Anunnaki

This blog is about the Sumerian gods, the Anunnaki as depicted in The 12th Planet. See Zecharia Sitchin.

Where the story came from,

The ancient cuneiform texts, some of the earliest known writing dating back some 6,000 years told the story of a race of beings called the Anunnaki. The earliest record of the Sumerian creation myth and flood myth is found on a single fragmentary tablet excavated in Nippur, sometimes called the Eridu Genesis. It is written in the Sumerian language and datable by its script to 2150 BC.

Where the Anunnaki came from,

According to Sitchin, the Sumerians say that the Anunnaki came to Earth from a planet in our solar system called Nibiru. If you've never heard of it, that's because mainstream science does not recognize Nibiru as one of the planets that revolves around our Sun. This planet's orbit around the Sun is highly elliptical, taking it out beyond Pluto at its farthest point and bringing it as close to the Sun as the far side of the asteroid belt. It takes Nibiru 3,600 years to complete one orbital journey, and it was last in this vicinity around 160 B.C.E. As you can imagine, the gravitational effects of a Jupiter sized planet moving close to the inner solar system, could wreak havoc on the orbits of other planets, disrupt the asteroid belt and spell big trouble for planet Earth. Sitchin states, Nibiru is called "the twelfth planet" because, Sitchin claimed, the Sumerians' gods-given conception of the Solar System counted all eight planets, plus Pluto, the Sun and the Moon. It is the home of a technologically advanced human-like extraterrestrial race called the Anunnaki in Sumerian myth, who Sitchin states are called the Nephilim in Genesis. He wrote that they evolved after Nibiru entered the solar system and first arrived on Earth approximately 450,000 years ago, looking for minerals, especially gold, which they found and mined in Africa. These "gods" were the rank-and-file workers of the colonial expedition to Earth from planet Nibiru.

The Myth

The story of the Anunnaki is told in Sitchin's many books is essentially this:

About 450,000 years ago, Alalu, the deposed ruler of the Anunnaki on Nibiru, escaped the planet on a spaceship and found refuge on Earth. He discovered that Earth had plenty of gold, which Nibiru needed to protect its diminishing atmosphere. They began to mine Earth's gold, and there were a lot of political battles among the Anunnaki for power. Sitchin believes that the fallout from nuclear weapons, used during a war between factions of the extraterrestrials, is the "evil wind" described in the Lament for Ur that destroyed Ur around 2000 BC. Sitchin states the exact year is 2024 BC. He says that his research coincides with many biblical texts, and that biblical texts come originally from Sumerian writings.

Then roughly around 300,000 years ago, the Anunnaki, Enki, decided to create a race of workers to relieve the Anunnaki who had mutinied over their dissatisfaction with their working conditions. Primitive workers (Homo sapiens) were to be created by genetically engineering them as slaves to replace the Anunnaki in the gold mines by crossing extraterrestrial genes with those of Homo erectus. The result was Homo sapiens -- us.

He wrote that ancient inscriptions report that the human civilization in Sumer, Mesopotamia, was set up under the guidance of these "gods", and human kingship was inaugurated to provide intermediaries between mankind and the Anunnaki creating the "divine right of kings" doctrine. Eventually, rulership of the Earth was handed over to humans and the Anunnaki left, at least for the time being. Sitchin ties all this - and much more - into the stories of the first books of the Bible and the histories of other ancient cultures, especially Egyptian.

It's an astonishing story, to say the least. Most historians, anthropologists, and archeologists consider it all Sumerian myth, but Sitchin's work has created a diehard cadre of believers and researchers who take the story at face value.

Specifics

The Anunnaki (also transcribed as: Anunna, Anunnaku, Ananaki and other variations) are a group of deities in ancient Mesopotamian cultures (i.e., Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian). The name is variously written "a-nuna", "a-nuna-ke-ne", or "a-nun-na", meaning something to the effect of "those of royal blood" or “princely offspring”. 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 the Igigi are the sixth generation of the Gods who have to work for the Anunnaki, rebelling after 40 days and replaced by the creation of humans. The Igigi were the younger gods who were servants of the Anunnaki.

The Igigi from Middle Assyrian and Babylonian times on, 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.” 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 Assyrian and Babylonian myth, the Anunnaki were the children of Anu and Ki. The names below were given to the gatekeepers of the Abzu temple at Eridu, the site at which the creation was thought to have occurred.

Basic Anunnaki family Tree

Tiamat and Abzu
↓
Lahamu and Lahmu
↓
Anshar and Kishar
↓
Anu and Ki
↓
Anunnaki

Here is a good website for detailed compilation of each deity.
And here is a good website breaking down each Anunnaki character. Talk about family drama...

My view

Lamassu

Mušḫuššu

This seems to be such a wild and sophisticated tale for such a primitive civilization. Remember, this is one of the first civilizations known to man. Genetic manipulation? Really? Even the Greek Mythology of their gods doesn’t get so, oh I don’t know, realistic...? Either Sitchin got the translation all wrong, or there is a race of extraterrestrials with some explaining to do. I do tend to believe there is more fact than fiction to this “myth”. I mean, what “god” sees themselves as “rank-and-file workers of the colonial expedition”?

If the Sumerian Myth were true, it would explain a lot. Like how a pioneering society could create such an advanced civilization of government, math, farming, inventions, astronomy, all in such a short period of time. How would a low-level society even come up with genetic manipulation? Plus, it would explain the genetic hole between Homo sapiens and Homo erectus. Isn’t it funny how the first Homo erectus skeleton is discovered in Africa. And what about all those depictions of animal hybrid cross-breeding, like lamassu or mušḫuššu? Are these actually examples of genetically manipulated creatures that the Anunnaki were tinkering with and a human just drew/sculpted what they were actually witnessing? Isn’t this what our scientist are doing right now? And did the Anunnaki really leave, or are there still some here? Imagine if they came back. What a shock not only for us, but for them. We aren’t exactly a nice, trusting, passive group. The past 100 years we’ve truly advanced technologically. Of course, they would be eons ahead of us; still, we’ve split the atom. Imagine if they came back and insisted they were our Gods because they created us. Just imagine... I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.

It just makes you wonder if what we know about the past could be completely wrong. Thankfully, science believes it’s all a myth, so we have nothing to worry about.