Long before the appearance of the ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian gods, there were gods who were worshiped by the ancient Sumerians in Mesopotamia. These people lived in the Middle East in present-day Iraq and Iran. The Anunnaki were the deities worshiped by the Sumerians.
Origin of the Anunnaki
The Anunnaki came from An, the main god who ruled all the gods in ancient Sumeria. These were the deities who descended from heaven. Babylonian creation myths say that there were 300 Anunnaki who guarded the heavens, and another 300 deities who owned the underworld. The Anunnaki are mentioned in the literary monument Epic of Gilgamesh. The main character of the work is such a worthy person that he judges the great gods. People living in Messopotamia and Sumeria since 2500 BC e., began to worship Enki. Enki was the daughter of An, the chief god of the Anunnaki. She copulated with more deities to continue the family tree
Scientific hypotheses of Zachary Sitchin
Archaeologists have discovered tens of thousands of ancient Babylonian clay tablets. The collections were so vast that research and translation of their texts continues to this day.
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An Azerbaijani author has written a book in which translations of fourteen specific tablets associated with Enki are published. In the book, Sitchin claims that the ancient Sumerians believed that the Anunnaki were aliens from the mythical 12th planet called Nibiru.
Nibiru, according to Sitchin, has an elongated orbit of 3,600 years. Sometime in the distant past, Nibiru approached the Earth, and the deities decided to declare themselves to humanity about 450,000 years ago.
They landed in Sumer, as they needed gold to restore the atmosphere of their planet. The Anunnaki could not get the gold themselves, so they created a race of beings called humans to do the job for them.
The circulation of Sitchin's book totaled millions of copies, which were successfully sold. Building on prior research by scholars such as Erich von Danniken and Immanuel Velikovsky, Sitchin has formed a triumvirate of pseudo-historians who believe that ancient texts are more than just mythological stories.
All three believed that the ancient Babylonian texts were scientific journals. Rather than presenting the Anunnaki as mythical gods from the sky, these researchers sincerely believed that the deities were aliens. Humans were created to serve alien craftsmen who needed the mineral wealth of the Earth to sustain their civilization.
Refutation of Sitchin's theory
Leading scientists and historians completely reject the scientific theories presented by Sitchin and his colleagues. Ancient Babylonian manuscripts are stories written by ancient peoples who tried to explain the world and phenomena that made sense to them.
Modern science and human knowledge have advanced far ahead: scientists can explain floods, astronomical phenomena, the appearance of animals and many other concepts that were once considered the creations of supernatural gods.
High level of development of Babylon
There is no doubt about one thing: the ancient Babylonians were more advanced than modern humans. A clay tablet, translated in 2015, proves that astronomers performed extremely accurate mathematical calculations for Jupiter's orbit 1,400 years before the Europeans did. The Babylonians also created trigonometry 1000 years before the ancient Greeks.
Does this mean that the ancient Sumerians were indeed visited by aliens who brought them advanced science and mathematics? Did old civilizations have access to powerful computers or technological tools to perform complex calculations?
Historians' opinion
Historians claim that ancient people had enough time to perform mathematical calculations and figure out the nature of the world. Mathematicians lived mainly in agrarian societies that waited for rain for their crops. At night, they had to observe the sky in detail to predict when the rainy season would begin.
The value of gold
Think for a moment why ancient cultures are obsessed with gold? The Egyptians decorated their pyramids with gold and buried their pharaohs in sumptuous sarcophagi. They believed that the skin of their gods was made from this noble metal.
Gold remains a useful mineral in modern society. It is vital in electronics because it conducts electricity well. Despite the use of technology, up to 78% of the metal is contained in jewelry. It is also a valuable metal in terms of financial investment.
But why is gold valuable as a decoration or a precious metal? This metal is much less common than copper, silver and iron. This might explain why it served as a status symbol among members of ancient societies.
Ancient people did not know about the electrical properties of gold. Did the Anunnaki tell them that gold is extremely valuable? Did the heavenly gods need metal to provide power for their technology? These questions suggest different answers.
Nobody knows what the ancient Sumerians meant when they wrote about the Anunnaki. Historians denounce ancient alien theorists who believe that long-lost human civilizations could not have learned about complex mathematics without the help of more advanced beings.
The Anunnaki may not have anything to do with aliens, but what we know little about Sumer is evidenced by clay tablets written in an ancient language that no one talks about today. To deepen their knowledge, archaeologists must find more letters from that time period.
Maya Muzashvili
