Sumerian Mythology

© CRYSTALINKS

Information about Sumerian Gods and Goddesses is found on the Sumerian King List as well as Sumerian clay tablets and cylinder seals. The Sumerian King List records all the rulers of Earth back over 400,000 years. This huge stretch of time coupled with reigns into the thousands of years has caused most historians to reject its accuracy. However all the early rulers were allegedly gods - demi-gods or immortals. These Gods were called the Nephilim - Nefilim - Elohim - Annunaki meaning "Those who from Heaven to Earth came." In Sumerian Mythology they were a pantheon of good and evil gods and goddesses who came to Earth to create the human race. According to the some resources, these gods came from Nibiru - 'Planet of the Crossing.' The Assyrians and Babylonians called it 'Marduk', after their chief god. Sumerians said one year on planet Nibiru, a sar, was equivalent in time to 3600 Earth years. Annunaki lifespans were 120 sars which is 120 x 3600 or 432,000 years. According to the King List - 120 sars had passed from the time the Annunaki arrived on Earth to the time of the Flood.

The Annunaki are sometimes depicted as humanoid. At other times they are bird-headed with wings [Symbology - evolution of consciousness - return to higher frequency of thought - alchemy]. Often they are Reptilian in appearance especially when depicted as warriors - [Reptilian Symbology - snake - dragons - reptiles = DNA - creation of the human bi-polar experiment.] Sometimes they are shown as a combination of several types of entities. All is myth, math, and metaphor, so look for the clues in every set of gods you read about, as they all follow the same patterns that repeat in cycles or loops called Time. The patterns of their battles reflect reality as duality and are found within every pantheon of gods - the same characters playing different roles. A Sumerian tablet shows Enmeduranki, a prince in Sippar, who was well loved by Anu, Enlil and Ea. Shamash, a priest in the Bright Temple, appointed him then took him to the assembly of the gods...

In ancient days when legend and myth were placed at the border of reality often signifying an intangible truth, there is one story that stands alone hidden deep in the archives of historical obscurity. It is seldom present in the popular literature of the great epics of old like the Odyssey, Hercules, Helen of Troy and so forth; nor has it ever received considerable recognition as one of the great classics locked into the confines of an in-dept study for future literary expeditions. Yet beneath it's structure lies a mystery, or perhaps, more of an aberrant narrative that intertwines with so many other epics of it's time that one would become confused as to interpret who this person really is.

This article is written to shed a light on the saga of the mysterious, but fascinating queen Semiramis, the ancient effigy of the Assyrian empire. Famed for her beauty, strength, wisdom, voluptuousness, and alluring power, she is said to have built Babylon with its hanging gardens, erect many other cities, conquer Egypt and much of Asia including Ethiopia, execute war against the Medes and Chaldeans; which eventually lead to an unsuccessful attack on India where she nearly lost her life. As G.J. Whyfe-Melville states in his novel of Sarchedon: A Legend of the Great Queen, "She was beautiful no doubt, in the nameless beauty that wins, no less than in the lofty beauty that compels. Her form was matchless in symmetry, so that her every gesture, in the saddle or on the throne, was womanly, dignified, and graceful, while each dress she wore, from royal robe and jeweled tiara to steel breast-plate and golden headpiece, seemed that in which she looked her best. With a man's strength of body, she possessed more than a man's power of mind and force of will.

A shrewd observer would have detected in those bright eyes, despite their thick lashes and loving glance, the genius that can command an army and found an empire; in that delicate, exquisitely chiseled face, the lines that tell of tameless pride and unbending resolution; in the full curves of that rosy mouth, in the clean-cut jaw and prominence of the beautifully molded chin, a cold recklessness that could harden on occasion to pitiless cruelty - stern, impracticable, immovable as fate.?" She built such an inuring reputation that queen Margaret of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway (1353-1412 A.D.) And Catherine II the Great of Russia (1729-1796) were both labeled as the Semiramis of the North...

The only complete significant documentation that I found intact about Semiramis is recorded in the historical writings of Diodorus Siculus (Library of History), a Greek historian about the same time as Julius Caesar. Although he is listed in the category of an elute expert on ancient history, many scholars have come to the conclusion that much of his writings, especially those of the narratives of Semiramis, are plagiarized and based on historical legends colored with elaborations of thought and disguised fantasies, and therefore cannot be recognized as existential tangible truth or fact....

- by Christopher Siren, 1992, 1994, Revised: March 25, 1995 -

I. Overview -

The religion of the ancient Sumerians has left its mark on the entire middle east. Not only are its temples and ziggurats scattered about the region, but the literature, cosmogony and rituals influenced their neighbors to such an extent that we can see echoes of Sumer in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition today. From these ancient temples, and to a greater extent, through cuneiform writings of hymns, myths, lamentations, and incantations, archaeologists and mythographers afford the modern reader a glimpse into the religious world of the Sumerians. Each city housed a temple that was the seat of a major god in the Sumerian pantheon, as the gods controlled the powerful forces which often dictated a human's fate. The city leaders had a duty to please the town's patron deity, not only for the good will of that god or goddess, but also for the good will of the other deities in the council of gods. The priesthood initially held this role, and even after secular kings ascended to power, the clergy still held
great authority through the interpretation of omens and dreams. Many of the secular kings claimed divine right; Sargon of Agade, for example claimed to have been chosen by Ishtar/Inanna.

(Crawford 1991: 21-24) The rectangular central shrine of the temple, known as a 'cella,' had a brick altar or offering table in front of a statue of the temple's deity. The cella was lined on its long ends by many rooms for priests and priestesses. These mud-brick buildings were decorated with cone geometrical mosaics, and the occasional fresco with human and animal figures. These temple complexes eventually evolved into towering ziggurats. (Wolkstein & Kramer 1983: 119)The temple was staffed by priests, priestesses, musicians, singers, castrates and hierodules. Various public rituals, food sacrifices, and libations took place there on a daily basis. There were monthly feasts and annual, New Year celebrations. During the later, the king would be married to Inanna as the resurrected fertility god Dumuzi, whose exploits are dealt with below. When it came to more private matters, a Sumerian remained devout. Although the gods preferred justice and mercy, they had also created evil and misfortune. A Sumerian had little that he could do about it. Judging from Lamentation records, the best one could do in times of duress would be to "plead, lament and wail, tearfully confessing his sins and failings." Their family god or city god might intervene on their behalf, but that would not necessarily happen. After all, man was created as a broken, labor saving, tool for the use of the gods and at the end of everyone's life, lay the underworld, a generally dreary place. (Wolkstein & Kramer 1983: pp.123-124)

Working from the same archaeological discoveries, artifacts, and recovered records as archaeologists and linguists have for two hundred years, Sitchin proves that the Anunnaki splashed down in the Persian gulf area around 432,000 years ago, colonized the planet, with the purpose of obtaining large quantities of gold.Some 250,000 years ago, the recovered documents tell us, their lower echelon miners rebelled against the conditions in the mines and the Anunnaki directorate decided to create a creature to take their place.Enki, their chief scientist and Ninhursag their chief medical officer, after getting no satisfactory results splicing animal and Homo Erectus genes, merged their Anunnaki genes with that of HomoErectus and produced us, Homo Sapiens, a genetically bicameral species, for their purposes as slaves. Because we were a hybrid, we could not procreate.

The demand for us as workers became greater and we were genetically manipulated to reproduce. Eventually, we became so numerous that some of us were expelled from the Anunnaki city centers, gradually spreading over the planet. Having become a stable genetic stock and developing more precociously than, perhaps, the Anunnaki had anticipated, the Anunnaki began to be attracted to humans as sexual partners and children were born of these unions. This was unacceptable to the majority of the Anunnaki high council and it was decided to wipe out the human population through a flood that was predictable when Nibiru, the tenth in our solar system and the Anunnaki home planet, came through the inner solar systemagain (around 12,500 years ago) on one of its periodic 3600 year returns.Some humans were saved by the action of the Anunnaki official, Enki, who was sympathetic to the humans he had originally genetically created. For thousands of years, we were their slaves, their workers, their servants, and their soldiers in their political battles among themselves. The Anunnaki used us in the construction of their palaces (we retroproject the religious notion of temple on these now), their cities, their mining and refining complexes and their astronomical installations on all the continents. They expanded from Mesopotamia to Egypt to India to South and Central America and the stamp of their presence can be found in the farthest reaches of the planet. Around 6000 years ago, they, probably realizing that they were going to phase off the planet, began, gradually, to bring humans toindependen......