Who were the Anunnaki in the tablets?
Ancient text In the Sumerian poem Enki and Ninmah, the Anuna are gods who "were born." Junior gods dig canals and complain, so humans are made from clay to carry the load. Ancient text In the Babylonian Atrahasis, a god is slaughtered and his flesh and blood are mixed with clay. Speculation Zecharia Sitchin's The 12th Planet (1976) read these texts as a record of astronauts from a planet, Nibiru. We haven't found his specifics in the texts we read. The idea itself is older: Carl Sagan floated a Sumerian "contact" legend in 1966, and von Däniken followed in 1968.
The passages
"…when the Anuna gods were born; when the goddesses were taken in marriage… the senior gods oversaw the work, while the minor gods were bearing the toil. The gods were digging the canals and piling up the silt in Ḫarali."Ancient text Enki and Ninmaḫ 1–11, Oxford ETCSL translation t.1.1.2 · source
"Impose on him the work of carrying baskets. You should knead clay from the top of the abzu…"Ancient text Enki and Ninmaḫ 24–37, ETCSL t.1.1.2
"Let them slaughter one god… With his flesh and blood / Let Nintu mix clay."Ancient text Atrahasis I, tr. A. R. Millard, Tyndale Bulletin 18 (1967), pp. 9–10 · PDF
"Let his name be Nibiru, 'the Seizer of the Midst'! For the stars of heaven he upheld the paths…"Ancient text Enuma Elish VII 109–110, tr. L. W. King (1902) · source
What the name means
Interpretation Specialists suggest the name means something like "those of princely seed." In Sumerian texts the Anunna are the highest gods. Later they are mostly gods of the netherworld (N. Brisch, Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses, 2016). Speculation Sitchin's reading, "Those Who from Heaven to Earth Came," isn't the scholarly one. Unverified We haven't yet checked Black & Green (1992), p. 34 ourselves.
Checked against the tablets
| Modern claim | What we found |
|---|---|
| A planet, Nibiru, returns every 3,600 years | Ancient textInterpretation Nēbiru is a celestial "crossing" marker tied to Marduk and sometimes to Jupiter (Freedman 2015). We haven't found a tablet that gives it an orbit. 3,600 is the šar, a number unit. Evidence A massive body on that path would disturb planetary orbits, and astronomers see no such effect (NASA, D. Morrison). |
| They came to mine gold | Ancient text The gods dig canals and pile silt. But they dig "in Ḫarali," and another poem asks for "gold from Ḫarali" (Enki and Ninḫursaĝa 49A–49P). The text describes canal work, not mining. It's still the strongest pro-Sitchin detail we found. |
| The Anunnaki miners mutinied | Ancient text In Atrahasis the Igigi do the work and revolt; the "great Anunnaku" impose it. |
| Sumerian words like dingir and mu really mean "rocket" or "sky-vehicle" | Evidence In the standard Sumerian dictionary, dingir means god, and mu means name or year. Neither entry lists a rocket. dingir: "deity, god, goddess; personal god," normally written as one sign, 𒀭 (ePSD2). mu: "name; son; line of text" (ePSD2) and "year" (ePSD2). As a verb prefix, mu- is grammar, not a word for an object. Links are archived copies (ePSD2 v2.6, captured Sep 23, 2022); the live site was unreachable when we checked. |
What would change our view
A provenanced tablet that gives Nēbiru an orbit or inhabitants, a lexical text glossing a-nun-na as beings from the sky, or a text that ties the gods' digging to gold.
Help us check this
Questions from our dossiers. These are open problems in our research that we haven't solved. If you can answer one, it may change this note, our videos and future episodes. Votes can choose which question we chase next, but only evidence decides the answer.
- A1 · The "Anunna" entry. Do you own Black & Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia (1992)? Quote or photograph the "Anunna" entry (p. 34). Send: a photo or exact quote with the page. Status: open
- A2 · Ḫarali and gold. The gods dig canals "in Ḫarali," and another poem calls for "gold from Ḫarali." Is there any text where the gods' work in Ḫarali is mining? Send: text name, line numbers, translation. Status: open
- A3 · Nēbiru's orbit. A 2024 translation reads Nēbiru as Jupiter, and other scholars argue for Mercury. Can you name a tablet (museum or CDLI number) that gives it a period, a size or inhabitants? Send: museum/CDLI number + translation. Status: open
- A4 · Who were the workers? In Atrahasis the Igigi dig and rebel. Is there a text where the Anunnaki are the laborers? Send: text + line numbers. Status: open
- A5 · "Kingship descended from heaven." What is the best scholarly discussion of this phrase in the Sumerian King List? Send: author, title, pages. Status: open
- A6 · Sitchin, in his own words. Own The 12th Planet (1976)? We found the 3,600-year orbit on pp. 247–48 (Oct 10, via Internet Archive full-text search). Still needed: page numbers for "the fifty who went from Heaven to Earth" and for the gold-mining claim. Send: edition + page numbers (a photo helps). Status: open
- A7 · Library access? We couldn't read R. Winters, "Ancient Aliens, Modern Cosmologies: Zecharia Sitchin and the Transformation of Mesopotamian Myth," in Receptions of the Ancient Near East in Popular Culture and Beyond (Lockwood Press, 2020), pp. 237–47 (DOI). It's a specialist study of how Sitchin used Atrahasis. If your library has it, tell us what it says about Sitchin's translations, especially pp. 240–42. Please don't send us a copy of the chapter. Short quotes with page numbers are enough. Same ask for Y. Nuruddin, Socialism and Democracy 20.3 (2006), pp. 134–38 (DOI). Send: quotes + page numbers. Status: open
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