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Anunnaki: Did the Gods Create Humanity? | Nibiru, Sumer & the Forbidden History · Lost Civilizations: Ancient Aliens & Forgotten History

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Imagine a world without humans.
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No cities, no farms, no kings, no temples.
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But the world is not empty.
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Someone is already there.
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The gods.
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And in one of the oldest stories from
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the ancient Mesopotamia, these gods are not living
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an easy life, somewhere high above the humanity.
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They are working.
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They dig.
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They carry heavy loads.
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Canals have to be dug.
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Earth has to be moved.
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Water has to be guided across the land.
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The work is hard.
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The years pass.
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And eventually some of the gods had enough.
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In the ancient Babylonian story we now call
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Atrahasis, the story begins with a situation that
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sounds almost surprisingly modern.
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A group of workers has gone on strike.
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Except these workers are gods.
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The lesser gods, known as Igigi.
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They are doing the hard labor with the
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greater gods' rule over them.
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The pressure keeps building and finally the workers
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rebel.
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And suddenly the gods has a problem.
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If the gods refuse to work, who is
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then going to work for them?
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The solution was, sorry, is humanity.
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Clay is brought forward.
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A god is killed.
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His blood is mixed with the clay.
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And from this mixture, the new being is
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created.
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A being capable of carrying out the burden.
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Us.
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Now, Zecharia Sitchin did not invent the basic
1:33
story.
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The Antoshanitish tradition really does describe the gods
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doing the hard physical work.
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It really does describe a rebellion.
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And it really does describe humanity being created
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from clay and divine blood.
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But what does the story actually means?
1:54
To an Assyriologist it's mythology.
1:57
To an historian of a religion it offers
2:00
a window into an ancient world where people
2:02
understood human existence through the gods, the temples,
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the work and the natural orders.
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But millions of people have come to see
2:10
something very different in the story.
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What if the clay does not simply mean
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clay?
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What if the blood does not simply mean
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blood?
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What if the ancient text describing something people
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4,000 years ago simply did not have
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modern verse for?
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Genetics.
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And what if the gods is really not
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gods?
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What if they were visitors?
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Not from a heaven as a religious place,
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but from the heavens, literally, from another world.
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From a world that in the modern version
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of this story has a name, Nibiru.
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And those visitors have another name, the Anunnaki.
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So why are we still talking about it?
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Well, the Anunnaki have become something much bigger
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than a subject in the ancient religious history.
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Search for the name today and you quickly
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leave the world of universities and clay tablets
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behind.
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Instead you will find words as spacecraft, genetic
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engineering, gold mines, mysterious planets, forbidden archaeology, biblical
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giants, secret underground bases, and the idea that
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the entire history of humanity have been built
3:29
on top of forgotten events.
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Much of the modern Anunnaki story can be
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traced back to one man, Zecharia Sitchin.
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He was born in 1920 and in 1976
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he published a book called The Twelfth Planet.
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Sitchin believed the ancient Mesopotamian text has been
3:50
misunderstood.
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When ancient people wrote about the gods coming
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from the heavens, he believed that they were
3:57
describing real visitors.
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When they wrote about objects in the sky,
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he believed their astronomical knowledge is far more
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advanced than modern historians are willing to accept.
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And when they wrote about the creation of
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humanity, he believed these stories preserved a distant
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memory of biological engineering.
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What makes the story so powerful is that
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it does not begin with a flying saucer,
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it begins with real ancient texts.
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There really is an Atrahasis story.
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There is really a Sumerian king list.
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Enki, Idil, Anu, and Yana really appear in
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the ancient texts.
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They really are Mesopotamian flood stories.
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Nibiru, or more precisely Nibiru, really does appear
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in the ancient Mesopotamian astronomy.
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And the Anu or the Anaki really do
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appear in ancient writing.
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In the Sumerian sources, the Anu is a
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group of important gods.
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In later traditions, the term becomes also to
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be associated with gods of the underworld.
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There is no single definition that works perfectly
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for every period of the Mesopotamian history.
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And that is exactly what makes this story
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interesting, because the modern Anunaki story is not
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created out of nothing.
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It was built on ancient bricks.
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The question is whenever the building made from
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those bricks are still ancient, or whenever the
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part is modern.
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If we look at the established story, then
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we need to begin in the Mesopotamia, the
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land between Euphrates and Tigris rivers, a land
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that roughly corresponded to modern-day Iraq and
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parts of the surrounding region.
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This was where some of the world's earliest
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urban societies developed.
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Uruk, Ur, Eridu, Lagash, Nippur, Kish.
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People organized farming, trade, administration, and religion on
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a scale that eventually made writing necessary.
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And by the end of the 4th millennium
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BCE, we begin to see the early stages
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of the writing tradition that would develop into
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cuneiform.
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And through that writing, an enormous ancient world
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becomes available to us.
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Accounts, contracts, school exercises,
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prayers, astrological texts, mythical texts, and stories about
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the gods.
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One of the oldest divine figures in the
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sky god is An, also known as Anu
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in Akkadian.
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He is a figure of authority, and in
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many traditions he is considered an ancestor of
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the gods.
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Another major god is Enlil.
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Enlil is associated with power, authority, and kingship.
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And then we have Enki, known as Ea
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in Akkadian.
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Enki is one of the most fascinating figures
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in the entire Mesopotamian pantheon.
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He is associated with fresh water beneath the
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earth, wisdom, craftsmanship, magic, and civilization.
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And again and again he has a special
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relationship with humanity.
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In several stories Enki acts as humanity's protector.
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In Atrahasis he plays a crucial role
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in the creation of humanity and later in
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its survival.
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In the flood tradition he warns a human
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about being about the coming disaster.
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And in the story of Adapa a relationship
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becomes even stranger.
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Adapa is an extraordinary human closely connected to
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Enki.
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He gives wisdom, he gets into a conflict
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with the south wind, eventually he is brought
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before the sky god Anu, and there he
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seems to have an opportunity to gain something
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close to immortality.
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But he does not receive it.
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Mesopotamian mythology is deeply interested in this boundary
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between gods and humans.
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Where are we?
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Why do we work?
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Why do we die?
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Why do the gods possess us something we
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do not?
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And somewhere inside these enormous worlds of gods
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we find Anu'a.
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Today Akkadian form Anunnaki is a much better
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word.
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But in the Sumerian text we often encounter
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forms as Anu'a or Anu'a.
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It's not the name of the individual gods,
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it refers to a group.
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Exactly which gods belong to the group can
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vary.
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In some texts they are the great gods,
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in others they are associated with particular cities
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or particular roles.
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In later traditions the Anunnaki become more closely
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associated with the underworld, while the Igigi may
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have been associated with the gods of heaven.
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And already we have a problem.
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If we try to make a perfect organizational
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chart of the Anunnaki, we will see the
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mapping of the management structures.
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Like in a modern company, the ancient sources
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simply refused to cooperate.
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The tradition changed, different cities favored different gods.
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Names were changed, gods emerged.
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One story could contradict another.
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This is what happens in a living religion.
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And there's also one more problem.
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Some of the ancient names look like they
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were specifically designed to punish everyone that pronounced
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them in a podcast.
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So if I accidentally injure a Sumerian consonant
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along the way, I hope you will forgive
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me.
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But underneath all this variation one thing is
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clear.
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The Anunnaki are real in a sense that
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the name and the gods themselves generally appear
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in ancient texts.
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What we do not have is a Mesopotamian
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text that simply says the Anunnaki were extraterrestrials.
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That sentence comes much later.
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So if we look at the first cracks,
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then we could say something like if the
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story ended here we would not have much
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of an episode.
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Because some of those ancient stories are strange.
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Take the creation of humanity.
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In a simple modern retelling, we would
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say that the Mesopotamians believed that gods created
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humans.
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But the details matters.
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In the Atrahasis, the lesser gods performed hard
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physical labor.
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Among other things they dig canals.
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Eventually they rebel.
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So a new worker has to be created.
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In the story a god is killed.
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His blood becomes a part of the creation
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of humanity together with clay.
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Other Mesopotamian stories contain variations of the same
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basic idea.
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In Enki and Ninmah, clay again plays a
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central role in the creation of humans.
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For a modern person it is difficult to
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hear the story without thinking about biology.
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Materials from the earth, something taken from an
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existing intelligent being, a process and then a
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human is created.
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That is not the same thing as genetic
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engineering, but it's easy to understand why the
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comparison appears.
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Then we have the Sumerian king list.
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The list does not begin with an ordinary
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king.
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It begins with kingship descending from heaven.
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And in a most famous version the early
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kings ruled for an astonishing length of time.
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Elohim ruled for 28,800 years.
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Alaga ruled for 36,000 years.
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Others ruled for 33,200 years, 28,800,
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21,000.
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First this almost impossible length of time, then
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comes the flood.
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And after the flood the Rhines gradually begin
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to work in something more we could recognize
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as human history.
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The famous Weltbrunnel prism containing the list is
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real.
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The numbers are there.
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So why are they there?
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Where are the symbols?
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Religious numerology?
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Where are the ancient units of time of
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being used differently?
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Or is the list describing rulers that were
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simply not ordinary human beings?
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Then there is Etana, a king who in
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a Mesopotamian story rises toward heaven on the
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back of an eagle.
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There is Adapa who travels from the heavenly
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realm of Anu.
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Then there is Eunatician in the Epic of
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Gilgamesh.
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The man survived the great flood and is
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given a special status among the gods.
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Then there are the seven Apkallu, a wise
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being associated with the age before the flood.
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And there are descriptions of God moving between
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different parts of the cosmos.
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A modern reader can choose to see this
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as a kind of a mythology.
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Ancient people who preserve these stories probably do
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not think about myth in exactly the same
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way as we do.
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To them the gods are very real.
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But in the beginning of the 70s, a
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third possibility was offered.
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Not literally a supernatural gods, not simply a
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fictional mythology, but ancient people describing advanced technology
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with the only language available to them.
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And this is where Zachariah's Scythian stories begin.
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If you look at the alternatives to history,
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that is where Scythian stories begin far from
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Earth.
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Somewhere in our solar system is another world
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with extremely long and unusual orbit, Nibiru.
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It travels through the solar system in a
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vast cycle lasting roughly 3,600 Earth years.
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Long ago intelligent life developed there.
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In this story the inhabitants of Nibiru do
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not necessarily look like a small gray alien
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in the modern UFO culture.
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They are humanoid, they live extremely long life
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compared with the humans, they possess an advanced
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civilization, and at some point their planet faces
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a serious problem.
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Here its atmosphere is in danger.
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The solution is gold.
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Gold can be used technologically and can be
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dispensed into the atmospheres to protect the planet.
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But Nibiru does not have enough easily available
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gold, so inhabitants took a look toward Earth.
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Around 4000, I try again, around 450,000
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years ago the expeditions begin.
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One of the most important missions was led
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by Enki.
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In ancient Mesopotamian religion Enki is the god
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of wisdom, freshwater, craftsmanship, and civilization.
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In the Anunnaki story those qualities become clues
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into his real role.
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He was the scientist, the engineer, the one
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who understood nature, and the one who will
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eventually develop a special relationship with humanity.
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The first operations are centered about Mesopotamia, but
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it becomes clear that large quantity of gold
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can be found further south in Africa.
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The Anunnaki established mining operations, and this is
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where another group enters the story, the Igigi.
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The Igigi really do appear in the ancient
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texts as a group of gods.
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In Etrahedes they are forced to perform different
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labor under the authority of the greater gods,
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which in modern alternative interpretation this become a
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crucial clue.
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Why would gods stick?
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Why would gods become exhausted?
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Why would gods rebel because of physical labor?
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If the story is purely religious, those questions
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can be answered symbolically, but if the story
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is the started memory of a real history,
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then it takes a very different meaning.
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The Igigi were the workforce, and after a
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long period of labor they rebelled.
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They refused to continue, and now the Anunnaki
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has a practical problem.
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They have the technology, they have the infrastructure,
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they need the resources, but their workers will
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no longer work.
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They need a replacement.
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Earth has already primitive hominids.
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They are strong, they are adapted to the
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planet, but they lack the intelligence and organizational
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ability needed to become an efficient workforce.
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Enki proposes a solution.
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Instead of creating life from nothing, they can
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improve the life that already exists.
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An earth species can be combined with biological
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material from the Anunnaki themselves.
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In this interpretation, the ancient story of clay
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and divine blood begins sounds more like technical.
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The clay represents existing biological material from earth.
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The blood of the god provides the missing
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component.
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A mother figure often connected with the Nihursag
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or other Mesopotamian birth goddesses takes the roles
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of the biological specialist.
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Experiments are carried out.
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Not all of them succeed.
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The ancient work Enki and Ninmah contains unusual
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descriptions of people created with different physical limitations,
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which the gods assigned each of them to
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play a role in the society.
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In the technological interpretation, these scenes look like
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memories of experimentation, trials, failures, adjustments, and eventually
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the human was created as we recognize them,
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Homo sapiens.
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But the new human has a problem from
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the Anunnaki point of view.
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The first individuals cannot reproduce freely.
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That makes sense if they were designed as
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workers.
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Their numbers can be controlled, but at some
19:27
points the design changes.
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Humans gain their ability to reproduce on their
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own, and something fundamental changes.
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The population grows, the humans spread, and they
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become more difficult to control.
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This is where the biblical stories become interesting
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in their theory.
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In Genesis we find Adam and Eve.
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Humanity initially lives in a special garden.
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There is a tree connected with knowledge, there
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is another tree connected with eternal life.
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After humans gain knowledge, the divine authority becomes
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concerned that they may also get immortality.
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Humanity leaves the gardens.
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Sitchin's interpretation connects this story with Mesopotamian traditions.
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The crucial loss is not simply innocence, it
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is access.
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Humans have gained a new form of knowledge,
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but they do not receive the long life
20:27
of the gods.
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The story of Adapa became especially important.
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Adapa is Enki's human.
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He is unusually wise.
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After a conflict with the Saurfang, he is
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summoned to the realm of Anu.
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Enki prepares him for what will happen.
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Adapa is offered blood and drink.
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He refuses, but that food and drink may
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have given him immortality.
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So humanity receives wisdom, but not eternal life.
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Why?
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Within the Anunnaki model, the answer is that
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humanity was created as a limited version of
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its creators.
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Intelligent enough to work, intelligent enough to build
21:11
civilization, but not the full lifespan of the
21:15
Anunnaki.
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And that leads to another major part of
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the theory.
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The strange lifespans of the ancient gods and
21:23
kings.
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If the Anunnaki homeworld completes one orbit every
21:31
3,600 Earth years, then a single cycle
21:35
on the world would correspond to thousands of
21:39
years of history.
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So when ancient traditions describe gods and early
21:45
rulers living for enormous lengths of time, perhaps
21:48
those numbers were not symbolic at all.
21:52
Perhaps they reflected a different way of measuring
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time.
21:56
The Sumerian king list becomes a kind of
21:58
a fossil from a long stage.
22:01
Before the flood, kings ruled for tens of
22:04
thousands of years.
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After the flood, the numbers fail.
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Later, royal lifespan become human.
22:15
This fits the idea that the direct presence
22:18
of the gods slowly disappears.
22:20
The ancient world moves from the age of
22:22
the gods to the age of the demigods
22:25
and finally into the age of the humans.
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But the Anunnaki were not one perfectly united
22:32
group.
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And this is where Enki and Enlil become
22:35
central.
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Enki feels sympathy for humanity.
22:39
He is involved in our creation.
22:41
He teaches humans.
22:42
He helps them.
22:44
Enlil sees things differently.
22:49
Humanity was created for a purpose.
22:51
Humans were supposed to work.
22:53
They were supposed to maintain the established order.
22:55
But over time, there are too many of
22:57
them.
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In Antiochus, this is exactly the problem that
23:01
develops.
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Humanity begins to disturb the divine order.
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Enlil drives different disasters to reduce human population.
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And finally, the flood comes.
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But Enki warns Atrahasis.
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In the later Gilgamesh tradition, we find the
23:17
story again through eunuchism.
23:21
In the Bible, he becomes Noah, one man
23:24
who receives a warning.
23:26
A vessel is built.
23:27
The disaster comes and life survives.
23:31
The Anunnaki theory sees the floods as the
23:35
memory of a real global, or at least,
23:38
should we say, enormous catastrophe that the Anunnaki
23:44
knew was coming.
23:46
In some versions of the theory, the disaster
23:49
is connected directly with Nibiru passing through the
23:52
solar systems.
23:54
Gravity, ice sheets, rising oceans, geological upheaval.
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Enlil does not want humanity to be warned.
24:07
Enki does it anyway.
24:10
And this is why the ancient conflict between
24:12
the two becomes so important.
24:14
Enki becomes humanity's protector.
24:16
Enlil becomes the authority.
24:19
Not necessarily evil, but far more willing to
24:22
allow humanity to die if the larger plan
24:25
requires it.
24:26
After the flood, a new age begins.
24:29
Humanity survives.
24:31
Agriculture is restored.
24:33
Cities rise again.
24:34
Kingship returns.
24:35
And this is where the famous line in
24:38
the Sumerian king list becomes so important.
24:41
After the flood has swept over the land,
24:44
kingship once again descended from the heaven.
24:48
For the theory, that is, the wording is
24:52
remarkable.
24:53
Kingship does not simply develop.
24:55
It comes down.
24:57
Civilization is a gift.
24:59
And this fits another recurring Mesopotamian idea.
25:03
Enki is associated with what is called the
25:06
me.
25:07
This can be understood as divine powers, institutions,
25:11
or principles behind civilization.
25:14
Kingship, priesthood, crafts, music, writing, the functions of
25:19
society itself.
25:21
In the alternative interpretation, the me sounds almost
25:26
like a package of civilization technology.
25:29
Humanity is not only given a new body,
25:32
we were thought.
25:34
And this also provides an explanation of why
25:37
Sumer appears so impressive.
25:39
Cities, writing, mathematics, astronomy, law, administrations, monumental
25:45
architecture.
25:48
In popular presentations, civilization seems to suddenly explode
25:52
into existence.
25:55
If the Anunnaki were the teachers, then Sumer
25:57
was not really the beginning.
26:00
It is the place where something much older
26:03
is handed down to humanity.
26:06
And that idea leads directly to the Apkallu.
26:13
In Mesopotamian tradition, the Apkallu are wise beings.
26:18
They are associated with special knowledge.
26:20
Some traditions place seven of them into the
26:24
flood.
26:24
They bring wisdom and civilization.
26:27
They can appear as human-like figures, sometimes
26:30
associated with fish, and later as winged beings.
26:38
Within the alternative theory, they become specialists, teachers,
26:43
representatives of the old world.
26:45
And perhaps this is where the story connects
26:47
to other cultures.
26:49
Because all over the world, we find stories
26:51
about beings that come from the and teach
26:56
humanity the foundations of civilization.
26:59
Egypt has its gods.
27:01
Mesopotamia has the culture of heroes.
27:04
The Andes has a story connected with Yakuka.
27:09
Greek mythology has Prometheus, who gives fire to
27:12
the human.
27:14
And in the Bible, humanity gains knowledge through
27:17
an encounter with a supernatural being.
27:20
So the theory asks, are these independent myths?
27:24
Or are they local memories of a shared
27:26
past?
27:28
And this is where Nibiru becomes the key
27:30
to the entire story.
27:32
Sitchin interpreted Mesopotamian astronomical traditions as clues pointing
27:38
towards a planet moving through the solar system.
27:41
The ancient Akkadian word Nibiru is connected with
27:46
ideas such as crossing or passage.
27:52
In Inua, the name is associated with Matuk.
27:56
In the alternative model, that meaning something very
28:00
literally.
28:02
The planet has crosses, a world traveling, has
28:05
long orbit, a world that appears in the
28:08
inner solar system only every several thousand years.
28:15
Sitchin also believed that Mesopotamian art revealed surprisingly
28:20
advanced knowledge of the solar system.
28:23
One cylinder seal in particular is known as
28:26
VA 243, became famous.
28:30
It contains a star-like symbol surrounded by
28:33
smaller round objects.
28:36
Sitchin interpreted the central symbol as
28:40
the sun.
28:41
The smaller objects become planets.
28:43
And he believed the map shows more worlds
28:46
than the ancient people should have known about.
28:51
But supporters of the theory, this obvious question
28:54
is, if people 5,000 years ago only
28:59
could see five planets with the naked eye,
29:02
how could they know about a larger solar
29:05
system?
29:06
The answer is simple.
29:08
Someone took them.
29:10
Someone who came from somewhere else.
29:13
And this also explains why the Anunnaki becomes
29:16
gods.
29:17
Imagine a person from the stone age encountering
29:19
technology thousands of years beyond anything they have
29:22
ever seen.
29:24
Flying machines, advanced medicine, long distance communication, weapons,
29:29
astronomy, the ability to manipulate living organisms.
29:34
That person would not call the visitors astronauts.
29:38
The word does not exist.
29:40
They would describe them as using the highest
29:43
concept of their culture, possessed, and that would
29:47
be gods.
29:49
Which in the theory, ancient people do not
29:52
necessarily misunderstand what they say.
29:55
They simply described it using the language available
29:58
to them.
29:59
Heaven, fire, divine chariots, shining clothing, terrifying weapons,
30:05
eternal or nearly eternal life.
30:09
And it is not necessary for every god
30:13
in every Mesopotamian story to represent an extraterrestrial
30:18
being.
30:20
Over thousands of years, history becomes a religion.
30:23
Real individuals become gods, technology becomes ritual, political
30:28
conflicts become cosmic battles, and actual events become
30:33
mixed with poetry.
30:36
This is why the story is not looking
30:38
for one tablet that literally says we are
30:41
extraterrestrials.
30:42
It is looking for the pattern, the god's
30:44
work.
30:45
They come from the heavens.
30:47
They created humanity.
30:50
They mix divine material with material from earth.
30:53
Humans take over the world.
30:55
A group of wise beings teaches humanity.
31:00
Kings rule for impossible lengths of time.
31:03
A catastrophe destroys the world.
31:05
A chosen family survives.
31:07
And after that, civilization and kingship return.
31:10
Seems as one complete story, the Anunnaki theory
31:14
becomes much more than a story about aliens.
31:17
It becomes an alternative history of humanity.
31:21
Human beings are not the sole creators of
31:24
civilization.
31:26
We inherit it.
31:27
And perhaps we ourselves are the products of
31:30
someone who came before us.
31:36
If you look at the rabbit hole, then
31:38
once you accept this possibility, the story grows
31:41
very quickly.
31:42
One of the first paths leads into the
31:44
Bible.
31:45
In Genesis chapter 6 we encounter the Nephilim.
31:48
The passage is short.
31:51
The sons of God see the daughters of
31:53
men.
31:53
They have children with them.
31:55
The Nephilim are on Earth during this period.
31:59
In modern popular culture, the Nephilim are often
32:01
described as giants.
32:03
Sitchin became interested in the Hebrew word and
32:06
connected it with the Hebrew root meaning to
32:09
fall.
32:11
He therefore understood the Nephilim as something like
32:14
those who came down.
32:17
Which in the Anunnaki theory, the connection seems
32:19
obvious.
32:20
A group of non-human beings, they come
32:24
down, they have children with human women, and
32:27
the results are unusual offsprings.
32:29
Later Jewish traditions about the watchers takes the
32:33
rabbit hole even deeper.
32:36
In the book of Enoch, heavenly beings descended
32:39
to earth.
32:40
They take human women, they teach humanity forbidden
32:44
knowledge: metalworking, astrology, cosmetics, weapons, and their interference
32:50
in this disaster.
32:52
Once again, we see the basic theme.
32:55
Beings from above give humanity knowledge that changes
32:59
civilization.
33:01
Then there is the Apkallu, seven wise beings
33:04
before the flood.
33:06
In later Mesopotamian traditions, they are connected with
33:10
ritual, kingship, and divine knowledge.
33:13
Enki is himself closely connected to these wise
33:18
figures.
33:19
If we place the watchers, the Apkallu, the
33:22
Anunnaki, on top of one another, a tempting
33:26
possibility appears.
33:28
The same event, three cultures, three languages, three
33:31
different versions, and then we arrive in Africa.
33:35
Michael Tillinger is one of the most visible
33:38
supporters of the idea that the ancient structures
33:42
and mining activity in southern Africa may be
33:45
connected with the Anunnaki's search for gold.
33:48
This branch of the theory focuses on ancient
33:51
mines, stone circles, ruins, tunnels, gold deposits, and
33:56
one central questions.
33:59
How far back does the mining really go?
34:02
There is no doubt that pre-colonial mining
34:05
existed in southern Africa.
34:07
The region has a long history of mining,
34:11
metal working, and trade, but in the Anunnaki
34:14
story, those traces are pushed much further back
34:18
in time, hundreds of thousands of years.
34:23
Structures are interpreted as remains of massive industrial
34:28
systems.
34:29
Stone circles become more the settled, or should
34:32
we say, cattle enclosures.
34:35
They become parts of a much larger technological
34:37
network, and suddenly the gold connects back to
34:40
Antarhasis.
34:42
The gods perform hard labor.
34:45
The workers rebel.
34:46
Humanity is created.
34:48
If that labor was mining, another piece seems
34:51
to fall into place.
34:53
Another rabbit hole leads to Gilgamesh.
34:55
Gilgamesh stands somewhere between history and legend.
34:59
His name appears in the Sumerian king list.
35:02
Later, he becomes the central figure in one
35:04
of the oldest great works of literature in
35:07
human history.
35:08
He is described as extraordinary, almost divine.
35:12
In later epic tradition, he is two-third
35:15
god and one-third human.
35:18
From ancient aliens descriptions like that are fascinating.
35:25
Are demigods simply mythological ways of describing kings?
35:31
Or could this tradition preserve memories of hybrids?
35:37
The question becomes more interesting because ancient kings
35:41
are sometimes treated as divine.
35:47
The boundary between god and human is not
35:51
always the same as in modern monotheistic religions.
35:56
And then we reach into a very modern
35:58
rabbit hole, the Iraq war.
36:00
For years, stories have circulated online claiming that
36:03
the 2003 invasion of Iraq had a secret
36:07
archaeology motive, that someone was searching for the
36:13
tomb of Gilgamesh, that ancient technology was hidden
36:16
beneath the ruins, that museums and archaeologists' sites
36:20
were deliberately targeted because of what they contained.
36:24
There's no solid evidence supporting that story, but
36:29
it shows how far the Anunnaki universe has
36:32
expanded.
36:33
It's not only about Sumer.
36:36
It becomes a master story.
36:38
The Bible, Egypt, India, Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, Africa, Mars,
36:44
the moon, secret technology, military operations, almost anything
36:50
can be connected to it.
36:53
And that is both the theory's greatest strength
36:57
as a story and its greatest mythological danger.
37:02
Because if an explanation becomes large enough to
37:07
explain everything, it becomes very difficult to imagine
37:10
what it could ever prove is wrong.
37:20
We will come back to that, but first
37:21
we will need to return to the clay
37:23
tablets and ask a very simple question.
37:26
What does the clay tablets actually say?
37:34
If we look at the critics, the strongest
37:37
The strongest argument against Sitchin is not that aliens don't
37:41
exist.
37:43
We know they don't.
37:45
And the strongest argument is not ancient people
37:47
were stupid.
37:49
They were clearly not.
37:51
The problem began much earlier with the translations,
37:55
because if the theory is based on Mesopotamia
37:58
and checks the words themselves have to support
38:01
the interpretation.
38:02
Let's begin with Anunnaki.
38:05
In the popular version of Sitchin's interpretation, the
38:09
name is often translated as something close to
38:11
those who from heaven came to earth.
38:18
But that is not the standard as you
38:21
as you logical understanding of the word.
38:26
Academic sources treat Anu or Anunnaki as a
38:30
term for a group of gods.
38:34
Possible interpretations of the name are closer to
38:37
ideas such as priceless offspring or priceless seed.
38:44
And the meaning and the use of the
38:46
term changed over time.
38:48
That's immediately removed one of the most important
38:52
linguistic foundations from the theory.
38:55
Not because the Anunnaki is absent from the
38:58
text.
38:59
They are there.
39:00
But because the name itself does not tell
39:03
us that they came as space travelers.
39:07
Then we have Nibiru.
39:09
Nibiru or Nibiru are real.
39:12
That's important.
39:14
Sitchin did not invent the word.
39:18
But in the known ancient sources it is
39:22
not used as a clear name of an
39:23
unknown inhabited planet following a fixed 3,600 year
39:28
orbit.
39:29
In astronomical and religious texts Nibiru are associated
39:34
with Marduk and can in astronomical context be
39:37
identified with Jupiter.
39:41
The important point is not that every single
39:45
use of the word must mean exactly the
39:47
same thing.
39:49
Ancient astronomical terminology was not always that simple.
39:54
The important point is that what the word
39:59
does not describe.
40:01
A planet called Nibiru populated by the Anunnaki
40:05
orbiting the sun every 3,600 years.
40:09
That complete system comes from Sitchin's reconstruction.
40:13
Then there is the lost book of Inki.
40:21
The title can easily give the impression that
40:23
archaeologists discovered an ancient book containing Inki's personal
40:27
memoirs.
40:28
They did not.
40:29
Sitchin published the book in 2001.
40:32
It is his modern reconstructions of a narrative
40:35
built from different ancient sources and from his
40:38
own interpretations of them.
40:40
That does not make the book useless.
40:43
It is extremely important if we want to
40:46
understand Sitchin's universe.
40:48
But we cannot take a statement from the
40:50
lost book of Inki and use it as
40:51
evidence for what 4000 years old clay tablet
40:56
actually says.
40:58
That would be circular reasoning.
41:01
Then we come to the creations of humanity.
41:05
And there the Argonaut and Anunnaki story are
41:08
something much more interesting to work with.
41:12
Because clay and divine blood really do appear
41:15
in the ancient traditions.
41:17
But the text does not say DNA, it
41:20
does not say gene, it does not say
41:22
chromosome, they do not say laboratory.
41:28
To arrive at genetic engineering we have to
41:34
translate the symbols one additional time.
41:38
Bloods become DNA, clay becomes hominid biological material,
41:44
birth goddesses become genetic engineers.
41:48
That is a possible interpretation, but the text
41:52
does not require it.
41:55
And the problem becomes larger when we look
41:57
at what we actually know about human evolution.
42:02
Human homo sapiens does not suddenly appear in
42:08
archaeological records around 100 or 200 thousand years
42:12
ago without evolutionary ancestors.
42:18
Fossils from places like Jebel Irhoud in Morocco
42:23
shows early human sapiens features dating back roughly
42:28
300 000 years.
42:30
Genetics also reveal our close relationship with other
42:34
hominids and our interbreeding with groups such as
42:38
Neanderthals and the Denisovans.
42:41
Human history does not look like a single
42:45
laboratory event, it does look like evolution, complex,
42:50
branching, slow in some ways, faster than others.
42:54
None of it, none of that can philosophically
42:57
prove that nobody ever interfered with the human
43:01
biology, but we do not have genetic evidence
43:06
that requires that explanation.
43:09
Then there is supposedly the sudden appearance of
43:13
civilization.
43:15
It makes it for a powerful story, hunter
43:18
-gatherers and then suddenly Sumer.
43:20
But archaeology contains a great deal of between
43:24
the two points.
43:26
Agriculture developed thousands of years before the classical
43:30
Sumerian city-states.
43:32
Permanent settlement grew, trade networks expanded, pottery changed,
43:38
social hierarchies developed, administrative systems became increasingly
43:43
complex, cities did not appear out of nowhere,
43:50
they have a long prehistory, the same with
43:52
the true writing.
43:54
Cuneiform did not suddenly appear as a complex
43:57
writing system delivered in a box.
44:01
We can follow the development from administrative symbols
44:06
and science into increasingly complex written languages.
44:10
That makes the rise of Sumerian legends sudden,
44:14
but at least to me not less impressive.
44:17
Then there is the Sumerian king list.
44:21
The enormous reign of Linth are really in
44:26
the text, but the document itself shows clear
44:31
signs of literary or political construction.
44:35
It combines myth, legend, ideology and historical information.
44:42
We also know that some dynasties presented one
44:48
after another in the list actually overlapped.
44:56
So the king list is not a modern
44:58
canonical database, it's ideology, history, theology and the
45:05
literature inside the same document.
45:10
The enormous number still deserves an explanation, but
45:15
they do not automatically require rulers who live
45:19
for thousands of years.
45:22
Then there's the cylinder seal called VA 243.
45:27
Tietjen interpainted its central star
45:37
-like symbol as the sun and the surrounding
45:39
dots as planets, but Mesopotamian art use star
45:45
symbols in religious and astronomical ways that do
45:51
not map neatly onto modern diagrams of the
45:54
solar system.
45:55
The established interpretations does not treat the image
46:00
as a technical map showing all the planets
46:03
in our solar system.
46:06
And then there is a larger problem.
46:09
If ancient Mesopotamian astronomers knew about Uranus, Neptune
46:13
and an unknown world called Nibiru, we would
46:17
expect that knowledge to appear elsewhere in their
46:20
extensive astronomical traditions.
46:24
And Mesopotamian astronomers were extremely skilled.
46:27
That is precisely why their surviving texts are
46:31
so valuable.
46:32
They observed Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, the
46:37
Moon, the Sun, the movement of stars, eclipses.
46:42
They produced extensive astronomical records, but the advanced
46:48
model of the solar system reconstructed by Tietjen
46:51
does not appear clearly in those records.
46:55
And then there is the gold.
46:56
Mesopotamian mythologies describe divine labor.
46:59
That is true.
47:00
Atrahasis describes digging.
47:03
That's also true.
47:04
But there's a gap between the gods dug
47:08
canals and extraterrestrials operated gold mines in southern
47:13
Africa.
47:14
The gap is filled by the modern theory,
47:18
not by the ancient texts.
47:20
The African mines do not provide the missing
47:22
connection onto their own.
47:26
Ancient humans were perfectly capable of mining.
47:29
Mining is a human technology.
47:32
To turn an ancient mine into an Anuragian
47:37
mine, we need something more.
47:40
A datable artifact, an unknown material, an inscription,
47:45
technology that clearly does not belong to the
47:48
period.
47:49
Something independently connecting the site with either Mesopotamia
47:54
or non-human civilization.
47:56
We do not have that evidence, and that
47:59
brings us to the fundamental challenge.
48:03
The Anunnaki theory is powerful when it combines
48:09
different motifs, but when it becomes much weaker
48:13
when each link is examined separately.
48:19
Divine blood is there.
48:21
DNA is not.
48:23
Nibiru is there.
48:24
The inhabited planet with the 3,600-year orbit
48:28
is not.
48:29
The Anunnaki are there.
48:31
The space travel is not.
48:33
The Igigi work, but the texts do not
48:36
say they were digging gold.
48:40
The kings had enormous Orion length, but the
48:44
king is not a precise chronological record.
48:49
So we are not dealing with a completely
48:51
invented story building from nothing.
48:54
What we have is something much more interesting.
48:58
Authentic ancient motifs connected through a modern interpretive
49:04
framework.
49:09
So what actually holds up?
49:11
If we look separately at the pieces, then
49:19
let's look at what's documented.
49:20
The Anunnaki are real as figures in the
49:23
Mesopotamian region and religion.
49:28
They appear in cuneiform texts.
49:30
They are not only individual gods, and they
49:34
are not necessarily the same group in every
49:37
historical period.
49:38
An and Anu are real.
49:41
Enlil is real.
49:43
Enki is real.
49:46
The Igigi are real.
49:48
The Atrahasis story is real.
49:50
The story of the gods doing hard labor
49:53
is real.
49:54
The rebellion is there.
49:56
The creation of humanity using clay and divine
49:58
blood is there.
50:00
The flood tradition is there.
50:02
Adapa is there.
50:04
Gilgamesh is there.
50:05
The Apkallu are there.
50:07
The Sumerian king list is real.
50:09
The enormous reigns before the floods are really
50:13
written into it.
50:14
Nibiru is real.
50:16
Mesopotamian terms connected with the heavens.
50:19
That is an impressive list, and it explains
50:23
why the Anunnaki theory has survived much longer
50:26
than many other ancient alien theories.
50:32
Because almost every time someone says that is
50:35
completely made up, a supporter can open an
50:38
ancient text and say, no, it's actually here.
50:41
And sometimes the supporter is right.
50:46
If you know what's probable, then the people
50:49
of Mesopotamia used myth to understand work, kingship,
50:53
death, natural disasters, humanity's role in the world,
50:57
and the relationship between the gods and humans.
51:02
Those stories changed over centuries.
51:05
Gods gained new roles.
51:06
Old stories were reused.
51:09
Political centers influenced religion.
51:13
The rise of Marduk in Babylon is a
51:17
good example.
51:19
Babylon became more powerful.
51:22
The god of Babylon became more powerful too.
51:26
Then there is what is possible.
51:31
Could a real event lie beneath the earth?
51:35
Of course.
51:36
That happens all the time.
51:37
Floods can become flood legends.
51:41
Historical kings can become legendary heroes.
51:45
Wars become epic.
51:47
Natural events become battles between gods.
51:51
The human memory and oral tradition can preserve
51:54
surprisingly ancient echoes.
51:57
So we do not have to choose between
52:01
everything is literally true or everything is invented.
52:06
But then we reach into this speculative layer
52:09
that Nibiru is an inhabitant planet, that following
52:15
a precise 3,600-year orbit, that the Anunnaki
52:20
came from that planet, that they arrived on
52:22
Earth 450,000 years ago, that they needed
52:25
gold, that the Egege operated mines in Africa,
52:29
that Homo sapiens was genetically engineered as a
52:33
slave species, that Enki and Enlil were historical
52:37
extraterrestrial beings, that the flood was caused by
52:40
the return of Nibiru, that certain biblical figures
52:44
were Anunnaki-human hybrids. That is the complete Sitchin
52:50
module, but that complete story does not appear
52:54
in known ancient texts.
52:57
It has to be reconstructed.
52:59
And I think that's the most important distinction
53:01
in the entire story.
53:04
There is a difference between a text and
53:07
the interpretation of a text.
53:12
So who were the Anunnaki?
53:18
If we stay with what we actually can
53:21
document, they were a category, a group of
53:24
gods which in religious world of ancient Mesopotamia.
53:29
Not necessarily the same group in every period,
53:32
not clearly defined biological species, and not documented
53:37
as visitors from an unknown planet.
53:39
Mainstream Assyriology therefore does not give us Sitchin's
53:48
Anunnaki. But Sitchin did not invent all of
53:53
it on the raw material either.
53:55
And that is exactly why the story refuses
53:58
to disappear, because underneath Nibiru, the spacecraft and
54:02
the gold mines, there are some generally ancient
54:05
questions.
54:06
Why does it say that the gods has
54:10
to work?
54:11
Why was humanity created to take over that
54:16
burden?
54:17
Why is divine blood mixed with earth?
54:20
Why did ancient people imagine kings ruling for
54:24
tens of thousands of years?
54:26
Why does kingship descend from heaven?
54:30
Why do wise beings repeatedly appear in ancient
54:33
stories and bring knowledge to humanity?
54:37
We do not need extraterrestrials to ask those
54:41
questions.
54:42
And perhaps the ancient stories actually lose something
54:46
if our only goal is to reduce them
54:48
into a form of technology or fantasy.
54:52
Because for the people who wrote them, that
54:55
was not science fiction, that was the description
54:57
of their world, a world which in human
55:00
beings stood themselves between the earth and heaven,
55:04
a world where civilization was something the gods
55:07
has given them, where knowledge came with a
55:11
price, where immortality belonged to somebody else, where
55:16
the great catastrophe that once separated an ancient
55:21
world from the new one, thousands of years
55:24
later we are still reading their words.
55:26
Some people see gods, others see extraterrestrial visitors,
55:30
and others see poetry, politics, religion and humanity
55:35
trying to understand itself.
55:38
I think the important thing is knowing that
55:40
when we are reading the ancient texts and
55:44
when we are adding something to it, because
55:47
perhaps the greatest mystery of the Anunnaki is
55:49
not when they came from another planet, perhaps
55:52
the greatest mystery is how a collection of
55:54
very old stories from Mesopotamia survived long enough
55:57
to become a story about humanity all over
56:01
again.
56:02
And only now the heavens of gods has
56:05
become an outer space, and the clay tablets
56:08
has become DNA.
56:10
So, thank you for listening, and see you
56:13
next week.