Heaven

[Gori the Grey]

I have three tables in my apartment. Does this mean I believe in the Trinity?

No; evidently, it means that space aliens told you there's a Trinity!

 

[Angst]

No; evidently, it means that space aliens told you there's a Trinity!

Of course

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Also the point that the fundamental worldviews of ancient peoples were incredibly different from each other. Cosmology was fundamentally different between cultures, in the way that they structured the nature of the universe. You can handwave this away by just being misinterpretations of the nine planets or whatever. But that's the thing - there are hundreds of myths and depictions, it's natural for some of them to coalesce around a number as low as 9 due to how numbers worth. Everything else beyond this is arbitration, the implementation of Nordic space cattle into Anasazi cave myths, the dismissal of fundamental differations in understanding of cosmic structure, the vastly different aesthetic styles being dismissed...

Why don't you count every time the number 1 of something appears in ancient depictions? I mean, it's 1, there's literally nine 1s in every system of 9. Wouldn't that be nine times the power of proof, besides all other numbers being present in these systems? Think about the number of 1s being represented in any depiction. Each instance of anything would count. But you don't, because it due to its nature as a number showcases that numbers are numbers and that it means nothing to point this out, particularly in a sea of inconsistencies.

I have three tables in my apartment. Does this mean I believe in the Trinity?

I sometimes wonder what a future archaeologist would make of my home. It's a mix of old, new, and futuristic, modern and traditional, and they might wonder if I worship Bast or the Greek gods or some variety of the Christian religion because of what's in the china cabinet and the fact that I still have the bible my grandmother bought (she liked it because it had a place to record the family tree and significant events). The oldest human-made thing I have is a Swedish coin from 1740. The oldest natural thing... I have no idea. Certainly the rocks in my rock collection are older.

And yet I've got science fiction stuff and science books in a variety of fields all over the place, mixed in with the SCA things I kept even though I haven't been active in the SCA for 24 years.

Any archaeologist who knew how varied life in the 20th/21st centuries is, with such a wide array of hobbies and interests available, would realize that I have eclectic tastes in my interests and leisure pursuits, and in various historical eras.

When people have commented on it, I just tell them that I can't decide which century I'd like to live in, so I'm trying them all out first.

That's not unusual, though, in the groups I've been in. After all, it was a bunch of science fiction/fantasy authors who started the SCA back in 1966. We've always had one foot in the past and another in the future. I've seen people dressed in medieval costumes, working on their sewing while attending panels on some aspect or other of Star Trek or other futuristic/technology-themed topic.

No; evidently, it means that space aliens told you there's a Trinity!

Actually, having three tables (I assume one in the kitchen and two in the living room) means space aliens told his remote, pre-discovery-of-telescopes ancestors that Alpha Centauri is a trinary star system.

 

[Berzerker]

You misunderstand me. I'm saying that you (Berz) are hiding the information. You're playing at prophet on an internet forum instead of doing something useful. If you are able to interpret this advanced knowledge, then interpret something new out of it that conventional science doesn't know and show it exists.

Everything else you do is wasting time and is just playing to your own ego, about how you know secret truths noone else does.

I'm hiding secret truths by posting them on the internet? The person who left us the image is the prophet and Sitchin has millions of supporters, they've even named the 9th planet researchers are looking for after his '12th planet' - Nibiru. I wouldn't have recognized the Fremont panel without having read Sitchin and various researchers of archaeoastronomy and myth, I'd think it was just a hunting scene too. Its funny you mention ego, when I was young I thought religion was BS and I knew the truth. But I've actually surrendered to tradition, I had to admit to myself I was wrong.

But I'm not the one who sees pictures on rocks and jumps to the conclusion that aliens gave telescopes to both the ancient Babylonians and the North American natives.

They gave them information about the solar system, not telescopes.

So... I have to wonder what Berzerker actually gets out of these threads. He's been posting them for years, not only here but on other forums. To the best of my knowledge, he's never gained any converts to "Sitchinsism" during all this time.

The only other forum I've mentioned this stuff is at Poly and that was long ago, probably more than a decade. I do this because insults and mocking are good for the ego. I do this for Sitchin, for ancient peoples who devoted their lives to keeping these traditions alive, and because the science matters.

You see a comet and envision a vast cloud of trillions of comets encircling the solar system and I see a remnant chunk of ice and rock produced by collisions long ago. You see an asteroid belt and think a planet couldn't form because of Jupiter and I see evidence of collisions long ago. I did convince 1 person Saturn's rings point to Pluto, they did the math and confirmed it.

What evidence do you have that ancient Egypt, during the time of the construction of the Great Pyramids, ascribed any particular significance to "Orion's Belt"?

Osiris is Orion, destination of the Pharaoh's soul traveling up a southern air shaft of the Great Pyramid. So the theory goes...

@Berzerker There is not a single text in the entire body of Sumerian or Mesopotamian tablets in the world that says the Sumerians or Mesopotamians knew of more than five planets. Sitchin just made up that they knew of 12.

I quoted the text in this thread, the Enuma Elish lists the planets before Heaven and Earth. Mummu (Mercury), Lahamu (Venus), Lahmu (Mars), Tiamat (proto Earth in Gen 1:2), Kishar (Jupiter), Anshar (Saturn), Anu (Uranus), and Nudimmud (Neptune). Kaka (Pluto) is Anshar's emissary and Apsu and Qingu are Sun and Moon. Marduk is the '12th planet'.

 

[Gorbles]

Sitchin has millions of supporters

Be right back, asking a big account on Twitter for some cosmological takes.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You misunderstand me. I'm saying that you (Berz) are hiding the information. You're playing at prophet on an internet forum instead of doing something useful. If you are able to interpret this advanced knowledge, then interpret something new out of it that conventional science doesn't know and show it exists.

Everything else you do is wasting time and is just playing to your own ego, about how you know secret truths noone else does.

I'm hiding secret truths by posting them on the internet? The person who left us the image is the prophet and Sitchin has millions of supporters, they've even named the 9th planet researchers are looking for after his '12th planet' - Nibiru. I wouldn't have recognized the Fremont panel without having read Sitchin and various researchers of archaeoastronomy and myth, I'd think it was just a hunting scene too. Its funny you mention ego, when I was young I thought religion was BS and I knew the truth. But I've actually surrendered to tradition, I had to admit to myself I was wrong.

You come across as EltonJ did, with your "I know something you don't know..."/singsong attitude

If Sitchin has "millions of followers", how come the only one I ever heard of is you?

But I'm not the one who sees pictures on rocks and jumps to the conclusion that aliens gave telescopes to both the ancient Babylonians and the North American natives.

They gave them information about the solar system, not telescopes.

Your standard answer to my comments about giving telescopes to the Babylonians has been "How do you know they didn't?" and when I pointed out that no archaeologist had ever found any, you moved the goalpost.

Don't you ever get tired of moving goalposts? I've moved them in RL (when playing street hockey) and after awhile they get heavy.

The only other forum I've mentioned this stuff is at Poly and that was long ago, probably more than a decade. I do this because insults and mocking are good for the ego. I do this for Sitchin, for ancient peoples who devoted their lives to keeping these traditions alive, and because the science matters.

You see a comet and envision a vast cloud of trillions of comets encircling the solar system and I see a remnant chunk of ice and rock produced by collisions long ago. You see an asteroid belt and think a planet couldn't form because of Jupiter and I see evidence of collisions long ago. I did convince 1 person Saturn's rings point to Pluto, they did the math and confirmed it.

Has Sitchin ever thanked you? As for "it's for the science"... it'd be nice if you would actually use some. Numerology isn't science.

I'm not the one who envisioned a cloud of trillions of comets. Someone else did and named it the Oort Cloud. I've seen comets with my own eyes: Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp. I'm very glad I was able to see them. It's amazing to know that the last time they came around we were in the Stone Age and wouldn't have had a clue what they were. By the time they come around again, hopefully humans will have found a way off this planet and out of the solar system. I truly hope we won't have backslid into the Stone Age.

As for planets in the asteroid belt... okay, I grant you Ceres. It's been confirmed. They have photos of it. But Ceres is very small in comparison to the rest of them. Jupiter is merciless when it comes to gravity and the slingshot effect. It helps us when we want to send probes into the outer solar system. It won't help if we want a larger planet nearby.

 

[Birdjaguar]

1 When the heavens above did not exist,
2 And earth beneath had not come into being —
3 There was Apsû, the first in order, their begetter,
4 And demiurge Tia-mat, who gave birth to them all;
5 They had mingled their waters together
6 Before meadow-land had coalesced and reed-bed was to he found —
7 When not one of the gods had been formed
8 Or had come into being, when no destinies had been decreed,

Apsu (freshwater) is the primordial sun and Tiamat (saltwater) was the first planet. Interestingly enough, the Sun produces freshwater. There is however some confusion about a 3rd object. Mummu (Mercury) is described as Apsu's companion and some translations mention him in the opening lines. The reference to gods and destinies is about planets and their orbits.

9 The gods were created within them:
10 Lah(mu and Lah(amu were formed and came into being.

"Within them" has also been translated to mean between or amidst. These 2 gods were brother and sister in the Babylonian version and would eventually become Mars and Venus. Other than Tiamat and Lahamu the other planetary gods are male. This is important because it helps us locate Tiamat in the Sumerian solar system - beyond Mars.

11 While they grew and increased in stature
12 Anšar and Kišar, who excelled them, were created.
13 They prolonged their days, they multiplied their years.
14 Anu, their son, could rival his fathers.
15 Anu, the son, equalled Anšar,
16 And Anu begat Nudimmud, his own equal.

Saturn and Jupiter followed by Uranus and Neptune. Now the following verses describe what ensued as planets migrated about.

Here again is your previous post for easy reference with some items removed. I have read the entire Enuma Elish. It is quite long, hundreds of lines, but well organized into sections. Here is the beginning:

1 When the heavens above did not exist,
2 And earth beneath had not come into being —
3 There was Apsû, the first in order, their begetter,
4 And demiurge Tia-mat, who gave birth to them all;
5 They had mingled their waters together
6 Before meadow-land had coalesced and reed-bed was to he found —
7 When not one of the gods had been formed
8 Or had come into being, when no destinies had been decreed,

You will note that two beings existed that were not gods. One was a demi urge and the other a begetter. And as the text says, they were not gods. They created the gods. The text clearly says that they created 6 gods. You will also notice that there is no mention of planets; this is strictly about gods and how they came about (created by Apsu and Tiamat). Using the Enuma Elish as a source for naming the planets after the gods is incorrect.

9 The gods were created within them:
10 Lah(mu and Lah(amu were formed and came into being.
11 While they grew and increased in stature
12 Anšar and Kišar, who excelled them, were created.
13 They prolonged their days, they multiplied their years.
14 Anu, their son, could rival his fathers.
15 Anu, the son, equalled Anšar,
16 And Anu begat Nudimmud, his own equal.

You have skipped over the death of Apsu who was killed by Ea [Enki]. Who is Ea? Was he also a god of some sort [where is his planet?] and as we shall see, the father of Marduk. So when the gods heard the Apsu and Tiamat planned to destroy them....Mummu, btw, is not a god, but a counselor.

55 What they [Apsu and Tiamat] plotted in their gathering
56 Was reported to the gods, their sons.
57 The gods heard it and were frantic.
58 They were overcome with silence and sat quietly.
59 Ea, who excels in knowledge, the skilled and learned,
60 Ea, who knows everything, perceived their tricks.
61 He fashioned it and made it to be all-embracing,
62 He executed it skilfully as supreme—his pure incantation.
63 He recited it and set it on the waters,
64 He poured sleep upon him as he was slumbering deeply.
65 He put Apsû to slumber as he poured out sleep,
66 And Mummu, the counsellor, was breathless with agitation.
67 He split (Apsû's) sinews, ripped off his crown,
68 Carried away his aura and put it on himself.
69 He bound Apsû and killed him;
70 Mummu he confined and handled roughly.
71 He set his dwelling upon Apsû,
72 And laid hold on Mummu, keeping the nose-rope in his hand.
73 After Ea had bound and slain his enemies,
74 Had achieved victory over his foes,
75 He rested quietly in his chamber,
76 He called it Apsû, whose shrines he appointed.
77 Then he founded his living-quarters within it,
78 And Ea and Damkina, his wife, sat in splendour.
79 In the chamber of the destinies, the room of the archetypes,
80 The wisest of the wise, the sage of the gods, Be-l was conceived.
81 In Apsû was Marduk born,
82 In pure Apsû was Marduk born.
83 Ea his father begat him,
84 Damkina his mother bore him.

Much later in the epic Marduk creates the solar system:

1 He fashioned heavenly stations for the great gods,
2 And set up constellations, the patterns of the stars.
3 He appointed the year, marked off divisions,
4 And set up three stars each for the twelve months.
5 After he had organized the year,
6 He established the heavenly station of Ne-beru to fix the stars' intervals.
7 That none should transgress or be slothful
8 He fixed the heavenly stations of Enlil and Ea with it.
9 Gates he opened on both sides,
10 And put strong bolts at the left and the right.
11 He placed the heights (of heaven) in her (Tia-mat's) belly,
12 He created Nannar, entrusting to him the night.
13 He appointed him as the jewel of the night to fix the days,
14 And month by month without ceasing he elevated him with a crown,
15 (Saying,) "Shine over the land at the beginning of the month,
16 Resplendent with horns to fix six days.
17 On the seventh day the crown will be half size,

Only the first line mentions the gods and that line, while it doesn't mention planets directly, I'm sure you will take it that way. Now, there is no mention of how many gods other than to say the "great gods". Those would be Lah(mu), Lah(amu), Ansar, Kisar, Anu, and Nudimmud, plus maybe Marduk. So when we read the actual text, we can see that your post is incorrect on several points. The number of gods is miscounted and planets are not mentioned anywhere and the vague reference you will want ot counter with, makes no mention of how many or which gods are involved. In addition, your account makes no mention of the death of Aspu (the Sun?) which is crucial to the birth of Marduk.

And here is a chart of the Sumerian Pantheon and their associated objects:

 

[Lexicus]

@Berzerker show your work

First you can demonstrate competence in the ancient Sumerian language and in interpreting Mesopotomian inscriptions. Then we can move on to orbital mechanics.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Or here, I'll settle for this: can you explain why space aliens would bother telling primitive cultures how many planets are in the solar system? Of what use did the space aliens think such information would be to those cultures?

 

[Ajidica]

I watched Stargate last night, good movie.
Or as Berzerker calls it, a documentary.

 

[Berzerker]

lol... I liked it too, but our aliens live nearby and dont need a stargate.

Dante's cosmos - the structure of Dante's Heaven is therefore of the form 9+1=10, with one of the ten regions different in nature from the other nine. (from wiki)

The 9 spheres of Heaven and above it all, the abode of God. I refer the right honorable member to the picture of Chichen Itza in the OP. Or the Incan creator Viracocha depicted as an ellipse separating 4 inner planets from 5 outer planets. Oooor the Fremont panel with their creator encountering 9 planets and stalking the 6th planet - the horned deity.

I've noticed a few cosmologies dont acknowledge Uranus. Dante is using Ptolemy and Aristotle for the astronomy but if sharp eyed people could see Uranus why wouldn't it show up in Greek and Roman astronomy?

The myth of the disappearing God and the promise of his return... Thats a planet on a highly elliptical orbit.

 

[Berzerker]

regarding Orion and the Giza pyramids

a) the relative positions of the three Giza pyramids coincide within the uncertainties of the naked eye astrometric measurements with the relative positions of the three stars of the Orion Belt

b) in the scale that would have been chosen by the pyramid builders to reproduce the Orion Belt on the ground, the linear distance between the Menkhaure pyramid and the Nile, along the straight line connecting the two extreme pyramids of Giza, practically matches the angular distance between Mintaka and the central point of the Milky Way along the straight line connecting the two extreme stars of the asterism

c) the visual magnitude of the stars of the Belt is presently correlated with the height of the corresponding pyramids evaluated with respect to a common reference level (i.e. the base level of the Khufu pyramid). Since the star evolution models suggest that the magnitudes of all the three objects of the Belt at the time of the pyramids were substantially equal to the present ones, the above found correlation was still valid at that epoch (Orofino, 2011)

https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1109/1109.6266.pdf

Thats why the 2nd pyramid appears taller than the 1st, to match the slightly brighter middle star in Orion's Belt.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

regarding Orion and the Giza pyramids



https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1109/1109.6266.pdf

Thats why the 2nd pyramid appears taller than the 1st, to match the slightly brighter middle star in Orion's Belt.

Interesting. I took a skim over the article and will re-read it later. But I did note that it said the Egyptians knew about FIVE planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Apparently Sitchin's space aliens never told them about the others.

Something else caught my attention:

Even for a trained eye and in perfect visibility conditions, the Milky Way is barely distinguishable and therefore it is difficult to detect the centre of this faint belt, also because of its inhomogeneous brightness distribution.

Is this author seriously suggesting that at a time in human history where light pollution was NOT a problem, that people had a hard time seeing the Milky Way?

 

[Berzerker]

You will note that two beings existed that were not gods. One was a demi urge and the other a begetter. And as the text says, they were not gods. They created the gods. The text clearly says that they created 6 gods. You will also notice that there is no mention of planets; this is strictly about gods and how they came about (created by Apsu and Tiamat). Using the Enuma Elish as a source for naming the planets after the gods is incorrect.

103 He was clothed with the aura of the Ten Gods

10 Gods... Thats the most important line in the entire text. And Apsu and Tiamat were 2 of them. The text credits them with 4 kids and 2 grandkids and thats where you're getting 6, but various translations are unclear about when Mummu was created. In this version Mummu appears after the 6 but in another Mummu is mentioned in the same time frame as Tiamat before Venus and Mars. Qingu (Moon) and Kaka (Pluto) would later join the show to make it 12.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_tree_of_the_Babylonian_gods

Mummu is described as the son of Apsu and Tiamat.

WHEN on high the Heavens had not been named,
Firm ground below had not been called by name,
Nothing but ‘Primordial Apsu’ the Begetter, [Fresh Water]
and ‘Mummu Tiamat’, She Who Bore them All, [Salt Water]
–their waters commingling as a single body–

No reed hut had been matted, no marsh land had appeared,
Uncalled by name, their destinies undetermined–

THEN it was that the Gods were formed within Them.

Lahmu [‘mud’] and Lahamu [‘Mrs. Mud’] were brought forth,
by name they were called Before they had grown in age and stature.

Anshar [‘Upper Firmament’] and Kishar [‘Lower Firmament’] were
formed, surpassing the others. They prolonged the days, added on the years.

Anu was their heir, the rival of his fathers;
Yes, Anu, Anshar’s first-born, was his equal.

He begot in his image Nudimmud [ Ea ].
This Nudimmud was the master of his fathers;
Of broad wisdom, understanding, mighty in strength,
Mightier by far than his grandfather Anshar.
He had no rival among the gods, his brothers.

http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/enuma.html

Notice how Anu is described as Anshar's first born? Anshar's 2nd born was Kaka (Pluto). I know I mentioned this before but its interesting how the Sun and proto-Earth are described as the mixing of fresh and salt water, clearly a phenomenon people living in the southern marshes where Iraq meets the Persian Gulf would see every day, but the Sun produces fresh water and planets produce salt water, assuming they have liquid water. Tiamat was covered in it.

As for planet/god/demiurge/begetter, the terms can denote a special status for certain 'gods'. Apsu wasn't a planet, it was the Sun and begetter. The name/attribute transferred to Ea/Nudimmud/Neptune when the Sun's begetting period ended. The next member of the solar system was brought forth later from beyond - a rogue planet joined us about 4 bya, possibly debris from the same supernova that compressed our ball of gas and dust into a nebula. It just took a 1/2 billion years for it to reach us after the shockwave.

Tiamat was a planet, it was split in 2 to form Heaven and Earth. Notice how the text calls these primordial beings different names (for the most part) than what the Babylonians called their 'physical' gods? Thats where your Sitchiniswrong source messed up, he assumed any image of the Sun would match the solar symbols for Utu/Shamash. But the text clearly says Utu-Shamash - the Babylonian Sun god - was a latecomer in the story. The Mesopotamians wouldn't use a symbol for Utu/Shamash to depict the Apsu, the primordial Sun before the arrival of Marduk.

The same for the Moon God Nannar/Sin. Before Marduk slew Tiamat, Qingu was her primary defender, Qingu was even granted Anuship by Tiamat - possibly a reference to the primordial Moon's orbit receiving a destiny of its own. Marduk killed Tiamat and revoked Qingu's status. The arrival of Marduk may have disrupted its orbit, its over 5 degrees off Earth's equatorial plane. Thats evidence of a past event along with the obvious cataclysm staring at us.

The currently observed lunar orbit can naturally be reproduced via interaction with a small quantity of mass (corresponding to 0.0075–0.015 Earth masses eventually accreted to the Earth) carried by a few bodies, consistent with the constraints and models of late accretion10,11. Although the encounter process has a stochastic element, the observed value of the lunar inclination is among the most likely outcomes for a wide range of parameters.

The excitation of the lunar orbit is most readily reproduced via collisionless encounters of planetesimals with the Earth–Moon system with strong dissipation of tidal energy on the early Earth. This mechanism obviates the need for previously proposed (but idealized) excitation mechanisms12,13, places the Moon-forming event in the context of the formation of Earth, and constrains the pristineness of the dynamical state of the Earth–Moon system.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16137

The short version: the Earth got hit by a few large objects and the Moon's orbit changed.

Once Tiamat was slain, once Heaven and Earth were created, then Utu/Shamash became identified with the Sun (or vice versa). Thats why the Sun and Moon are late to the great gig in the sky in Genesis. It wasn't that they didn't exist, its just that their roles were different before Tiamat and Marduk (Tehom and Yahweh) battled. The Sun was further away and dimmer so the Moon reflected less light, both were dim compared to the luminous roles they play in Earth's sky now. And yet, even given their importance, they're both playing second fiddle to some mysterious creator that comes and goes. That really makes no sense, the world should be populated by Sun and Moon worshipers.

Notice how these creation stories show the creator as arriving on an already existing scene? Even Genesis says a primordial Earth - a dark water covered world - preceded God.

You have skipped over the death of Apsu who was killed by Ea [Enki]. Who is Ea? Was he also a god of some sort [where is his planet?] and as we shall see, the father of Marduk. So when the gods heard the Apsu and Tiamat planned to destroy them....Mummu, btw, is not a god, but a counselor.

Ea is Nudimmud/Neptune and Mummu is Apsu's companion etc, his identification as counselor reflects Mercury's position as closest to the Sun.

Scholars believe the Babylonian version was preceded by earlier Akkadian and Sumerian creation stories where the heroes were played by other gods, eg Anu and his 2 sons Enlil and Enki/Ea, maybe with Enlil's son Ninurta in the role of Marduk. The Enuma Elish appears to have been modified over time to reflect the incoming religious order, the bulk of the story stayed the same but the names of some gods changed.

Which is interesting in itself, why did the authors assign the job as begetter to Apsu and not Utu? Why does Qingu precede the Moon God Nannar/Sin? Maybe it was important to them to make a distinction between the Olden Gods and their local and national deities. If you're Ur's Moon God Sin, you dont want Qingu on your resume.

Maybe thats why these primordial gods went mostly unworshiped, just acknowledged for their roles before Heaven and Earth were created. Lahmu is Mars in the story but Nergal is the Babylonian god for Mars. Why? If Nergal is your god for Mars, why call Mars Lahmu in the epic of creation? I'd like to know.

Only the first line mentions the gods and that line, while it doesn't mention planets directly, I'm sure you will take it that way. Now, there is no mention of how many gods other than to say the "great gods". Those would be Lah(mu), Lah(amu), Ansar, Kisar, Anu, and Nudimmud, plus maybe Marduk. So when we read the actual text, we can see that your post is incorrect on several points. The number of gods is miscounted and planets are not mentioned anywhere and the vague reference you will want ot counter with, makes no mention of how many or which gods are involved. In addition, your account makes no mention of the death of Aspu (the Sun?) which is crucial to the birth of Marduk.

"Planet" is a word we use to describe certain actual worlds, they did not need to use the same word to describe worlds in their creation epic. If you want to argue the planets we can see played no role in their creation story we're not gonna agree. Their Tiamat was split in two to form Earth, these are planets - worlds, primordial worlds. The death of Apsu is just a Hamlet-like explanation for how Marduk came from somewhere else and its 1st encounter was with Neptune. Marduk was not born of the Apsu/Sun, it was born of Ea/Nudimmud armed with Apsu's power to beget.

As for the Sumerian pantheon, I understand it had 12 members just like the Greeks and tribes of Israel. Sitchin said deities were ranked based on 12 and 60 with Anu given the highest rank of 60 with Antu his wife at 55 followed by Enlil at 50 (hence the reference to him as '50 is the celestial 7' - one of his titles as Lord of the Earth). His wife Ninlil was 45. Enki and Damkina were 40 and 35, Nannar/Sin and Ningal at 30 and 25, Utu/Shamash 20 and Inanna 15. Iskur/Adad and Ninhursag round out the pantheon at 10 and 5.

Of course the pantheon was not set in stone, Marduk would acquire his father's rank of 40 and Ninurta would inherit Enlil's 50. But always 12... Yes, there were assemblies and groups of other gods with 7 being prominent. The Earth is the 7th planet. There are 6 'gods' between Earth and Marduk. This is why both the Inca and Mesopotamians depicted the Earth with 7 dots in rows of 4 and 3. Venus (Inanna) was represented by an 8 pointed 'star' and Mars by a 6 pointed star on cylinder seals.

 

[Berzerker]

Because that's how archeologists make valid arguments about the belief systems of cultures they study: by gathering all possible evidence, rather than picking up one picture that has 9 stags on it and saying "hey, those must be the nine planets; how did ancient people know there were nine planets? must be space aliens told them!"

That's why.

There's so little that survives, that even when archeologists study everything that's available to them, they often worry that their interpretations might be off base, simply by virtue of those surviving ruins being a non-representative sample. Responsible archeologists, I mean.

The focus of the story is on the Indian archer stalking the horned deity between the 8 sheep. Archaeologists dont wait for all the possible evidence before interpreting what they have presently. You and BJ are telling me I need to interpret any image you post before I can interpret the one I did post? Thats a bizarre requirement, I could scour the internet looking for cosmological symbols in rock art and I have no doubt I'd find more but wouldn't you dismiss them with the same argument?

No; evidently, it means that space aliens told you there's a Trinity!

The earliest written record of the trinity is the Sumerian sky divided up into 3 sections of 60 degrees representing the ways of Anu, Enlil and Enki. The center section was between the N and S 30th latitudes. Within each were 12 decans for a total of 36 with the Zodiac the center belt. And yes, according to the Sumerians it was their space aliens who told them about it.

Correction, one of the earliest written records. Anu, Enili and Enki were prominent in Sumerian religion.

Your standard answer to my comments about giving telescopes to the Babylonians has been "How do you know they didn't?" and when I pointed out that no archaeologist had ever found any, you moved the goalpost.

You said ancient peoples could not have known about the outer planets because the telescope was invented a few centuries ago. I said you dont know that, I didn't say they had telescopes. I did say the evidence shows an ancient knowledge of the solar system that someone with a telescope (and much more) gave to ancient peoples who couldn't see the outermost planets but still included in their religions/cosmologies. The people with the telescopes were the ones telling our ancestors about creation.

And archaeologists have found lenses that were used by jewelers and engravers, it aint a stretch to believe somebody started playing around with them while looking at the sky. So we dont know for a fact nobody had a telescope. I say God gave people knowledge about the solar system and you keep arguing people had no telescopes. Okay. I dont need a telescope if someone else does. But I can record what you tell me about what is out there.

Has Sitchin ever thanked you? As for "it's for the science"... it'd be nice if you would actually use some. Numerology isn't science.

He passed away a few years back, but this isn't numerology. As of now 'the science' says our solar system has 8 planets. Is that numerology? Why does it become numerology if there are 9 planets? How about 10?

I'm not the one who envisioned a cloud of trillions of comets. Someone else did and named it the Oort Cloud.

I didn't say you invented the Oort Cloud. Haven't you argued for the existence of this vast cloud of comets? If so, then you envision it.

@Berzerker show your work

First you can demonstrate competence in the ancient Sumerian language and in interpreting Mesopotomian inscriptions. Then we can move on to orbital mechanics.

Thankfully the work has been done for us, we have several translations of the Enuma Elish and can read for ourselves what they said about creation. As for orbital mechanics, why do you suppose the solar system is tilted?

 

[Gorbles]

I'm starting to see why you're attracted to conspiracy theories.

 

[Angst]

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You said ancient peoples could not have known about the outer planets because the telescope was invented a few centuries ago. I said you dont know that, I didn't say they had telescopes. I did say the evidence shows an ancient knowledge of the solar system that someone with a telescope (and much more) gave to ancient peoples who couldn't see the outermost planets but still included in their religions/cosmologies. The people with the telescopes were the ones telling our ancestors about creation.

Okay, if - IF - space aliens told them about all the stuff that humans can't see with the naked eye... why would space aliens need a telescope to see it? They'd have noticed it with their instruments or by looking outside the ship (assuming the ship has windows, which is not really a practical thing to include in a spaceship).

And archaeologists have found lenses that were used by jewelers and engravers, it aint a stretch to believe somebody started playing around with them while looking at the sky. So we dont know for a fact nobody had a telescope. I say God gave people knowledge about the solar system and you keep arguing people had no telescopes. Okay. I dont need a telescope if someone else does. But I can record what you tell me about what is out there.

The Dutch were already using lenses for various purposes before Galileo thought of using them to look up at the Moon and planets. When he got excited by what he saw, he invited others to come and take a look... and they couldn't care less about the sky. They did like spying on the neighbors or looking out to sea to be the first to see when the merchant ships were coming in.

My original objection still stands.

He passed away a few years back, but this isn't numerology. As of now 'the science' says our solar system has 8 planets. Is that numerology? Why does it become numerology if there are 9 planets? How about 10?

Neil deGrasse Tyson says we have 8 planets. It's all in the semantics of the definitions, not in the planets themselves (of whatever size), not to mention that there are scientists who decided that 8 was a good enough number because they condescendingly figure that it would be too hard to expect the public to remember the names if they also included the dwarf planets and Kuiper Belt Objects as planets.

Funny, I don't have a problem remembering them. If "hard to remember" is a valid scientific pretext for altering the status of certain natural objects, they'd better alter the status of most of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, since I certainly can't remember all of them.

I didn't say you invented the Oort Cloud. Haven't you argued for the existence of this vast cloud of comets? If so, then you envision it.

I have an image of it in my mind's eye that I saw on an astronomy website and a diagram in another online article. That's not the same as you suggesting I made the whole thing up.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Thats a bizarre requirement

No it's not. Dem's the rules. (I didn't make the rules) You're trying to assign meaning to what you see depicted in rock art. The only check against an individual interpreter assigning whatever meaning he or she wants to one particular image is to make sure that proposed meaning squares with all available images (and again, even then archaeologists make their claims most tentatively for the reason I mentioned). You badly need that check because the meanings you're trying to assign to these rock paintings are unlikely in the extreme. Again, of all the things space aliens might teach primitive human cultures, why on earth would they bother teaching them how many planets are in the solar system, a piece of information that could be of zero use to them?

 

[Berzerker]

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-early-earth-hot-mantle-archean.html

well there's a twist... We were told the Earth was too hot to have an ocean early on in its history. But this research suggests the additional heat may have produced a global ocean going back 4 bya. The mantle sequesters water but at higher temperatures some water is forced upward to the surface. Course without plate tectonics building lighter continents we'd still be covered with water.

Now what could have produced plate tectonics? I think impacts shattered and thinned Earth's crust and churned up the mantle.