Visitors From Elsewhere
Sumer and Babylon: Visitors
Visitors From Elsewhere pages that draw on Sumer and Babylon, each with the sources shown. Start with Anunnaki, Apkallu (the seven sages), Igigi, Nibiru.
Beings · Sumer and BabylonAnunnakiIn one Sumerian poem, the gods who rule the cosmos sit as seven underworld judges who can turn a goddess into a corpse with a single look. The name probably means "offspring of An," yet modern writers made it famous as a name for astronauts. What do the real texts say about these gods?Beings · Sumer and BabylonApkallu (the seven sages)Seven semi-divine sages, sent by Enki before the Flood to teach humans civilization, were carved as fish-men and eagle-headed spirits. The seventh, Utuabzu, is said to have ascended to heaven, much like Enoch, the seventh patriarch in Genesis; scholars debate whether that is literary borrowing. Who were these sages, really?Beings · Sumer and BabylonIgigiThe oldest strike in literature was a strike by gods; after thousands of years digging rivers and heaping up mountains, the junior gods of Babylon burned their tools and surrounded their boss's house at night. The epic Atrahasis says humankind was created to take over the work. How does a god settle a labor dispute?Objects · Sumer and Babylon; modern speculationNibiruIn Babylon, Nibiru was a name of the god Marduk, who "upheld the paths" of the stars. In modern lore, it is a hidden planet that would knock the solar system off course; the 3,600-year orbit people quote comes from a number unit, say Assyriologists. What did the Babylonians actually point at in the sky?Beings · Sumer and BabylonOannesAccording to the priest Berossus, a creature with a fish's body and a second, human head under the fish's head rose from the sea in the first year of the world. It taught writing and law by day, ate nothing among people, and slept in the sea each night; Berossus survives only secondhand. What else was quoted?
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