Anunnaki
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For the fictional Anunnaki from Demon: The Fallen, see Annunaki (White Wolf) and the Outlanders series by Mark Ellis.
The Anunnaki (also transcribed as: Anunnaku, Ananaki is an ancient Sumerian word for ‘those who came from Heaven to Earth’) are a group of Sumerian and Akkadian deities related to, and in some cases overlapping with, the Annuna (the 'Fifty Great Gods') and the Igigi (minor gods). The name is variously written "da-nuna", "da-nuna-ke4-ne", or "da-nun-na", meaning something to the effect of 'those of royal blood'[1]. It is thought that the title originally came from the Sumerian (Anu=heaven, na=and, Ki=Earth), described as the fifth generation of Gods in the Babylonian creation epic, the Enuma Elish. The term Anunnaki in this context would be identical to "hashamayim ve'et ha'arets", the heaven and earth used in the opening verse of Genesis 1:1.
According to later Babylonian myth, the Anunaki were the children of Anu and Ki, brother and sister gods, themselves the children of Anshar and Kishar (Skypivot and Earthpivot, the Celestial poles). Anshar and Kishar were the children of Lahm and Lahmu ("the muddy ones"), names given to the gatekeepers of the Abzu temple at Eridu, the site at which the Creation was thought to have occurred. The head of the Anunnaki council was the Great Anu, (rather than being just a sky god, Anu in Sumerian actually means "sky"), of Uruk and the other members were his offspring. His place was taken by Enlil, (En=lord, lil=wind,air), who at some time was thought to have separated heaven and earth. This resulted in an ongoing dispute between Enlil of Nippur and his half brother Enki of Eridu regarding the legitimacy of Enlil's assumption of leadership. Enki, (En=lord, Ki=Earth), in addition to being the God of fresh water, was also God of wisdom and magic, regarded by some as an alchemist. When the Igigi went on strike and refused to continue to work maintaining the universe, on the Shappatu (Hebrew. shabbat, Eng. sabbath) Enki created humankind to assume responsibility for the tasks the Gods no longer performed.
The Anunnaki were the High Council of the Gods, and Anu's companions. They were distributed through the Earth and the Underworld. The best known of them were Asaru, Asarualim, Asarualimnunna, Asaruludu, En-Ki (Ea for the Akkadians), Namru, Namtillaku and Tutu.
A conventional analysis of Sumerian religious practice can be found in A. Leo Oppenheim's book, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization, a revised edition of which was published in 1976. Unlike popular fantasies of pseudoarchaeology, Oppenheim cautions against overconfident and sweeping interpretations of the gods of a "lost civilization".
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[edit] Ancient astronaut theory
Though it is discounted by many scholars, some ancient astronaut theorists such as Zecharia Sitchin (q.v.), Laurence Gardner and David Icke claim that the Anunnaki were in fact extra-terrestrials who came to Earth in antiquity and created or tampered with the genetic makeup of primitive mankind. They propose various readings of the word, two of which are "anu-na-ki" and "an-unnak-ki", both translated something like 'those who came from heaven to Earth'.[2] (Very similar to the Raëlian translation of Elohim.)
In 2004 the ancient astronaut idea was presented in a seven issue storyline of the Silver Surfer character by Marvel Comics. Initially presented as aliens who gave humanity consciousness, it is implied in the last issue of the story that the Annunaki were nothing more than gods in stories told by the Sumerians.
[edit] Sitchin's extraterrestrials
In 1976, Zecharia Sitchin, translating and interpreting Sumerian cuneiform texts, published the first of his books, The Twelfth Planet, in which he described in detail the technological wonders and knowledge of the ancient civilization of Sumeria. Sitchin asserts that the Anunnaki, an ancient group of extraterrestrials who interacted with the Sumerians, may have brought advanced technology to their civilization.
The Anunnaki are often depicted in ancient pictographs as winged creatures.
Sitchin's Sumerians believe in the existence of a planet that orbits two solar-systems called Nibiru which is home to two races, the Anu and the Nephillium. Every 3600 years this celestial body enters our solar system. According to Sumerian mythology interpreted by Sitchin, the Anu came to earth and created a slave race, humans, by bonding their genetic material with that of Homo erectus. Sitchin's Anu are described as god-like humans, but about twice as large: giants. They have geneticly (re)engineered humans as a slave race to mine gold and restore Nibiru's atmosphere. At some point Anunnaki passed control of Earth to the humans, but flooded it in attempt to wipe them out.
Sitchin claimed that the Sumerians were aided in starting their civilization by an advanced race of beings called the Anunnaki ‘those who came from Heaven to Earth’). He described technological wonders possessed by the Anunnaki, and a factional war between the Anunnaki who finally departed the planet around 1700 BC. Sitchin described the home world of these beings as a mysterious planet that periodically returns to the vicinity of the solar system every 3,600 years. Sitchin’s translations, when combined with ancient historical records allegedly supporting the existence of Alien races in human affairs, suggest to some an important role was played by this ancient ET race in the genesis of humanity.
Followers and extrapolators of Sitchin hope this technology might be buried in an ancient city, such as Uruk in modern day Iraq, and that the Annunaki continued to come and go between their planet Nibiru and Earth, conducting genetic engineering with our species.
[edit] Annunaki in Popular Culture
American band Sloppy Meateaters released a demo named "Annunaki" in 2006.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Leick, Gwendolyn: A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology (NY: Routledge, 1998), p. 7
- ^ The reader is advised to consult the Pennyslvania Sumerian Dictionary, where such forms do not appear, and compare them to the multiply-attested instances of Leick's reading found in the same collection.
[edit] External links
In depth look at the Anunnaki
Website, written by a scholar with an M.A. and Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages, devoted to addressing the flaws of the ancient astronaut hypothesis popularized in the writings of Zecharia Sitchin.
