Sumerians

In Iraq on April 10th, 2003, in the city of Baghdad right around the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom – there was a ransacking. Looters filled the streets. They destroyed thousands of ancient artifacts and broke into museums. American troops tried to maintain order, but it was difficult. What would these looters want, one may ask?

Why would they force their way into the national museum and steal? They stole tablets and cuneiform writings with genealogies and the histories of the gods of the Sumerians. They stole all kinds of stuff: even musical instruments and jewelry. So now many of these items are missing from us. This was a very coordinated event. People stole precious objects of the ancient world.

Why were these artifacts so important? They date back to the time of the Sumerians; an ancient civilization that is the oldest in all of Mesopotamia, or what is now called Iraq. Sumer was the oldest kingdom, followed by Akkad, after that there was Babylonia and then Assyria. Modern day Chaldeans (often referred to as “Chaldeans” in the Bible) are the original Sumerians.

The culture that was established by the Sumerians continued throughout the lifetime of Mesopotamia. The Sumerians invented the cuneiform writing system. Cuneiform means “wedge shaped.” They put wedge shaped writing on clay tablets that could later be hardened. It was in 1843 when even more evidence was found on the Sumerian kingdom.

An incredible room was found filled with statues of gods, kings, treasures and all kinds of messages were written on the walls in the ancient cuneiform. The city of Ur, home of Abraham, had been discovered. The Great Ziggurat of Ur was found. Tombs even adorned in gold were discovered. This proved that the Sumerian kingdom was indeed a historical fact and not just a myth.

Furthermore, the Sumerians developed the firsts of many: agriculture, science, math, astrology, schools, courts, judges, and more. These cuneiform texts also pointed to a group of divine beings called, “The Anunnaki.” They are referred to as the ‘princely offspring of God’ in these Sumerian texts. These messages were written about 3,000-4,000 BC or even long before then.

It is written that the Anunnaki ‘descended from the sky.’ They had personalities just like people do. These gods were arranged in a kind of hierarchy with the higher gods, the lesser gods, etc. The Anunnaki were the supreme deities, the highest deities, the Sumerians described them as humanoid. They came to Earth on a special mission to bring wisdom and they are explained in great detail in these writings.

They had tremendous knowledge and power throughout the world. Where they got this knowledge and even came from is STILL a mystery to archeologists. Many scholars have wondered and still do wonder whether or not they were extraterrestrial. Let’s shift to the Bible for a moment.

We are told about the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis:

Genesis 2:4-2:9

The Story of Adam and Eve

⁴This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

⁵Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, ⁶but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. ⁷Then the Lord God formed a man^[c] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

⁸Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ⁹The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The Garden of Eden was also placed in Mesopotamia. The Sumerian tablets tell of a kind of genetic engineering in order to create the earth’s first humans. This first person is called “Adamu,” according to the Jewish Kabbalah. What is striking is that the Sumerian tablets seem to have a more detailed account of this story than the Bible does.

Some scholars believe the Anunnaki came here in giant spaceships that were sent by God. Meaning, they had help and there is no question of where that help came from. These tablets, again, talk about homo sapiens coming about through genetic engineering. Is it possible that the Anunnaki created the human race with their own DNA?

According to the Jewish KABBALAH, Adam was created from ‘a human like race that already existed on earth.’ This is just some food for thought. Who would know for sure? I guess you can judge for yourselves…

Here is this episode special on the history channel in case you’d like to watch it: https://youtu.be/8uM9wnNqt-A

About Zina

Zina Hermez has authored the best-selling book(s), Not Without God: A Story of Survival and Not Without God: Hope In the Storm. She’s been featured in numerous articles, guest posts, podcasts, websites, newsletters, and magazines. She’s also been featured on The Neil Haley (media giant’s) Show, The Intuitive Edge podcast, and on ESPN’s ‘Solutions from the Huddle’broadcast as well as Grace and Truth Radio World!

Zina’s written several hundred articles and has taught thousands of students from all over the world from many different backgrounds and parts of the world. She’s appeared in Christianity Today, the Suite T blog, and the Southern Writers magazine among many other places. Last August she created the “Writing Because I Can’t Not Write Group” meetings and workshops where aspiring and seasoned authors can network and learn together.

Zina writes on faith, science, and overcoming adversity. She also likes to write about health and diet and loves to help others. Her latest book, Not Without God: Hope In the Storm was just published last year.

About 200 years ago European archaeologists were searching through the sands for Bible remains in the Middle East. They were mostly searching in Egypt and the southern half of Mesopotamia, what is today called modern-day Iraq. They searched for the works of remains of Greek authors and journals of travelers among other ancient artifacts. Babylon, Ninevah, Ur. These are names of places that many have only heard or read about but that few if any in the world knew the precise locations of.

By the early 1800s, archaeologists had also made many discoveries. They collected numerous bricks, tablets, clay cylinders, and boundary stones that were inscribed with ‘mysterious markings.’ However, these items were not only present in Babylon and Ninevah but were found in many other places including in Iran, for example. They found scripts written in old Persian and there were other tablets in other unknown languages.

They found these languages by decoding them. The written form of Akkadian, which was called Babylonian, was another language of one of the scripts and the third of the inscriptions was in Elamite. You may have heard Jesus make mention of the ‘Elamites’ in the Bible. Akkadian, in the written form, was called cuneiform. However, this cuneiform was NOT developed by the Akkadians or the Babylonians-it was developed by another people. The Sumerians.

Each tablet had the phrase ‘Sumer and Akkad.’ As in land of Sumer and Akkad or King of Sumer and Akkad. Sumer was a place, but where was it? Who were these people, and where did they come from? These tablets were developed by a completely unknown people—scholars were stuck. They didn’t know it at the time, but archeologists had stumbled upon the “mother civilization” of both the Babylonians and the Assyrians.

The origins of the Sumerians is a perplexing question for archeologists. Were they newcomers to the region or just evolve out of the existing indigenous people already there? It’s hard to know but we’re told the Sumerian language was unlike any other known language in the region. The Sumerian’s are credited for constructing the first real cities: Eridu and Uruk. Within centuries they developed many other cities. These cities seemed like small countries and are called city-states. Historians call this the early dynasty of Sumer up until around 2300 BC.

These were cities and high walls to protect buildings, people, cities, streets, etc. There was a ziggurat that was the tallest building in the center of each city. Another important aspect of their city states was the each had a patron deity (god) that protected the city. At the time they were polytheistic and had many gods.

It has been reported that the Sumerians started to believe in a monotheistic God around 2900 BC. Chaldea was a small country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BC, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia. The people in Chaldea were of Sumerian descent and called themselves, Chaldeans.

I guess you could say that my ancient ancestors were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia. However, I can’t deny the fact that they were originally Sumerians. The Sumerians were incredibly crafty people that were known for the development of not only math, but astrology, and even for the creation of writing (cuneiform), again, they developed the first city-states that resembled countries.

Exactly where they came from is murky, but it has been reported that they may be from the Levant, or the Eastern Mediterranean, countries made up of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Jerusalem, etc. Whether they were from the Levant, Damascus, or Ethiopia, they were an amazing people!

About Zina

Zina Hermez has authored the best-selling book(s), Not Without God: A Story of Survival and Not Without God: Hope In the Storm. She’s been featured in numerous articles, guest posts, podcasts, websites, newsletters, and magazines. She’s also been featured on The Neil Haley (media giant’s) Show, The Intuitive Edge podcast, and on ESPN’s ‘Solutions from the Huddle’broadcast as well as Grace and Truth Radio World!