The Anzud bird

[gla55]

The Anzud bird

Everybody who reads ancient Sumerian texts, are bound to stumble across stories about a peculiar and gigantic flying predator bird that is referred to as the Anzud bird. It coexisted with mankind and lived as late as up until the time of the great flood , just some 12000-14000 years ago, yet it is described as a some kind of pre historic Pterosaur or animal that clearly has relation to the so called ‘dinosaurs’, which according to mainstream science was supposed to live millions and millions of years ago.

The Anzud bird is described in several of the ancient Sumerian tablets as a gigantic bird that lived in the mountains in ancient Sumer. It is described as being white and as having shark teeth and it was hunting for wild mountain bulls , cows and stags. It is also described as having a huge wingspan (as a birdnet stretched out across the sky) and as having gigantic eagle like claws with which it was able to capture and lift such large animals as a wild mountain bull easily.

Most of the description of this amazing bird can be found in an ancient Sumerian text called ‘Lugalbanda and the Anzud bird’. Besides giving a very good description of the bird itself, it also tells us the story how Lugalbanda with patience and cleverness managed to tame and train such a bird after having come across a chick lying in a nest in the mountains. Those of you who take interest in these stories should read and study the entire tablet to get all the details, but I will here give you the summary of what is written about the bird itself.

In the mountains where no cypresses grow, where no snake slithers, where no scorpion stings, the Anzud bird had set his nest and settled therein his young. It was made with wood from the juniper and the box trees. The bird had made the bright twigs into a bower.

When at daybreak the bird stretches himself, when at sunriseAnzud cries out, at his cry the ground quakes in the Lulubi mountains.

He has a shark's teeth and an eagle's claws. In terror of him wild bulls run away into the foothills, stags run away into their mountains.

The bird was herding together wild bulls of the mountains,Anzud was herding together wild bulls of the mountains. He held a live bull in his talons, he carried a dead bull across his shoulders. He poured forth his bile like 10 gur of water.

Bird with sparkling eyes, born in this district,Anzud with sparkling eyes, born in this district. Your wingspan extended is like a birdnet stretched out across the sky! on the ground your talons are like a trap laid for the wild bulls and wild cows of the mountains! Your spine is as straight as a scribe's! Your breast as you fly is like Nira; parting the waters! As for your back, you are a verdant palm garden, breathtaking to look upon.

The big question is. How is it possible that such a ‘dinosaur’ bird could coexist and live with human beings just 12000-14000 years ago, when the experts claims they lived at least 66 million years ago?

Edited May 28, 2015 by gla55

[Taun]

It could have been a variant species of giant condor, or perhaps an unknown species of eagle... I highly doubt any flying creature would have the strength to pickup and carry a fully grown bull, though...

Even the long dead giant pterosaurs would most likely have been unable to do it... Kill one? sure. Carry it off in flight? Ummm. No...

Edited May 28, 2015 by Taun

[gla55]

Taun.

I don’t know anything about the ancient Sumerian mountain bulls that these ancient Sumerian texts refer to, but a normal bull (as of today) could weigh anything between 500 to 1000 kg. We are most definitely talking about quite a bird if we were to believe those ancient texts.

Another thing that puzzles me is that it is said to have had shark teeth. That’s kind of special with birds I would guess.

If there is anyone on this forum that is clever with mathematics , they could probably figure out how large wings a bird must have to take off with a load of about 500-1000 kg.

In the books called ‘The legends of the Jews’ we can also read about another such gigantic bird who lived in the same area in about the same time period. This animal was however a seabird and was referred to as the Ziz, Sekwi or Renanin. It also fits the general description of some kind of 'dinosaur' bird.

Here is what the text writes about it:

“And the bird monster Ziz makes his home in the sky where the spreading of his wingspan is known to block the sun. Ziz resembles the mythical griffin.”

“Again, in Tishri, at the time of the autumnal equinox, the great bird ziz flaps his wings and utters his cry, so that the birds of prey, the eagles and the vultures, blench, and they fear to swoop down upon the others and annihilate them in their greed.”

“As leviathan is the king of fishes, so the ziz is appointed to rule over the birds. His name comes from the variety of tastes his flesh has; it tastes like this zeh, and like that zeh, the ziz is as monstrous of size as leviathan himself. His ankles rest on the earth, and his head reaches to the very sky.”

“It once happened that travellers on a vessel noticed a bird. As he stood in the water, it merely covered his feet, and his head knocked against the sky. The onlookers thought the water could not have any depth at that point, and they prepared to take a bath there. A heavenly voice warned them: "Alight not here! Once a carpenter's axe slipped from his hand at this spot, and it took it seven years to touch bottom." The bird the travellers saw was none other than the ziz. His wings are so huge that unfurled they darken the sun. They protect the earth against the storms of the south; without their aid the earth would not be able to resist the winds blowing thence. Once an egg of the ziz fell to the ground and broke. The fluid from it flooded sixty cities, and the shock crushed three hundred cedars. Fortunately such accidents do not occur frequently. As a rule the bird lets her eggs slide gently into her nest. This one mishap was due to the fact that the egg was rotten, and the bird cast it away carelessly. The ziz has another name, Renanin, because he is the celestial singer. On account of his relation to the heavenly regions he is also called Sekwi, the seer, and, besides, he is called "son of the nest," because his fledgling birds break away from the shell without being hatched by the mother bird; they spring directly from the nest, as it were. Like leviathan, so ziz is a delicacy to be served to the pious at the end of time, to compensate them for the privations which abstaining from the unclean fowls imposed upon them.”

[Mr.United_Nations]

Sounds like that Eagle in New Zealand that went extinct

[Capt.]

The ekranoplan is the biggest flying bird known http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/08/worlds_largest_flying_bird/ With a wing span of 20'-24' it would fall short of carrying off a bull (assuming that "bull" really meant male bovine?) but in some ways it does resemble the description of the anzud and maybe more so the ziz. A lot of critters just were not considerate enough to leave us fossils when they died.

It is hard to say how much weight a bird can fly with. Bald eagles weight surprisingly little, all feathers, beak, talons, and muscle, but we had one carry off a deer head that weighed a couple times more than the eagle. http://juneauempire.com/stories/012907/loc_20070129013.shtml#.VWdJBEbkCjw

[Aftermath]

I believe it would be hasty on our part to unequivocally categorize ancient writings as non-fiction. I’m not stating generically that these ancient Sumerian writings were a work of fiction, but one must vet the writing before taking the story as truth and begin to look for Atlantis. I am not one to believe fiction is a modern creation, as I believe humans from the dawn of time have had creativity as one if its strongest assets. We are merely fortunate, now, to have authors and literary scholars who can categorize their works for us. We have lost this with ancient literature, e.g., Sumerian tablets.

[theotherguy]

Are there any depictions of the Anzud? Right now I'm in the mythical exaggeration camp, since aside from the teeth and size, nothing about the description says "dinosaur" to me.

The ziz shows this even more, with the contents of a single egg flooding sixty cities and knocking over three hundred cedars. Additionally, "Ziz resembles the mythical griffin." Griffins don't especially resemble pterosaurs, in my personal experience.

These are interesting creatures, but they are, for me, fully in the realm of the nonexistent.

[ShadowSot]

There has been a fairly convincing Write up that some legends of mythical creatures were inspired by finding remains of ancient animals.

The griffin could have been inspired by prtotoceratops remains.

Cyclops inspired by the skills of mammoths.

Might be they were inspired by remains of flying reptiles.

Or simply exagerating contemporary critters.

Like a fish story.

[stereologist]

No birds have teeth. Therefore, this could not be a bird.

A new study, appearing in the current issue of Science, examines the evolution of the avian beak by going all the way back to modern birds’ ancestors: dinosaurs. All birds have a gene that deactivates the formation of teeth (yep, birds can grow teeth, we’ll get to that in a minute). The researchers, from the University of California, Riverside, found that this gene can be traced back to a common ancestor of all modern birds, which lived some 100 million years ago.

http://www.audubon.org/news/how-birds-lost-their-teeth

[ShadowSot]

No modern birds, but for a while there were birds that had teeth. They died out around the same time as the dinosaurs though.

[stereologist]

When I do walks for kids at one of the local ponds we often have Canada geese approach looking for a handout. I ask the kids how big they think the teeth are in a goose. I gesture about an inch (2 cm), a half inch (1cm), and then about a 1/10 of an inch (2mm). That is when the parents pick up their kids. I then tell the kids that birds do not have teeth. That is when the parents put their kids back on the ground. It teaches the kids and their parents an important feature of birds - no teeth. Then I tell the kids with intently listening parents that beaks can do marvelous things from chopping holes in trees, cutting up animals for dinner, snipping the wings off insects before eating them, opening up pine cones, and so forth.

The Anzud fails to be a bird since it has teeth like a shark. I would hope that any of the kids I've taken on nature walks would understand that.

[Kenemet]

There has been a fairly convincing Write up that some legends of mythical creatures were inspired by finding remains of ancient animals.

The griffin could have been inspired by prtotoceratops remains.

That's actually been discounted. The legends appear in places where these fossils aren't found.

[Kenemet]

The big question is. How is it possible that such a ‘dinosaur’ bird could coexist and live with human beings just 12000-14000 years ago, when the experts claims they lived at least 66 million years ago?

Picky point... pterosaurs aren't birds and wouldn't be mistaken for birds.

Second, there are limits to how much weight can be moved by muscle power in flying creatures. A Pterosaur might be able to lift a human baby or a small toddler, but anything much above 40 lbs is not going to be possible... and at that (as the story of the eagle trying to carry off a deer head shows) is going to be a real struggle.

[ShadowSot]

That's actually been discounted. The legends appear in places where these fossils aren't found.

Ah, well shucks. Must still be making roubds then, heard it recently.

[Kenemet]

Ah, well shucks. Must still be making roubds then, heard it recently.

Easily debunked by looking at Wikipedia. Protoceratops, for instance, is found in Mongolia and the ceratopsians are North American: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoceratops

And no mammoths in Greece.

Not as easily found, but provable is that the griffin image apparently developed in Egypt first and migrated from there. It appears first as a combination of the sphinx (an old symbol for pharaoh... dating to at least 2nd dynasty) and the horus falcon.

[Capt.]

Easily debunked by looking at Wikipedia. Protoceratops, for instance, is found in Mongolia and the ceratopsians are North American: http://en.wikipedia....i/Protoceratops

And no mammoths in Greece.

Not as easily found, but provable is that the griffin image apparently developed in Egypt first and migrated from there. It appears first as a combination of the sphinx (an old symbol for pharaoh... dating to at least 2nd dynasty) and the horus falcon.

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2007/07/24/mastodon-found-in-greece/

http://jacksadventuresinmuseumland.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/imag2020.jpg

https://sp.yimg.com/ib/th?id=JN.9zAF%2fBE%2fEak54HGMHj7jww&pid=15.1&H=213&W=160&P=0

"

Folklorist and historian of science Adrienne Mayor of Stanford University has suggested that the exquisitely preserved fossil skeletons of Protoceratops and other beaked dinosaurs, found by ancient Scythian nomads who mined gold in the Tian Shan and Altai Mountains of Central Asia, may have been at the root of the image of the mythical creature known as the griffin. Griffins were described as lion-sized quadrupeds with large claws and a raptor-bird-like beak; they laid their eggs in nests on the ground.^[18]

Greek writers began describing the griffin around 675 B.C., at the same time the Greeks first made contact with Scythian nomads. Griffins were described as guarding the gold deposits in the arid hills and red sandstone formations of the wilderness. The region of Mongolia and China where many Protoceratops fossils are found is rich in gold runoff from the neighboring mountains, lending some credence to the theory that these fossils were the basis of griffin myths." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoceratops

[Podo]

Taun.

I don’t know anything about the ancient Sumerian mountain bulls that these ancient Sumerian texts refer to, but a normal bull (as of today) could weigh anything between 500 to 1000 kg. We are most definitely talking about quite a bird if we were to believe those ancient texts.

Another thing that puzzles me is that it is said to have had shark teeth. That’s kind of special with birds I would guess.

If there is anyone on this forum that is clever with mathematics , they could probably figure out how large wings a bird must have to take off with a load of about 500-1000 kg.

In the books called ‘The legends of the Jews’ we can also read about another such gigantic bird who lived in the same area in about the same time period. This animal was however a seabird and was referred to as the Ziz, Sekwi or Renanin. It also fits the general description of some kind of 'dinosaur' bird.

Here is what the text writes about it:

“And the bird monster Ziz makes his home in the sky where the spreading of his wingspan is known to block the sun. Ziz resembles the mythical griffin.”

“Again, in Tishri, at the time of the autumnal equinox, the great bird ziz flaps his wings and utters his cry, so that the birds of prey, the eagles and the vultures, blench, and they fear to swoop down upon the others and annihilate them in their greed.”

“As leviathan is the king of fishes, so the ziz is appointed to rule over the birds. His name comes from the variety of tastes his flesh has; it tastes like this zeh, and like that zeh, the ziz is as monstrous of size as leviathan himself. His ankles rest on the earth, and his head reaches to the very sky.”

“It once happened that travellers on a vessel noticed a bird. As he stood in the water, it merely covered his feet, and his head knocked against the sky. The onlookers thought the water could not have any depth at that point, and they prepared to take a bath there. A heavenly voice warned them: "Alight not here! Once a carpenter's axe slipped from his hand at this spot, and it took it seven years to touch bottom." The bird the travellers saw was none other than the ziz. His wings are so huge that unfurled they darken the sun. They protect the earth against the storms of the south; without their aid the earth would not be able to resist the winds blowing thence. Once an egg of the ziz fell to the ground and broke. The fluid from it flooded sixty cities, and the shock crushed three hundred cedars. Fortunately such accidents do not occur frequently. As a rule the bird lets her eggs slide gently into her nest. This one mishap was due to the fact that the egg was rotten, and the bird cast it away carelessly. The ziz has another name, Renanin, because he is the celestial singer. On account of his relation to the heavenly regions he is also called Sekwi, the seer, and, besides, he is called "son of the nest," because his fledgling birds break away from the shell without being hatched by the mother bird; they spring directly from the nest, as it were. Like leviathan, so ziz is a delicacy to be served to the pious at the end of time, to compensate them for the privations which abstaining from the unclean fowls imposed upon them.”

Regarding the bolded text, I'm not sure why we'd want to believe the ancient texts. I think that old texts are good to study and learn from, but we know that dinosaurs and winged reptiles did not exist in the time of this passage's writing. Additionally, the source of the myths of many ancient cultures can be explained via fossils and such. It is more likely that they either exaggerated the sighting of a large bird than it is that they were seeing pterosaurs, since the latter would require the rewriting of basically all modern scientific understanding. Additionally, there's no real reason to believe that these critters are real, beyond the writings of a superstitious, ancient people.

[Kenemet]

http://scienceblogs....ound-in-greece/

D'oh! forgot about mastodons.

Folklorist and historian of science Adrienne Mayor of Stanford University has suggested that the exquisitely preserved fossil skeletons of Protoceratops and other beaked dinosaurs, found by ancient Scythian nomads who mined gold in the Tian Shan and Altai Mountains of Central Asia, may have been at the root of the image of the mythical creature known as the griffin

That's one of those "no evidence that they did find the fossils or took any interest in them."

Fossils "in the rough" don't look like much, and the chances of finding most of a skeleton or most of a skull are pretty rare. The ceratopsians that I've worked on tend to look like rubble in the field.

Greek writers began describing the griffin around 675 B.C., at the same time the Greeks first made contact with Scythian nomads.

I have a few problems with this:

* griffins are found in Egypt and Mesopotamia thousands (as in 2,000) of years before that. They're about the size described by the Greeks and the Greek griffins are clearly derivative of them.

* Greek culture (rise of the City States) begins in the 8th century BC ... so within 100 years of the Greeks describing griffins.

* the Greeks were battling the Persians (who had the griffin emblem) around that time (the Persian empire took over much of Greece for awhile.)

The "fossils" idea is quite charming and did look plausible...until the paleontologists and archaeologists got ahold of it and said "wait a minute!"

[Capt.]

The Scythian trader explanation is just a plausible scenario. If even one good fossil made it to Greece or Egypt and was shown off it would conveniently explained part or most of the gryphon myth. http://yournorthcounty.com/roynon-museum-of-paleontology/

Personally I wonder that if a protoceratops can so easily explain one mythological creature then with all the fossils out there why are there not a lot more mythological creatures to explain all the fossils? I mean how many 6"+ stone teeth do you need to see before your imagination runs wild? There are castles displaying impossibly large Irish Elk antlers http://e-group.uk.net/gallery/data/500/AntlersIrishElk02.jpg but not really any myths of monsters to explain these artifacts. My point is that the fossil/myth tie does not work both ways so it does need to be taken with a grain of salt. Personally I find an explanation like a clever taxidermist creating a gryphon (like the fake mermaids of WW II or jackalopes) a more convincing theory. https://jrosenberry1.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/rogue-taxidermy-griffin-copenhagen-wikimedia.jpg

On the other hand it does seem strange that there are Sumerian stories of a giant toothed bird and the ziz that was supposed to look like a giant gull before we find ekranoplan fossils which is a toothed seagull with a 21' wing span. It does not seem reasonable to dismiss these similarities as mere coincidence.

At the end of the day it is almost all speculation except the part about us still talking about these monsters here.

[ShadowSot]

Fair enough.

I read it ages ago and didn't look into it as the idea hasn't popped up much.

Though it seemms there were elephants in Greece.

[PersonFromPorlock]

Incidentally, the original sort of 'ekranoplan' is worth a look, too: quite a spectacular gadget, although as a sometime military man I have to say that it doesn't look like the most serious threat in the world.

[+DieChecker]

No birds have teeth. Therefore, this could not be a bird.

http://www.audubon.o...ost-their-teeth

But some birds do have ridges in their beak/bill that look like teeth...

[Varelse]

Teratorns? Exaggerated in fables over time..as most things awesome to humans are..

http://mentalfloss.com/article/19318/bigger-they-are-10-ice-age-giants

Personally I'm a fan of bringing back the giant beaver.

[Myles]

I think this is just exaggeration. While fossils are hard to find, I would think a bird such as this would be revered in such a way that skulls and teeth would have been kept.

[+DieChecker]

There is any number of giant bird like skulls they might have found that could be behind the legend.