Researching Sumerians... | INFJ Forum

Researching Sumerians...

Entyqua

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Hey everyone. I am researching Sumerians, and their gods. I love researching pantheons and their stories. Anyone have any good myths they love about this era? There is so much to read. I am trying to create a story for National Novel Writing month encompassing these mysterious people. I am focusing on Enlil, as he is a more malevolent god and its exactly what I am looking for. I love discussing this stuff too. SO anyone wanna take a crack at it?
 
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I think Sumeria seems to be the source of western civilisation so it could be a really interesting area for study....to see how the cultural and religious branches have grown from that source tree

There are some people who are taking what the Sumerian tablets are saying literally and believe that the tablets are talking about visitors from space biologically engineering humans from their own DNA creating the first adamic race of humans

Sitchin has written a series of books about this the first being 'the 12th planet'. He is one of only a few hundred people around the world who are able to translate ancient sumerian

The bible flood story is clearly a re-telling of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Sumerians seem to have influenced the hebrews and the egyptians heavily. It is possible that Abraham came from Sumeria. He may even have been fleeing a catastrophe.

Archeaologists have found metres of silt which indicate that there was a real flood in mesopotamia which may have been the inspiration for the epic of gilgamesh

There may have been an exodus of people to Egypt taking with them their knowledge of astrology and of temple building. The hebrews were later held captive in babylon and it seems that they may have been heavily influenced in their time in exile by the culture from that part of the world as well

Thats obviously some very broad strokes that i've picked up but i'd be very interested to learn more about the Sumerians from you
 
Fun. I did this awhile ago. Unfortunately it didn't stick. I don't remember enough to comment here. LOL sorry. It's fluttering outside the birdcage.
 
I think Sumeria seems to be the source of western civilisation so it could be a really interesting area for study....to see how the cultural and religious branches have grown from that source tree

There are some people who are taking what the Sumerian tablets are saying literally and believe that the tablets are talking about visitors from space biologically engineering humans from their own DNA creating the first adamic race of humans

Sitchin has written a series of books about this the first being 'the 12th planet'. He is one of only a few hundred people around the world who are able to translate ancient sumerian

The bible flood story is clearly a re-telling of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Sumerians seem to have influenced the hebrews and the egyptians heavily. It is possible that Abraham came from Sumeria. He may even have been fleeing a catastrophe.

Archeaologists have found metres of silt which indicate that there was a real flood in mesopotamia which may have been the inspiration for the epic of gilgamesh

There may have been an exodus of people to Egypt taking with them their knowledge of astrology and of temple building. The hebrews were later held captive in babylon and it seems that they may have been heavily influenced in their time in exile by the culture from that part of the world as well

Thats obviously some very broad strokes that i've picked up but i'd be very interested to learn more about the Sumerians from you

OOOOH I have come upon the same information. It is very interesting to read about. I am actually going to be picking up "the 12th planet" But It sounds like I already know most of what is in it.

They say the Anunnaki (the gods that were represented in Sumer and other cultures) were aliens from a dying planet. it was said they needed our gold to sustain their dying planets atmosphere. There are other theories, the pyramids are actually spaceships, atlantis was their city and also was a spaceship that left the planet destitute. There were gods before sumerian myth, but the ability to write was not returned to humans until sumerian began their cuneiform. I cannot refute the Epic of Gilgamesh seems like an early version of the bible. It is said that all the gods were fair of hair skin and eye, that even King Tut himself was a blue eyed king. There is a lot of mystery around the sumerians because their cuneiform is so difficult to translate. There were only a handful of cheif gods, and most of them seemed like the human race were just pawns in their own war. There was a war between Enlil and Enki (half brother gods) in which they used their humans to go to war for the gods. That the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah was really a nuclear war that leveled both cities which happened to be in between the lands of the warring brother gods. Interesting that the bible describes their fall as a rein of fire from heaven for their heathen ways. Though that is not entirely true, they were cities of great knowledge and learning and therefore were destroyed. They have even discovered in the sands and silt of the dead sea where sodom and Gomorrah were said to have been there were outlines of great building, evidence of a dust that is similar to the complete disitigration during a nuclear attack. That even some of the dust still registers a small amount of radiation. Others still think it was a meteor shower, and perhaps it was...perhaps it was the destruction of the 12th planet raining down upon the cities. There have actually been 5 cities unearthed in this region that would have been destroyed in this war.

This is just research for me and i just find it so fascinating all the correlations between modern christianity and the Sumerian pantheon. If you look at just Enlil as the supreme cheif god, though there were others that ruled, He was the only one with access to An (seat of heaven). He ruled the gods even on earth. He caused the flood in mesopotamia that mimics the great floods. There are even stories of a god saving one man (the ark is not mentioned, but the man was made immortal by the god Enki because he held the DNA of all the different human species. It was that reason he was spared so that Enki could repopulate when Enlil left.)

If we were to correlate the tellings of Genisis with the tellings of several of the tablets from the epic of Gilgamesh they are almost identical. It leads one to wonder if Enlil had seated himself as a single higher god, and as evidence of the Single monotheism of chritianity as seen in the bible, the roles of his children and other gods were downplayed.
He had 4 sons, by Ninlil (whom he raped brutaly, she was also his sister) but only one was ever worth his time that was Sin (nanna/suen) Sin was the god of the moon. and held sway over the Euphrates valley.
His other favored son Namtar - meaning destiny or fate was a minor hellish deity mothered by the goddess of the underworld Ereshkigal - His form has survived into the modern depictions of the "Grim reaper" He is the personification of death.

If all this is to be belived then Jesus would have been a human born son of Enlil. Often depicted as a very caucasoid figure with blond-ish hair and blue eyes in a part of the world where the skin tones were darker, hair colors black eyes brown. The sumerians translations often means (black of head) So Jesus was a blond haired blue eyed son of the gods in the middle of the darker complcted indo-europeans. This is the same for King Tut of egypt!

I find it interesting that many of us can trace our dna back to that of this ancient king.

All this stuff really makes you think. I know this was a lot of rambling...but I find it so fascinating.

Also, as i research many different pantheons i notice that each of them seem to be exactly the same. Each god maybe with a different name but they are always fair skinned light haired and blue eyed all of them are just the same people with different humans retelling the story.
 
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Forgot to mention, that Enki is often depicted with snakes or as a serpent, is correlated to Ea in egypt also known as satan. Interesting too...
 
In relation to my previous comment about Enki being satan...It fits more so because the adam and eve story also comes from him as well. He birthed three daughters "Lady greenery" who in missing his lady wife, Enki came upon and had his next daughter "Lady Fruitfulness" again enki was lonely and came upon his next daughter unknowingly and with her had Uttu "spinner of the web of life"

In this story. Enki is Adam, and he has tasted the forbidden fruit, his daughters, all but the last who refuses him. In retaliation his wife impregnates Enki and makes him suffer the ills of child bearing. Before he is about to explode having no way to birth the child, his lady wife decides to birth the 7 children for him. They are each parts of the human body representing creation. Cool stuff!
 
Oh, you're going to become obesssssssed with this! ;) I wish I could remember more to contribute but I had fun connecting Sumerian myths with the Christian creation myths. Possibilities possibilities!
 
Too late!!! Like I said I'm basing my nano novel on this age so...I'm goin down the rabbit hole!
 
Are Sumerians the ones who believe that Adam and Eve were dragons and that robots were sent into the underworld to study it, because robots have no souls to be trapped there? If so that is pretty cool reading.
 
Serpents yes...robots not so much...at least not anythig I've read
 
Unless you're going for the theory that the anannukki were aliens. Cuz maybe.
 
OOOOH I have come upon the same information. It is very interesting to read about. I am actually going to be picking up "the 12th planet" But It sounds like I already know most of what is in it.

They say the Anunnaki (the gods that were represented in Sumer and other cultures) were aliens from a dying planet. it was said they needed our gold to sustain their dying planets atmosphere. There are other theories, the pyramids are actually spaceships, atlantis was their city and also was a spaceship that left the planet destitute. There were gods before sumerian myth, but the ability to write was not returned to humans until sumerian began their cuneiform. I cannot refute the Epic of Gilgamesh seems like an early version of the bible. It is said that all the gods were fair of hair skin and eye, that even King Tut himself was a blue eyed king. There is a lot of mystery around the sumerians because their cuneiform is so difficult to translate. There were only a handful of cheif gods, and most of them seemed like the human race were just pawns in their own war. There was a war between Enlil and Enki (half brother gods) in which they used their humans to go to war for the gods. That the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah was really a nuclear war that leveled both cities which happened to be in between the lands of the warring brother gods. Interesting that the bible describes their fall as a rein of fire from heaven for their heathen ways. Though that is not entirely true, they were cities of great knowledge and learning and therefore were destroyed. They have even discovered in the sands and silt of the dead sea where sodom and Gomorrah were said to have been there were outlines of great building, evidence of a dust that is similar to the complete disitigration during a nuclear attack. That even some of the dust still registers a small amount of radiation. Others still think it was a meteor shower, and perhaps it was...perhaps it was the destruction of the 12th planet raining down upon the cities. There have actually been 5 cities unearthed in this region that would have been destroyed in this war.

This is just research for me and i just find it so fascinating all the correlations between modern christianity and the Sumerian pantheon. If you look at just Enlil as the supreme cheif god, though there were others that ruled, He was the only one with access to An (seat of heaven). He ruled the gods even on earth. He caused the flood in mesopotamia that mimics the great floods. There are even stories of a god saving one man (the ark is not mentioned, but the man was made immortal by the god Enki because he held the DNA of all the different human species. It was that reason he was spared so that Enki could repopulate when Enlil left.)

If we were to correlate the tellings of Genisis with the tellings of several of the tablets from the epic of Gilgamesh they are almost identical. It leads one to wonder if Enlil had seated himself as a single higher god, and as evidence of the Single monotheism of chritianity as seen in the bible, the roles of his children and other gods were downplayed.
He had 4 sons, by Ninlil (whom he raped brutaly, she was also his sister) but only one was ever worth his time that was Sin (nanna/suen) Sin was the god of the moon. and held sway over the Euphrates valley.
His other favored son Namtar - meaning destiny or fate was a minor hellish deity mothered by the goddess of the underworld Ereshkigal - His form has survived into the modern depictions of the "Grim reaper" He is the personification of death.

If all this is to be belived then Jesus would have been a human born son of Enlil. Often depicted as a very caucasoid figure with blond-ish hair and blue eyes in a part of the world where the skin tones were darker, hair colors black eyes brown. The sumerians translations often means (black of head) So Jesus was a blond haired blue eyed son of the gods in the middle of the darker complcted indo-europeans. This is the same for King Tut of egypt!

I find it interesting that many of us can trace our dna back to that of this ancient king.

All this stuff really makes you think. I know this was a lot of rambling...but I find it so fascinating.

Also, as i research many different pantheons i notice that each of them seem to be exactly the same. Each god maybe with a different name but they are always fair skinned light haired and blue eyed all of them are just the same people with different humans retelling the story.

It's mysterious stuff isn't it?

It's hard not to feel like there is more to all this than meets the eye

I mean i know how many myths are actually just ways of explaining the human condition, but there seems to be a further dimension to the whole sumerian thing....maybe not....maybe it shouldn't be read literally...i'll keep an open mind!

There are stories of a fair haired guy appearing around the world imparting knowledge. For example the Toltecs who carved the mysterious giant carved heads had a story of a pale visitor. The mayans spoke about Quatzecotl who was a feathered serpent

I think that the reptile and the bird represent the two sides of our brain. Left being reptillian, territorial and logical and right being nurturing, creative and compassionate. Obviously the ideal is to use both of these in balance so that we can be like the feathered serpent.

The egytpians believed that the ego was a blind serpent called typhon that screamed in the dark. Different cultures have hero gods battling a giant serpent and defeating it representing a mastery of their ego; for example Horus battled typhon as did the Greek god Zeus

Serpents used to represent wisdom but were demonised by the christian church. The gnostics do not see the serpent as evil and they depict the balanced person as 'Abraxus'. Here's an image of abraxus with a birds head and snake legs:

19-abraxas-gnostics.jpg

The mystery schools which can trace their roots back to ancient sumeria were perhaps teaching people that to acheive balance as a person and to realise our full potential as people required balancing the two sides of our mind and also our conscious and unconscious

Of course that knowledge can also be missused and i believe that it has been. I think that the people who are controlling our society are trying to make people think with the left brain and to see the world through a left brain filter so that people are territorial and divided.

Maybe that's what the sumerian myths are about and perhaps they are warning us of the chaos that can come into our lives when we become imbalanced, like the story of the two brothers that you mentioned. Jung also tells about a myth of two brothers that native peoples in the Americas had. One brother was reflective and introverted and the other brother was extroverted and dynamic. Between the two of them they were invincible and defeated all their enemies.

Eventually the twins became very powerful but did not keep their power in check so they killed one of the 4 animals that hold the world up. Just like in the greek myths the gods were angered by their hubris and said they should be killed as punishment. The two brothers managed to balance out though and were spared

I think all these myths are guides for us on our inner spiritual journeys from childhood, through adulthood and into old age. They are there to help us to avoid common pitfalls and be better people

I do however find the literal version of the annunaki stories an exciting thought!

Goliath from the bible was i think a son of the nephilim
 
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There are so many interpretations...What I love most is that they are all uniform...The stories can all line up. Take the story of Inanna/Ishtar. She descended into the underworld to sooth her bereft sister only to be caught in her web and killed. Link this to the story of persephone. The story of Odysseus, there is a similar story in Celtic myth with Manannan Mac Lir A man was traveling the ocean in search of the Otherworld and Manannan came on his "Water Steed" to steer the man away from the isle. If you ever get a chance reed "Gods and Fighting Men" It is a great read full of myths and legends from the Celts, It takes you through all three books of invasions. You can match up gods and goddesses to their counterparts in each Pantheon as well. Manannan would obviously be Poseidon! The Morrigan Babd, Macha and Brigid are the Fates (the Morrigan is where we see the mother maiden crone stories!)

In "Gods and Fighting Men" The tales are told not as these are gods, but men that lived in these lands. When I read about these beings I think of them thusly. Perhaps there were humans of supernatural abilities then. These men had extraordinary abilities, and their stories live on. I think of one in particular, Balor of the Evil Eye. Balor was king of the Fomorians, a race of Giants (we see this in other tales of the gods as well!). He was known for his single eye in the front and back of his head. It was said the king could never be snuck up upon and was a formidable foe. A prophecy stated that his grandson would rise up one day and kill him. (Reminiscent of the titans) So Balor locked his only daughter Ethlinn in a crystal tower so she could never be made pregnant. (connections???) However Cian (one of the Tuatha De Dannan, people of the goddess danu) was allowed entry into this tower by the druidess Birog. WHen Ethlinn birthed triplets Balor tossed them into the ocean. The Druidess saved one child from its fate, and the child was raised by Manannan Mac Lir. He was called Lugh and became part of the Tuatha De Dannan. Lugh returned to slay Balor with a spear (this is one of the 3 divine gifts of the Tuatha De Dannan; the Spear, the Sword and the Cauldron. Reminiscent of the tales of the Holy grail, the sword that killed goliath, and the spear of destiny!!) his giant eye rolled from his head and opened the earth to make a new lake where the giants once ruled. Lugh also turned out to be the savior of the Tuatha De Dannan and led them into victory with the Fomorians. Lugh was named High King of the Tuatha De Dannan. He was called Lugh of the Long Arm. He fathered other great heros such as Chuchulainn, who is later killed by the spear as well while "crucified" much like the stories of Jesus, in the ribs.

ANYWAY thats me jumping to a whole other Pantheon...sorry about that....
 
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[MENTION=86]Entyqua[/MENTION]

Don't be sorry that was a great read!

You mentioned Lugh who i understand to be the sun god; perhaps the spear of lugh is the suns rays. The sun is usually seen to be phallic and the suns rays are the emissions of the phallus ie sperm

The suns rays fertilise the land which is the earth mother who then gives birth to the crops which feed us. here in the UK some people in the countryside make corn dollies to celebrate the harvest. The egytpians used to equate the crop to Osiris (a dying-rebirth god) and also made corn dollies. the romans also did this and used to chuck them into the river tiber

The mystery schools would use corn and wine symbolically....a practise taken up by the christians with their eucharist. The jesus story seems to be in the mould of the mystery schools.

You mentioned Lugh being thrown into the sea and of course this story is mirrored in the bible with the moses in the basket story

What's clear the more you look into all these myths comparitively, objectively is that christianity is not a unique stand alone religion but is simply another branch of a mystery school tree.

The spear and the sword are male phallic items and the cauldron is a female receptive item. These symbols are also represented in the tarot

The old pagan traditions saw the sex act as a divine act mirroring the dualistic interplay of reality itself. The east had traditions of tantra and taoist sexual practices but in the west the catholic church violently shut down such behaviours so the western sex magick tradition went underground and became disguised as alchemy

The great work was the acheiving of enlightenment through the sex act

Of course this requires two people and women are an equal partner in the process. The catholic church was strictly paternal and denied women any sort of equality with men. There was one female pope who tricked the church into thinking she was a man lol! Now every pope has to sit on a chair with no centre in the seat so that his fellow church men can peak under his gowns and make sure that he has balls lol

They have suppressed the importance of Mary Magdalene in the christian story and they neutered jesus' mother mary by saying she conceived as a virgin. Before this the female godess had been worshipped in three aspects: the virgin, the mother, and the old woman eg ISIS

Mary Magdelene anointed jesus at the end of his ministry (john at the start). She was in my opinion his partner in the act of divine union.

This can be seen in metaphorical terms as well. We are trying to unite with the divine. We are the princess trying to marry the prince. The old fairy tale of sleeping beauty is really just a veiled metaphor for the process of spiritual enlightenment as she is woken from her dormant state of spiritual sleep

So anyway it all boil down to a male/female duality and the heiros gamos sexual act is to create a spiritually transcendent union that puts us in touch with the divine

I travelled down a glen in Scotland that is named after Lugh. At the end of the glen is an ancient shrine to the earth goddess called in gaelic 'Cailleach' and paid homage to the enternal feminine. The old celtic myths seem to have parallels right across the med and some say the celts travelled from turkey to the UK

Jung talks about the female anima as a layer of our psyche

Anyway it seems that these mythologies (and chrisitianity when its not being interpreted by the RC church) are all talking about the same stuff at their core and this process is going on over a vast distance. this would point to either a common source or to people interpreting the patterns/rythms of nature in the same way...or maybe both process at once

Getting back to the Sumerians who are possibly a source of all this....Tammuz is the dying/re-birth god and the mythological anscestor of jesus