What is generally accepted is that the founders of the first civilization are the Sumerians. Unfortunately, there is no definite agreed-upon date of the Sumerian civilization. However, I once took an online course called The Bible in Light of the Ancient Near East that Dr. Nili Samet of Bar-Ilan University gave. According to them, I wrote down the date from that class of the possible Sumerian civilization, which was around 3200 B.C. I’ve read so many different dates, but I’m only going with this date because it’s what I learned from a course I’ve taken. I understand it’s just an estimation.
No matter what one believes, there is no doubt that the Sumerians once shared their traditional stories orally and then later recorded them on cuneiform tablets.
There are original cuneiform tablets, and then there are interpretations from those originals. And many people believe that the original texts come from the Sumerians, even though, according to The History Teacher, the most widely recognized journal in the United States, shared.
“Those who would argue for the Sumerians being the first people in Southern Mesopotamia cannot turn to linguistic evidence for help. One very obvious point that the philologists advance is that the names of Sumer’s most important cities, Ur, Kish, Uruk, Eridu, and Shurrupak, are non-Sumerian, as are the “Sumerian” words for Tigris and Euphrates.”
So my Journey begins
My curiosity for learning the origins of the Sumerians started when I read the book by Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture and Character.
He wrote, “…it was found to be in part a prehistoric mound containing evidence of the earliest immigrants into the land. These people, who have come to be known as Ubaidians………”
Which can also be read here. https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/sumerians.pdf
Genetics
The Sumerians are a mysterious group of people. The mysterious language they spoke has had many scholars wondering where the Sumerians came from. And since linguistics can’t be used to trace the origins of the Sumerians, there has to be another way.
According to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
“Genetics is the scientific study of genes and heredity—of how certain qualities or traits are passed from parents to offspring as a result of changes in DNA sequence.”
According to 23andme, “Haplogroup is the term scientists use to describe a group of mitochondrial or Y-chromosome sequences that are more closely related to one another than to other sequences. The term haplogroup is a combination of haplotype and group. In this context, haplotype refers either to the DNA sequence of one’s mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from one’s mother, or to the DNA sequence of one’s Y chromosome, which is passed from fathers to their sons.”
“Your Haplogroup is a clue to your maternal or paternal ancestry. Humans migrated from eastern Africa to inhabit every continent on Earth except Antarctica over tens of thousands of years. The Haplogroup reports show the migration patterns of people with a given haplogroup. Before the age of European exploration ~500 years ago, people rarely moved between continents, so the report shows where people with a particular haplogroup lived for thousands of years.”
When I read, “Your Haplogroup is a clue to your maternal or paternal ancestry, I wondered at that time if this applied to the Sumerians, so I did what I do best, and I Googled it.
And this is what I’ve learned so far.
According to Eva K. F. Chan, Rae-Anne Hardie, Desiree C. Petersen, Karen Beeson, Riana M. S. Bornman, Andrew B. Smith, and Vanessa M. Hayes.
“The oldest extant human maternal lineages include mitochondrial haplogroups L0d and L0k found in the southern African click-speaking forager peoples broadly classified as Khoesan. Profiling these early mitochondrial lineages allows for better understanding of modern human evolution.”
Before I continue, I want to make sure I make this clear. There have been many migrations out of Africa. I’ve learned that the Homo Erectus may have been the first human species to migrate out of Africa, possibly 1.75 million years ago, with evidence of remains being found in southern Eurasia.
But.
Haplogroup L3 has been linked with the out-of-Africa migration of modern humans, which goes back possibly 50–70,000 years ago. The migration originated in East Africa and extended to West Asia and then to the rest of the world.
I highly recommend reading from Vicente M. Cabrera, Patricia Marrero, Khaled K. Abu-Amero, and Jose M. Larruga, a June 2018 article called “Carriers of mitochondrial DNA macrohaplogroup L3 basal lineages migrated back to Africa from Asia around 70,000 years ago.” BMC Evolutionary Biology.
When I go to Google and type in what the Iraqi people’s haplogroups are, I tend to find Haplogroup J along with others like R1b and E1b1b and many others.
Why did I google the Iraqi people’s haplogroup? Because Sumer, located in the southernmost part of Mesopotamia, is now southern Iraq,
As a matter of fact, when I first went to www.eupedia.com and researched Haplogroup J. I learned that “Haplogroup E1b1b is the prime candidate for the origin and dispersal of Afro-Asiatic languages across northern and eastern Africa and southwest Asia. The Semitic languages appear to have originated within a subclade of the M34 branch of E1b1b.”
Researching Haplogroup E1b1b, I find that “Haplogroup E1b1b (formerly known as E3b) represents the last major direct migration from Africa into Europe. It is believed to have first appeared in the Horn of Africa approximately 26,000 years ago and dispersed to North Africa and the Near East during the late Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods.”
According to Hayder Lazim, Eida Khalaf Almohammed, Sibte Hadi, and Judith Smith and their journal article, “Population genetic diversity in an Iraqi population and gene flow across the Arabian Peninsula published in 2020.”
“The migration models demonstrated that gene flow to Iraq began from East Africa, with the Levantine corridor the most probable passageway out of Africa. The data presented here will enrich our understanding of genetic diversity in the region and introduce a PowerPlex Y23 database to the forensic community.”
You can read it here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-72283-1
I always say I share what I’ve learned. And this is what I’ve learned because of my interest in knowing the origins of where the Sumerians came from, and I realized that haplogroups could help me understand better how groups of people came to be and where they chose to call home.
Until next time, Knowledge is Power
Mr. Sitchin claimed that in parts of the Sumerian tablets and cylinder seals, that it translated directly into to that they got their information from the Annunaki. And that it says it on more than one occasion. Just curious on your thoughts on Mr. Sitchin?
Sitchin shared a lot of information; unfortunately, he exaggerated much of his material.
Much of his information is outdated also, so that doesn’t help him.
In my opinion, he should have never made claims of who the Anunnaki were.
There’s the alien theories and then there’s natural history.
Which one fan proved as of today?
Zechariah Sitchen is not to be trusted in any capacity. Much of his work relies on either outdated information, or faulty translations of Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform. The fact that he has remained so prominent in the public eye is due to both the fascination people have with “ancient alien” theories, and their inability to scrutinize his claims because of how niche a field Assyriology is. Thus, he can get away with making outrageous statements without any real academic vigor, because most readers will simply be unaware of the subject matter.
Ancient Alien theories like his make for fun science fiction, but they are completely baseless otherwise.
The Anunna-Ki are also the Ki-Ananna, Chiananna, Sin Nanna, and Canaanites. The Canaanite were ancient, violent farmers. But that’s only a half truth.
Violence originated in Europe Neanderthals, and the ancestors of Neanderthals who were living in Sunghir Russia over 37,000 years ago.
Agriculture began with an ancient group that was harvesting grain, grinding flour to make bread, and casting nets to catch fishes in the Sea of Galilee (at the archaeological site of Ohalo II) over 23,000 years ago.
So the knowledge of warfare, cannibalism, slavery, and warfare (the knowledge of evil) was introduced by the Ki-Anannites.
The knowledge of agriculture, fishing, domestication of livestock, and building boats (the knowledge of good) was introduced by the Hebrews.
What is a Hebrew. They are people who have inherited the knowledge of good. They were named by the Ki-Anaanites. The words “Iber”, “Eber”, and “Aber” mean “over” or “The Other Side”. The other side of what?, you may ask. The other side of the Black Sea, the other side of the Caucasus Mountains. The Hebrews, and the knowledge of good, originated south of the Caucasus. The Ki-Anaanites and the knowledge of evil originated north of the Caucasus.
If you study the origin of ancient religions and the migration of ancient religions, you’ll come to understand that there Hebrews have always practiced a religion that worshipped water, life, and the creation of life. They are instinctively drawn toward the color of natural pools of water. Their ancient religion involves ritual baths.
While the ancient mammoth hunters of Sunghir Russia inherited a religion of Eurasian Neanderthals that worshiped death and the dead. They have an obsession with lethal weapons, and the color of fresh blood. They are instinctively drawn toward the color of blood, and drawn toward death, conflict, and carnage. Their ancient religion includes human sacrifice and the spilling of blood.
Very interesting. Therefore, is the Sumérien language a derivation from an African stock?
Good question
Unlikely, unless you mean going back all the way to the latest dispersal out of Africa.
The advent of agriculture in southern Mesopotamia is known to have spread in a north-south direction, originating in northern Mesopotamia and gradually spreading downstream. Whether or not the Sumerians were part of this movement is unknown at this time, since their material culture is essentially indistinguishable from other populations in the region. However, even if they weren’t, and had either been indigenous to the estuaries of the Tigris and Euphrates or the areas along the shores of the Persian gulf, we don’t have any reliable means of tracing the prehistoric movements of their material culture. It’s certainly possible that they followed a dispersal from northeast Africa like the proposed dispersal of Afro-Asiatic, but we have no way of knowing. Furthermore, genetics is not always a reliable source of mapping linguistic movement unless it can be paired with multiple other measurable variables such as material culture and identification of related languages’ positions historically.
Thus, as far as we can tell, even if it did originate within Africa after the dispersal of Homo Sapiens circa 60,000 YBP, Sumerian had likely existed within west Asia for long enough that any connection to African populations and/or linguistic groups had been thoroughly obscured and thus essentially superfluous.
A healthy dose of Occam’s Razor is thus warranted: unless we can find some conclusive evidence pointing otherwise, the Sumerians were probably indigenous to West Asia, if not specifically the Persian Gulf region.
My ancestors are Ratliffs. They are Gypsies, not to be trusted.
Agriculture began 23,000 years ago at the Sea of Galilee, near Nazareth. This is the location of the archaeological site of Ohalo II, where ancient people were grinding grain to make bread, and catching fishes in an ancient garden paradise.
The reason that descendants of the Indo-European Ki-Anannites don’t admit this is because their ancestors were still hunting mammoths in Northern Europe and Sunghir Russia when agriculture began. And because their ancestors (always represented by snakes) wrecked the garden paradise.
1st, I do share your unterest in sumerian and li guistics in general. Great job. 2nd i respectfully disagree with your proposition “Before the age of European exploration ~500 years ago, people rarely moved between continents”.
Good read. I just wanted to point out a couple things.
While most Sumerian place-names are seemingly “non-Sumerian” phonologically, there are some which are fairly straightforward. One is the city “Eridu,” which clearly consists of the morphemes “iri” (“city”) and “dug” (“good”). We know the second morpheme contains a hidden “g” because in instances that say “in Eridu” the name is spelled “Eridu-ga,” with the “-a” being the Locative Case. We can see that the final “g” which is hidden by the spelling surfaces when an additional sound needs to be written. This tendency to omit final consonants is frequent, particularly in older Sumerian texts, and is usually just an orthographic convention (only final “k,” and sometimes final “t” and “p,” are dropped phonologically).
Additionally, while there is evidence that there may have been other languages spoken in lower Mesopotamia either prior to, or alongside, the earliest Sumerian speakers, the evidence is still inconclusive and the identity of the [potential] source-language(s) remains purely speculative. Gonzalo Rubio wrote a good summary of the predicament which you can find online.
At this point, it seems likely that there were probably other unattested languages in Mesopotamian prehistory, but identifying which words come from possible substrata and how to group them is almost impossible to do at the moment due to the inherent limitations of analyzing the etymology of Sumerian terms. Many attempts to do so have been met with fierce skepticism by major Assyriologists, such as Gordon Whitaker’s attempt to propose an “early Indo-European” substratum in Sumerian, which at best is well-reasoned conjecture due to the inability to map the prehistoric sound changes of Sumerian.
Building off that last notion: the other thing to keep in mind is that we can’t analyze the developmental history of Sumerian beyond what written documents can tell us. Placenames often change more slowly than other words/names in a language and thus can be seen cross-linguistically both in the retention of older spellings of a name, and the persistence of forms which might otherwise have been lost elsewhere in the language. Thus, we must also always bear in mind the possibility that [at least some of] the Sumerian place-names may be relics of an older stage in the language’s developmental history, and we simply aren’t privy to the potential sound changes that may have occurred before written history.
It is only one potential source, and a source that is at least 2000 years past its potential start point, but in the Books of Moses, the Torah, the name Sumer is derived from Shem. Shem being a son of Naoh on the ark. Another linguistical tidbit, are the terms Urik (Enoch), Erindu (Akkadian). The Bible may not be completely accurate with historical events, and depending on the translated source (LXX is far superior source than other modern day bibles), a road map could be created to determine post-flood migration patterns. Kings list, along with the Torah family trees could assist in painting a picture of where the Levant civilization arose from.
Very interesting – I am very new to this, so please bear with me. I have been following a lady by the name of Elana Danaan, and she has recently reported the return of Enki, to right the wrongs of his half brother Enlil. Apparently Enlil is responsible for where we are in this world today! – So begins a new quest in my life to try and establish the TRUTH.
Not another ancient alien enthusiast! *sigh*
After a quick google search of her name I must say that I’m certain she has no idea what she’s talking about.
Even just from what you wrote above: Enlil was not viewed as a malevolent deity in ancient Mesopotamia, and was revered across the region. This image of Enlil as an enemy of mankind or in opposition to Enki is drawn from a misunderstanding of his role in the Mesopotamian Flood myths, and later mischaracterizarion as a kind of satanic figure. The fact that this woman cites Enlil as a cause for “where we are in this world today” and that Enki is “returning” (where did he go?mythologically-speaking) shows me she is merely an uninformed author peddling yet another ancient alien or cultic theory. You should not be swayed by such sensationalist material. There is a reason none of such people have any weight in the field of Assyriology. Their claims are completely unfounded and the only reason they continue to sell books is because most people simply don’t know enough about the subject matter to be able to tell they’re being fed faulty information.
El and Nanna were ancient Canaanite gods. Danann is the tribe of Dan mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. They are the Sea People who caused the Bronze Age Collapse, the Tuatha De Danann. Saint Patrick drove these snakes out of Ireland, and they sailed north to become Scandinavians and Vikings. The word Danann is derived from Canaan, Canaanites.
Enki would be Anunnaki, Ki-Anaana, Cain. So Enki would have inherited genes of hairy, aggressive, cannibalistic, homicidal Neanderthals.
And if you watch the evening news, yes they have returned. They attempted to overthrow the government of the United States a little while ago. Hopefully they all go away to prison for an extended time.
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To respond with opposite information, I have been told Enki was the antagonist toward the human race. Not the biblical account with Enki or Enlil as God though. I had been led to believe from another source is that Enki was the one that was evil because he didn’t picture the human race as being nothing more than a primitive creature and it was Enlil who believe that the humans could evolve and grow over time. Enlil was like the big brother the human race had against Enki because Enlil favored them. And Enlil was the one whom taught the humans about the sciences and arts so they could be more advanced and less primitive with this knowledge. Not saying I believe everything I hear or find on the internet…..Just telling what I have heard not from what is truth. I take it with “a grain of salt.”
I think it is interesting that someone has spoke the opposite especially knowing that it is conjecture itself but we do come off with a certain bit of information that possibly is a start of some truth. It is that there was a separation of beliefs between Enki and Enlil which possibly caused some sort of change in the Sumerian culture. That is what I get from the information that I was given and which your account of Enki is the the protagonist and Enlil is the antagonist supports the idea that this may have caused a separation of people and ideas. In turn causing differences in cultures.
I am ignorant when it comes to any past cultures, races, civilizations, ethnicities, or religions. So I’m just sharing a possibility in why or how the phonetics could have changed producing different words, names, or sound changes.
Good read too by the way. That is all I wanted to share.
America is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise of many nations, America is Israel. Melchizedek is our God.
Please I need the ancient coins