epic of Gilgamesh (lines 5-9):
These passages bring us
full circle with Lipinski's interpretation of the Old Babylonian
version of the Gilgamesh epic, where the ancient king journeyed to
Mount Hermon - abode of the Anunnaki... �
Part II � � � Top Image: Ordered universe and cuneiform (Public Domain) �and statue of Gilgamesh. CC BY 2.0� - Deriv. �
� Today these Anunnaki are often portrayed as the equivalent of the Old Testament creator God.
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of the national god Marduk, who was envisioned as �a prominent member of the Anunnaki (Public Domain)
� Gilgamesh was renowned in the ancient world for obtaining knowledge from the pre-flood (or "antediluvian") world, as stated by the Ugarit Epic of Gilgamesh (lines 5-9):
These passages bring us
full circle with Lipinski's interpretation of the Old Babylonian
version of the Gilgamesh epic, where the ancient king journeyed to
Mount Hermon - abode of the Anunnaki.
� For example, there is a similar story in the apocryphal Book of Jubilees about Kainam, a son of the Biblical Arphaxad:
Interestingly, there are several ancient sources, which suggest that Gilgamesh himself was a half-god or semi-divine being of gigantic stature. � According to the Sumerian Kings List, Gilgamesh was the 5th king of Uruk, who reigned sometime between 2800 and 2600 BC. �
While there are
traditions considering the father of Gilgamesh to be king Lugalbanda,
the Sumerian Kings List states that his true father was a "lillu-spirit,
a high priest of Kulaba", and he is described in the epic as
"two-thirds god". �
�(Gwil5083/
CC BY-SA 4.0)
� In several fragments of a twelfth-century-BC copy of the Gilgamesh Epic discovered at ancient Ugarit, Gilgamesh is described as,
Lines 34-36 of the Ugarit Gilgamesh offer specific details on Gilgamesh's size:
According to these measurements, Gilgamesh would have stood between 16 and 18 feet tall (4.8 to 5.4 meters tall). �
In connection to
Gilgamesh being a giant, the fragmentary
Book of Giants from the Dead
Sea Scrolls names several Nephilim giants as Ohya, Mahway, Hahya,
and Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh, the king-hero from the city of Uruk, battling the 'bull of heavens' (0045269/ CC BY-SA 4.0) � � �
� Several Old Testament books (The Book of Numbers, Deuteronomy, and The Book of Joshua) record the battle of Moses and the Israelites against Og, an Amorite king of Bashan. �
In Deuteronomy 3:11 (KJV),
Og is described as "of the remnant of giants", and his bed (or
sarcophagus) is measured as nine cubits long and four cubits wide,
meaning that Og himself may have been 12 or 13 feet in height
(approx. four meters tall). � � �
� In Mesopotamian cycles, the Anunnaki are frequently depicted as "fates" or judges of the dead who occupy the subterranean realm or function as "spirits of the earth". � In tablets discovered at Nippur from around 2000 BC, the Anunnaki are "the seven judges", underworld entities that accompany Ereshkigal, queen of the subterranean realm. �
When Ishtar descends and
is brought before the assembly, they fasten their "eyes of death"
upon her, causing her to perish. �
of a statuette of Hecate, with whom Ereshkigal was syncretized. (Public Domain) � � �
� Lipinski associates these connotations with the sources of the Jordan River, one of which is the spring of Banias, originating at the foot of Mount Hermon. � He furthermore elaborates that the mountain was considered in ancient times to cover,
In 1 Enoch, God commands the archangel Michael to,
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a sanctuary at Hattusa, depicting twelve gods of the underworld, whom the Hittites identified as the Mesopotamian Anunnaki. (Klaus-Peter Simon/ CC BY 3.0)
The word translated as
"hell" in this verse is actually the Greek Tartarus,
referencing the deepest underworld of Greek mythology - the prison
of the Titans. � The same concept is repeated again in the Book of Jude, verse 6, which mentions,
One of the giant Titans, Atlas, who was punished to bear the heavens on his shoulders for all time. (Public Domain) � � �
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The purpose of this
article is to identify the specific mythic concept behind the
Anunnaki in the ancient world. � These beings are often associated with knowledge from the world before a great deluge and were later assigned roles in the underworld. �
This would suggest that
rather than making the Anunnaki the equivalent of the "Elohim" who
created man in the Book of Genesis; they should more
properly be compared to the Nephilim and the fallen angels described
in Genesis Chapter 6, 1 Enoch, and other extra-biblical texts. �
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