They are the most mysterious of beings, gods, angels, aliens, or ordinary men with incredible knowledge or wisdom. Nobody's sure. The culture of Mesopotamia is rich and complex.
Historians have been slowly unraveling their secrets. From the epic of Gilgamesh to the many references of them in other cultures, the mystery of the Anunnaki is becoming more clear. To western eyes, their ways are strange.
Over hundreds of years they have been called gods and angels and now in our modern age, many see them as aliens visiting earth and bringing great knowledge. The truth of their real origin and purpose is much more bizarre and amazing than anything previously believed. Prepare to witness the demystification of a sacred and ancient past.
Prepare to see the Anunnaki as they really were, and in so doing, we will discover the truth about so many other things, from the Garden of Eden to the great flood, from the god of the bible to the secrets of Inuk, all shall be revealed. In truth, the Anunnaki are a group of ancient Mesopotamian deities. They are to be found in Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian cultures.
Their exact numbers, descriptions, and roles all contradict each other. According to the earliest Sumerian texts, the Anunnaki were the most powerful of gods in a rich pantheon and were descended from An, the greatest of the gods. Later, they became the seven judges who sit upon the throne in the underworld.
They remain this way for some time, even in the epic of Gilgamesh. According to old Babylonian texts, they were gods of the underworld, not of heaven. The name simply means offspring of Anu or An, the sky lord and king.
The most prominent and probably well-known of the Anunnaki was Enlil, who cleaved heaven and earth in two. Anu decided to take the heavens, and left the earth to Enlil and Ki. Ki is most likely the Sumerian version of the mother goddess seen in cultures across the globe.
The physical evidence of worship of the Anunnaki is scarce. Most of what we know comes to us from texts. It appears that each of the Anunnaki were worshiped separately in individual cults.
And because of this, no evidence of them as a group has been found, no image of them all together. As such, the practices of worship of the Anunnaki is thin on the ground. The first mention of them is to be found in the reign of Gudir, of the third dynasty of Ur.
It is a term used to denote the most important deities of the Sumerian pantheon, the descendants of An. Exactly which deities were members of the group referred to as the Anunnaki is difficult to know. There is no complete list of them that survives.
One of the texts mentions 50 or so members of them associated with the ancient city of Eridu. And yet, when we read of the descent of Inanna into the underworld, there are only seven. They are judges who condemn her to death.
There is a group of deities known as the Igigi and they are sometimes confused with the Anunnaki. However, in the poem of Ira, both groups are different. In one flood myth, the Igigi are sixth generation gods who perform labors for the Anunnaki.
However, after 40 days, they revolt against their masters and so Enki, one of the Anunnaki, replaces them with humans. The similarities with the biblical flood in Numbers are quite remarkable. It is obvious that Mesopotamian myths heavily influenced or were the origin of much of the biblical Old Testament.
In the Babylonian creation text known as the Enuma Elish, the god Marduk divides the Anunnaki and gives them roles. 300 in heaven and 300 on earth. As a thank you, the Anunnaki built Esagila as an abode for Marduk, Enlil, and Ea.
When they had finished, they built themselves shrines. In later Assyrian texts, they were offspring of Anu and Ki who were brother and sister, and themselves children of the gods of the celestial poles and whose heritage stretched back to the original gods, Tiamat and Abzu. Here we begin to see clues to the use of these deities as names for the bodies in the sky, the stars that shine above.
This then, is the brief knowledge we have of the Anunnaki. Now we must delve deeper, and to do so, we must enter their world. Appearing out of nowhere and at least as early as the fifth millennium BC, the earliest known civilization, the Sumerians of Sumer in Mesopotamia was initially a non-Semitic culture.
By 3000 BC, and as a result of its sophisticated irrigated agriculture, Sumer flourished as a nation and developed a considerable power base through the development of its numerous city-states like Ur, Uruk, Eridu, Lagash, and Kish. It is said that the Sumerians invented cuneiform writing and were way ahead of their time, having advanced knowledge in music, poetry, art, mathematics, astronomy, and science. For the ancient Sumerians, music was a tool that helped them describe the cosmos.
The Sumerians were later conquered by their long-term rivals, the Akkadians and Sargon I. The Akkadians were a Semitic people whose city Akkad was their capital. After 2000 BC, Sumeria Akkad declined as a nation and was later absorbed by the expanding empires of Babylonia and Assyria.
In Sumerian creation myth, the angels known as the Anunaj, Anunnaki, or Great Sons of Anu were the founders of their culture. The names angel, Anunaj, and Anukim have much in common. They are indicative of the ancient ancestors who brought the secrets to the rest of the world.
Interestingly, Anunnaki is phonetically similar to the Hebrew Anakim, the giant race who appear in the story later and also anger Kok, the shaman from Greenland to Alaska. They were known as the shining ones. The earliest accounts of the shining ones can be found in four principal sources.
Firstly, in the Sumerian tablet from the library of Nikol where they are named the Anunaj. Secondly, in the book of Inok, where they are referred to as angels, watchers, or nephilim. Thirdly, the in the book of Jubilees, and fourthly, in the biblical book of Genesis, where they are given the name Elohim.
The Sumerian El is usually translated as god, but the feminine Elohim is the plural of El. In Genesis, the phrase A-Elohim is also used, meaning the Elohim. El means brightness and shining.
Indeed, the Semitic word El is found in many ancient languages. For instance, the Anglo-Saxon Aelf means shining being, so El needs to be translated not as god, but as the shining one, and A-Elohim, being plural, should read the shining ones. We find that this is the most commonly-used term in the Old Testament for God, and indeed, all other gods, as the scribes even recognized other gods at that time.
The name Sumer comes from Shumer, and means literally the land of the watchers. It is none other than the ancient biblical land of Shinar, which amazingly means the place of the shining ones. The shining ones are in the bible, and have been there ever since they wrote themselves in.
Elohim is usually translated incorrectly as lord, and if you read the bible and replace lord, and don't forget about the added words, with shining ones, you will see a remarkable difference, a reading now of how it was meant to be. We now have the shining light of knowledge spoken of in 2 Corinthians 4:6. The lord God of the bible is the light who gives birth to the divine spark of Christ.
A pure reading of the global understanding that god was the basis for illumination, the fire, the sun, the light, and heads of those that shine from that brilliance, the source of intelligence itself. Anu or An was the chief sky sun god and means shining. The Anunaj therefore means sons of the shining one, or sons of light.
In Ireland, the term for shining was aine. There may be a connection here with the Tuatha De Danaan, the shining ones of Ireland, and the serpent cult that Saint Patrick had removed from the Emerald Isle. Also there is an unusual semi-nomadic bear worshiping tribe in Japan known as the Ainu.
The Ainu look Caucasian, with round heads, white skin, wavy thick hair, and gray or blue eyes. The Ainu are said to have been living in many of Japan's islands like Okinawa for over 7,000 years, and it is said that the Ainu share a language similarity with the Basque, who live in the Pyrenees, the mountains bordering Spain and France. Also interesting is the fact that in these Ainu regions, a number of stone circles have been found with a slender upright stone in the center, similar to those found in the British Isles and elsewhere.
These Anunnaki or shining ones were a culturally and technically advanced people who settled in a mountain valley in the Middle East around 8200 BC and as their primary concern, established an agricultural center we now know as the Garden of Eden for the teaching and training of the local tribesmen. They were described as the shining countenance to lords of cultivation, elevated to gods. Anu and his wife, Antu had two sons.
Enlil the storm god, ruled the air and atmosphere, and Enki, the water. Enki is also the wise teacher known as Ir or Oannes, who led the fish beings that came from the sea, or indeed from a cross the sea. Enki was depicted as a goat with a fish's tail.
It became the sign of Capricorn. Enki or Ir's consort was Nimke or Damkina and their children were Marduk and Nyach. Enlil, also known as Bel or Bal and whose patron city with Nippur, later ruled in Anu's name.
Nimil or Ninhursag ruled the Earth. The early Sumerians described themselves as constantly nourished by the milk of Ninhursag, the great mother moon goddess. The Assyrians knew her as Atargatis, the mermaid.
The sun of Enlil and Ninmah was the war god Ninurta, also known as Nimrod. And like Horus and as Osiris, he became associated with the star constellation of Orion. We also have Nana, who was the moon goddess, and Utu, the sun god, also known as Ogmash and Shamash.
It was Shamash who later gave the 29 laws to King Hammurabi. There is also Inanna or Ishtar who was associated with Venus, as symbolized by the pentacle. The texts that we have on the Sumerian deities vary.
In fact, they evolve over time, losing some of their historicity as the story develops, making it more and more difficult to see the origins. Trying to bring clarity to the tales of Sumerian and Mesopotamian deities is like trying to learn Mandarin backwards. However, due to the names we are given, such as Enki, for instance, who is identified with Ir and and Oannes, we are being led to cross-reference the Anunaj with the fish beings who seem to have come ashore in Sumeria from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and at a time which is now lost in antiquity.
Indeed, we find that both are the same people and that the fish beings are also the Anunnaki shining ones, the gods of Sumeria, and the Elohim of the bible. And when we then cross-reference these fish beings with the Nita gods and the Shemsu-hor, or Aku, and whom it is said appeared in Egypt from a submerged island, we also have to include the origins of the Hindu Naga, serpent deities who also came from a lost island. It can easily be concluded that the shining ones of Sumeria, Egypt, and India were really incoming people from a lost or destroyed land.
These connections allow us to piece together their story and see a little more of the historical territory, much of which was been lost or deliberately hidden from us. We can see then that these shining ones, who later became worshiped as the Sumerian pantheon of gods and goddesses seem to have been a dynastic ruling family or clan. Anu, the chief authority, became the universal father god, as a pictograph from his founded city of Uruk dated to 3000 BC depicts.
The lineages of all these deities are mixed, with sisters, wives, and mothers, fathers, brothers, and sons intermingling and confusing the whole thing. Considering the many thousands of years between the composition of these texts and the actual existence of these peculiar peoples or beliefs, this is no surprise. What is clear is that certain deities do continually stand out from the crowd.
Namely, Anu, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Inanna, and Utu Shamash. And that the form and structure of these deities would go on to spawn Egyptian, Greek, and Roman pantheons for centuries, if not thousands of years. No wonder, then, that the watchers, the military arm of the shining ones, should in later myths be doing battle with the gods of Greece, Egypt, and Rome, not to mention the rest of the world.
Just as the fallen insurgent nephilim, or watchers, do battle with their own ruling family of shining ones in the bible. One interesting detail we should perhaps mention is that like Osiris of ancient Egypt, Enlil was depicted as a bull, and like Set, his brother, Enki of the Abzu or abyss, was depicted as a serpent. Interestingly, because the people of Atlantis were supposed to have worshiped the bull, which is a remarkable coincidence, taking into the account that the association with deities have with the biblical deluge.
It is said that Enlil, who took over as the leader of the shining ones lived for thousands of years, but those who use this to show that these shining ones were special beings that originally came from another world, or even another dimension, forget one thing, that Enlil was a term used for the leader and was thus passed on like the term king or Pharaoh is passed on. It was also the title of the sun, which of course would seem to be eternal. Part of the Sumerian creation myth states at Karsak, where heaven and earth met, the heavenly assembly, the great sons of Anu, arrived, the many wise ones.
The Anunnaki seem to have arrived from another land across the sea. They brought with them special knowledge unknown to the previous inhabitants. It is said mankind learned from the shining ones, they set things in order.
We could ask why they felt they had to set things in order. Perhaps this order has something to do with the chaotic aftermath of a global calamity that had destroyed their homeland, according to the accounts. A flood, for instance, appears in myths across the world.
In the famous Sumerian kings list, we are told that the Anunnaki ruled in Sumeria both before and after the deluge, and that it was after the deluge that they then set kings on the throne to govern the land and rule in their stead. However, if we are to believe the accounts given of the fish beings, we are also told that these shining ones had first come ashore from their submerged land after a similar catastrophe, an earlier one than the deluge related in the bible and other sources. Could these great global flood disasters in fact be bringing together tales of a much earlier flood and so scientists are searching for the wrong period?
It's possible that the shining ones knew when these catastrophic events were going to happen and had predicted the deluge, hence, Noah being born to prepare for the event. This theory is supported by the information encoded in various sources which lead us to the symbol of the Ouroboros snake and its deeper meaning. It is as if again these people had profound knowledge of cycles, and in particular the 25,800 year processional cycle which was believed to have begun with the tilting of the Earth from its upright position.
It would appear that it was believed that these recurring catastrophes were linked to the beginning and end point of the processional cycle, linked to the very event that caused the Earth to incline in the first place. This does not necessarily prove that the Earth's axis was once upright, however it does mean that it was believed the axis was vertical, and thus revealing an amazing knowledge of the heavens and Earth's place in it. There is evidence that the ecliptic center was the abode of the father god, as this was actually named Anu as well as the Eye of Ra by the ancient Egyptians.
Also, the ancient astronomers of these shining ones must have believed that the processional cycle was linked with the Earth's own life cycle or reincarnation cycle, and so the Earth being upright would bring a more harmonious and balanced existence. No more global catastrophes, and no birth, death, rebirth cycle. In other words, the Earth, like the spiritual man who seeks to come off and out of the reincarnation cycle and all cycles, for that matter, would have been seen to be in the perfect position and the perfect spiritual condition.
We also find that these people are also termed Igigi, which was also the name of the king after the flood. The Igigi in certain texts seem to do the work of the Anunnaki, whereas in others the are equal and spoken of in the same breath. In the epic on Anzu, the Igigi are superior in the sense that the Anunnaki are of the Abzu or the deep.
This, of course, must remind us of the Hindu ideas of the Naga, serpent deities who reside in the deep and are no less holy for it. In the Sumerian account, Ninlil or Ninkarsak, lady of Karsak, the wife of the leader Enlil, asked the council of seven to create her an Eden. This is the very same Eden or plateau as in the bible myth and the council of seven is the same as the seven archangels or messengers of the bible who came down from heaven or the mountain or cosmic sky.
Sumerians referred to Edin as the abode of the righteous ones. The tree of life and the tree of knowledge that stood in this garden of Eden are the secrets of the shining ones, secrets which will stay with them for thousands of years to be told only to the highest shaman, adept, priest, avatar, or prophet. In their dream-like trances, the shaman saw and experienced the tree which took them to heaven and which later became the tree of life in the Hebrew Kabbalah system, and as if reflecting the seven chakra levels of the human spinal column and the processes involved with ones own access to the knowledge within, the Sumerians built their towers, or ziggurats, with seven levels as attempts to build closer to heaven, to be like the mountains, and link them with Earth as in the dream of Jacob's ladder.
It is said that these shining deities also lived at the top of the ziggurat or pyramid, the great house. We now know what the ladder and these temples really stand for symbolically, but was Jacob's ladder a similar construction somewhere in the near East? Jacob was, in fact, the father of the 12 tribes and as such, the father of the zodiac.
Reuben, Jacob's first son, was Aquarius, hence the reason he was unstable as water. Simeon and Levi were the brothers and hence Gemini. Judah was the lion, and Zebulun is Libra, the ship.
Gad is Pisces, in that it is a reversal of the fish serpent god Dak, associated with Dagon, Oannes, Ea, and Henki. Dan was of the tribe of serpents, an adder in the path who falleth backward into the winter solstice, which means he is Capricorn. This is the same as the later Daniel, again the shining serpent Capricorn who traverses the heavens.
We can now see that most of these myths and stories are mere transiterations of astrotheological ideologies associated with the zodiac and also the processional cycle, which can be used as means to find relevant periods in history. Processional cycle is intimately tied in with our own life cycle, and so we find that many of these epithets given to individuals in history who may or may not have existed are really part of a code. This shows that the later leaders and their priesthoods who were spiritual and god-like and also knowledgeable in astronomy, were related to the shining ones sect and even received their knowledge and authority from the shining ones.
They associated the shining ones with the solar and celestial bodies which they studied. The seven shining ones or seven sages of different cultures later became the gods in men, incarnated as man, only then to be reunited with a father god after death. This is basically the Christian myth.
It is the celestial bodies being written down in human form, a pantheon of seven and corresponding with the seven planets in the heavens. The phrase "where heaven and Earth met" is symbolic of the sacred mountains, and this gives us the clue that this could be somewhere with impressive heaven-like mountains, such as Tibet, perhaps even the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, or even the pyramids of Giza, seeing as these temple constructions are based on the shamanic world mountain. We can see, then, that many of the details included in the stories related to the activities of these shining ones are really based on these astrotheological movements which they understood to a great degree and have been encoded in these myths and stories as a means to preserve this knowledge and also convey this process to those who could understand it.
They added encoded information which also makes these stories somewhat confusing. The story of the Anunnaki is therefore not one just in the region of Mesopotamia, it is in fact a universal system observed in the sky, and this is why similarities can be found across the world in ancient cultures. The biblical flood myth matches that found in Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, and ends with the Tower of Babel in Babylon, which was part of the Sumerian empire.
This shows that the secret knowledge associated with the shining ones ended up at that time in Babylon, and then moved on from there. In the search for the shining ones, we have come across numerous groups, cults, and religions. In ancient Sumeria, we find the Egregore, or watchers, who are thought to be the angels of the lord from the bible and again, the numerous epithets given to them tells us they too were the shining ones.
Enoch wrote about them, in fact, for them, in the book of Enoch, which was later suppressed. In the bible and the Book of Enoch, these shining ones are called angels, archangels, or cherubim. Unless the literature is purely apocryphal, we find that in the bible, the angel figures are simply earthly men.
In the bible, we do not find angels with wings. There are no original stories of them being supernatural. They are, in fact, quite ordinary.
It is always Gabriel, meaning Man of God, who informs the people of a coming child birth. Was he the shaman, the doctor? Michael is the warrior and protector, accompanied by angels wielding swords.
Each and every one of them has their own specific duty, an Earthly duty. People with titles, angelic titles, as messengers and ambassadors of God, just like the early shaman. The title cherubim means exiles, and could be an indication of the origins of the angels.
Maybe they were ordered to leave somewhere for not conforming, perhaps Eden, where they had previously been the watchers or the guardians of the garden. In Genesis 4:16, the land of Nod is symbolic also of the people of Israel, as Nod means wanderer. It is not much of an extrapolation to assume that the priesthood were also wanderers.
Another example of symbolic titles is that of Enoch, which means consecrated. When Cain and his wife bore Enoch and built a city called Enoch, we have the people of Cain being consecrated before God. Enoch, the consecrated one, would later write up the history of his fallen wanderers who spread across the globe as the great shining ones, teaching, measuring, and building the world's most mysterious ancient monuments.
Of course, we must not forget the seraphim of Numbers 21:6 and elsewhere. These are not mystical beings, they have hands, a face, legs, but they do have powers from God because they are in the light and have the symbolic wings of the early shaman, the bird of flight, the dream time trance ability to fly. The name means shining ones or fiery serpents.
They are enlightened beings by the power of the serpent. Mystical Jewish literature tells us that the angels can fly, tell the future, shape shift, speak Hebrew, and are emanations of the divine shining light. In the Old Testament, God is indistinguishable from the angel or messenger known as Yahweh.
He looks the same and acts as his representative. There is no difference here from the Babylonian, Egyptian, and shamanic practice. In the New Testament, the angels actually take part in the judgment at the end times.
Alternatively, they may be those who had experienced enlightenment and then fell from grace. We are told that the nephilim or watchers began to mix with the indigenous people. These were the angels who seemed to have been the military arm of the shining ones, and who were initially employed to guard the garden of Eden.
It came to pass when the children of men had multiplied, but in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters, and the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them and said to one another "come, let us choose as wives "from among the children of men and beget us children. " And Semjaza, who was their leader, said unto them "I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed "and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin," and they all answered him and said "let us all swear an oath "and all bind ourselves by mutual implications "not to abandon this plan, but to do this thing. " Then swear they all together and bound themselves by mutual implications upon it.
From this union, a hybrid race was produced, a race of giants, so we are told. And all the others together with them took unto them wives and each chose for himself one and they began to go into them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments and the cutting of roots and made them acquainted with plants and they became pregnant and they bear great giants whose height was 3,000 ells, who consumed all the acquisitions of men and when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. They began to sin against birds and beasts and reptiles and fish, and to devour one another's flesh and drink the blood.
And then the Earth laid accusations against the lawless ones, and then Michael, Auriel, Raphael, and Gabriel looked down from heaven and saw much blood being shed upon the earth and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth. These insurgents also passed on knowledge and taught them combat and how to make weapons. And Azazel taught men to make swords and knives and shields and breastplates, and made know to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets and ornaments and the use of antimony and the beautifying of the eyelids and all kinds of costly stones in all color and tinctures.
And there arose much godlessness and they committed fornication and they were led astray and became corrupt in all their ways. Samyaza taught enchantments and root cuttings, armorers the resolving of enchantments. Barachiel taught astrology, talked about the constellations, Ezakiel the knowledge of the clouds, Arakiel the signs of the earth, Shamshiel the signs of the sun, and Sariel the course of the moon.
And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to heaven. And all this was seen as a violation against a set of laws laid down by the shining ones who were possessive of their knowledge. Thou seest that Azazel hath done, you hath taught all unrighteousness on Earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were preserved in heaven which men were striving to learn.
And Samyaza to whom thou hast given authority to bear rule over his associates and they have gone to the daughters of men upon the Earth and have slept with the women and have defiled themselves and revealed to them all kinds of sins, and the women have born giants and the whole Earth has thereby been filled with blood and unrighteousness. Enoch, the scribe who was taught by the shining ones was then employed as a messenger or intermediary between the shining ones and these fallen ones who had decided to abandon their divinity, to live amongst the tribes of man. Enoch was then sent to tell the insurgents that a severe sentence had been passed on them and that they were soon to be punished.
In brief, the punishment sent is the flood. It is as if the shining ones wanted to wash away the sins of the Earth that had been created by their own kid, the fallen ones. In the bible, we are told that God, or rather the gods known as Elohim, spoke to Noah, telling him that the seasons of summer and winter would be more extreme from the time of the flood onward.
This both supports and is supported in turn by the Book of Enoch, which states how in those days, Noah saw that the Earth had sunk down and that destruction was nigh, and he said "tell me, what is transacting upon the Earth? "For the Earth labors and is violently shaking. " In the King James version of the bible we find this, behold, the lord maketh the Earth empty and maketh it waste and turneth it upside down and scatterth abroad the inhabitants thereof.
The Earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard. In Psalm 68:8 it is written the Earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God, and even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God. The heavens dropping would mean that to the observers in the Sinai region, the earth beneath their feet was tipping relatively upward and northward.
In his written book, Timaeus and Critias, Plato describes an awful catastrophe in which the Earth moved forwards and backwards and again to right and left and upwards and downwards, wandering every way in all six directions. But as many scholars and researchers have now acknowledged, the god of the bible and his angels are said to be the Sumerian Anu and his sons and entourage, the Anunnaki or shining ones who are reported to have landed in Mesopotamia and there created the Garden of Eden. And so we must now draw our conclusion.
When we first started out in this task of discovering the Anunnaki, we found a complex and mystifying series of tales that seemed to make little sense. Slowly, we have pulled apart the names, places, and myths to reveal something very simple. Many thousands of years ago, something catastrophic occurred and a highly knowledgeable and wise people fled.
They eventually landed somewhere in Mesopotamia where they came across a less-developed people. Civilization emerged as the new people taught their new people how to build, mathematics, astronomy, agriculture, and much more. Their wisdom was so great that later generations would call them gods and angels.
They had descended from the shining heavenly host, but division set in as the two cultures bred and made the blood line less pure. The watchers, who had gone bad, and the shining ones, who were not happy, in a simple tale that has become very complex over vast periods of time. In our age, it is being confused yet further by the addition of extraterrestrial origins for the Anunnaki.
There is, however, no need for such imaginings. There is simply a need to understand the time, culture, belief systems, and mind of our very human ancestors.
