where did the "sumerians" come from?

[Swede]

lightly, Harte, and Searcher - As always, my thanks for your gracious comments. You are all too kind. Heck, I'm just a farm boy who went on to do a few things.

Searcher - Careful now... that Funk 'n Wagnall's left a mark!

Now, about Puabi...

.

[MissionAtlantis]

I thought the general consensus was that the Sumerians came from Bahrain.

Where do you get this "consensus?" I've never heard it before.

And Kramer, in his book, "The Sumerians," only mentions Bahrain briefly regarding the Dilmun legend. But there he discounts Bahrain as Dilmun because the fabled place is described as "the place where the sun rises." Bahrain, Kramer cautions, is south of Sumer, not east. And Kramer's impressive volume does not mention Bahrein (Bahrain) as a source of the Sumerians.

On the subject of the direction of Dilmun (place where the sun rises), I have wondered if the directions "East" and "West" in some ancient sources might be symbols for something else. One Egyptian tale I read, ages ago, talked of an island which "moved" West. How can an island move? Looking at the meaning of these directions with regard to the sun, could East mean "up" and West mean "down?" The Egyptian tale may then have been discussing a subsidence, while Dilmun may have been located up (off-planet, or figuratively "up," like "heaven?").

Sumerian Source

As for the source of the Sumerian people? They spoke an agglutinative language, as did several other enigmatic cultures across Eurasia, including the Basques, Etruscans, Georgians (Colchis), Dravidians, Magyar (Hungarians), Suomi (Finns), and Mon-Khmer. By itself, agglutinative type proves nothing, but there are other clues that suggest these groups might be related. Some of it is pretty thin evidence, but when you're working in prehistory, any clue "might" prove valuable, so all clues are held in limbo until a clear-cut pattern emerges (if ever).

It's interesting that some early linguists suggested a relationship between Basque and Georgian (north of Sumer). Though there's not enough to prove a relationship, there's not enough to disprove one, either.

Mother and Father

A pattern I observed involves perhaps the two most sentimentally favorite words in all languages -- "mother" and "father." Okay, I'm not a trained linguist, and there are numerous forces that affect the adoption of words in any language. Yet, across this entire group of agglutinative languages, there appears to be a rainbow metamorphosis of these two words -- an interesting pattern. For instance, Basque "ama" (mother) and "aita" (father) are similar to, but gender-swapped from Etruscan "ati" (mother) and "apa" (father). Yet, in the Etruscan pantheon, we have two names which practically match by gender the Basque words -- "Ana" (goddess of beginnings, counterpart of Ani male god of beginnings; compare Roman Janus) and "Aita" (male god of the dead or "endings"; compare Roman Pluto and Greek Hades). Could it be that the progenitor culture was matriarchal? Could it be that when the Rasna (Etruscans) adopted a patriarchal society, men became the new "mothers?" Sumerian was "ama" (mother) and "ada" (father).

Basque culture includes strong women and the men had their couvade (sympathetic pregnancy pains for their wives in labor), while the Etruscans were despised by the Greeks and Romans for "giving" their women too much power. Though little if anything in Sumerian culture suggests a matriarchal past, this is still a possibility. Prehistory is full of unknowns.

Modern Georgia is the land of ancient Colchis, from which Jason and his Argonauts stole the Golden Fleece, which was guarded by a golden dragon. Later, when princess of Colchis, Medea, flees her second husband, the king of Athens, she is seen flying away on a golden dragon (from drakon, Greek for "snake"). Georgian is "mama" (father!) and "deda" (mother!).

And I've been told by someone who is half Mon (from Thailand), that this Southeast Asian culture remains matriarchal even today. The Mon-Khmer culture built the fabulous city of Angkor.

The Point?

Okay, so where am I leading with all this? Could there have been a single culture behind all these that was predisposed toward civilization because their ancestors had already been there? Could the Sumerians and these other agglutinative language speaking cultures have been children of the mythical Atlantis?

If one compares the myth of Atlantis with the myth of Athena's birth, we see several points of similarity. If Metis (Athena's mother, and wisest individual of all time) is a symbol for latter-day Atlantis, and Athena (fully mature at birth) represents refugee Atlantean society in the Mediterranean after the homeland's subsidence, then the gender of these two suggest that Atlantis and its refugees may have been matriarchal.

The Ubaid period of Sumer started about 5300 BC. That's about 200-300 years after the flooding of the Black, and about 4600 years after the subsidence of Plato's lost island, if it existed at all. That's plenty of time for Sumerian roots, wherever they might lead us, to have become myth and legend in their culture.

[SlimJim22]

You're gonna fit in great around here Mission. You have just summed up in much more eloquent terms what I have been harking on about for a while. Only recently discovered the Etruscan connection and the language reversals sure are interesting.

I am fascinated many things but the amount of godess statues found in Europe does indeed point to a matriarchal society. The use of red seems to be one reference and I have often thought of Poseidon and Atlantis being a direct reference to a prediluvian matriarchal culture. The Black sea flood fits perfectly with the Vinca culture and Sumer in the Ubaid period. Identifying a city of Atlantis is more difficult but I prefer to see Atlantis as a culture that spanned great distances. That's not really much of a help to archeology/history because it is far too broad.

The divine feminine was still highly significant to sumerian culture and I don't see it being totally phased out in the regin until 2,000bce or so. Ninkharsag, Ningal and Inanna were probably the three most important godesses but there was also Ninlil, Tiamat, Nammu and Ereshikgal. The role of women may have changed since the previous epochs because there are not really consistent evidence of women generals or rulers though I'm sure they did occur.

You make many other excellent points, some are new and others I've considered before but I praise your approach and I'm glad to make your acquaintance. Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts in future.

I think you are right about East being up as you only have to look to the Himalayas and how they provided fresh water to the Indus valley to see why they were considered divine. Dilmun in Bahrain comes from the burial mounds. Something else connecting the cultures of the east and west perhaps.

http://www.applet-magic.com/dilmun0.htm

Edited August 28, 2010 by SlimJim22

[cormac mac airt]

It's my understanding that the Samarran Culture (c.5500 BC) is the possible pre-cursor to both the Ubaidian Culture and the Sumerians. Also that Ryan and Pitmans 'Black Sea Flood Theory' has been extended back in time by Liviu Giosan, Florin Filip and Stefan Constatinescu's research to c.7400 BC and a lessening of severity of only 30 meters versus the original 80 meters proposed by Ryan and Pitman. This being the case, I have to wonder. Where is the evidence for "a single culture behind all these that was predisposed toward civilization because their ancestors had already been there" as you put it? Also to add, why even bring Atlantis into the discussion as the Black Sea Theory has nothing to do with what Plato said, either in time or location. Seems everyone wants to equate EVERY flood story with Atlantis, IMO.

Was the Black Sea catastrophically flooded in the early Holocene?

cormac

[SlimJim22]

It's my understanding that the Samarran Culture (c.5500 BC) is the possible pre-cursor to both the Ubaidian Culture and the Sumerians. Also that Ryan and Pitmans 'Black Sea Flood Theory' has been extended back in time by Liviu Giosan, Florin Filip and Stefan Constatinescu's research to c.7400 BC and a lessening of severity of only 30 meters versus the original 80 meters proposed by Ryan and Pitman. This being the case, I have to wonder. Where is the evidence for "a single culture behind all these that was predisposed toward civilization because their ancestors had already been there" as you put it? Also to add, why even bring Atlantis into the discussion as the Black Sea Theory has nothing to do with what Plato said, either in time or location. Seems everyone wants to equate EVERY flood story with Atlantis, IMO.

Was the Black Sea catastrophically flooded in the early Holocene?

cormac

Not much information pn Sammarra but they do seem like a good bet for contributors to the ethnic mix along with the Halaf culture. They still had godess statues though. They did seem to have some advanced technology like irrigation and the potters wheel though.

http://reference.findtarget.com/search/Samarra/

http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/SamarranOutline.html

The likelihood is that Plato pulled together a variety of flood myths he had heard of in an attempt to confuse the likes of us. If there was a prediluvian matriarchal culture that spanned the region then I think the Black sea is a good location for a colony. Not the Atlantis city itself but rehaps an area modelled on the concept of Atlantis.

The Atlantic Sea means the Black Sea: This Sea used to be in-naviable due to methane and hydrosulfide gas resulting from the biological death of the sea as a consequence of inflowing saltwater into the freshwater lake. Rising gas bubbles lead a ship to immediately sink because the relative density of water with bubbles rapidly deteriorates. The methane gas is stored within the sediments at the bottom of the sea. The early Greece still called the sea “inhospitable sea”.

The Atlantic Ocean itself received its name from a misled location of Atlantis; consequently, this name does not give a clue to the location. The Greek word for sea, pontos, alone means the Black Sea. In the same way the Indo-European word for sea, mare (Latin), morje (Russian), meer (German), meru (Indian) originally means the Black Sea.

It is supposed that Atlantis was an island. This is partly correct, partly not: The absolute center actually was an island with channels/rivers on all sides. The whole area was not an island. From the context it is clear that the word island is used in two different meanings: To describe the island in the middle of the capital and the country Atlantis itself. Swiss archaeologist Eberhard Zangger found out, that the Egypt Hieroglyph means both: Island and foreign country.

http://www.black-sea-atlantis.com/black-sea-atlantis/

Not my view but some eurocentrists mught like the next one.

http://www.vrilology.org/Atlantis_page.htm

http://atlantis-today.com/Great_Atlantis_Flood.htm

http://hubpages.com/hub/Atlantis-Quest-Uncovering-the-Secrets-that-Prove-Plato-Right

Atlantis remains an engaging topic and considering the sumerians had an important flood myth it may not be so stupid. I just think the concept of an island can throw people off but at the end of the day I think he fused Thera with a few things that went before.

When people think Atlantis, it is an island that sunk around 12,000 years ago. That maybe but surely then what went before is the most important part. I think Atlantis or Mu refers to the red paint people circa 30,000-10,000bce. Them being a matriarchal society with domain over much of the world. Follwoing the metaphorical sinking of Atlantis I think we are looking at the very early start of the rise of patriarchal society. The flood hit them hard to though so the two cultures coexisted until the matriarchal cult of Poseidon of the water could be rooted out for good in favour of the gods of the sky and earth and eventually down to one god.

http://www.second-congress-matriarchal-studies.com/birnbaum.html

[Essan]

I remain totally unconvinced that the Black Sea flood (if it even occurred) has any relevance to the Sumerian flood myth - which IMO - describes perfectly a tropical cyclone.

As for Atlantis - in myth it was a bronze age society identical in term of technology with Greece at the time of Plato. And was subsequently destroyed. Greece then spent the next 6,000 odd years making no cultural or technological advancements whatsoever. I'm inclined to think Plato made Atlantis up. There is no evidence to the contrary.

[Leonardo]

It is supposed that Atlantis was an island. This is partly correct, partly not: The absolute center actually was an island with channels/rivers on all sides. The whole area was not an island. From the context it is clear that the word island is used in two different meanings: To describe the island in the middle of the capital and the country Atlantis itself. Swiss archaeologist Eberhard Zangger found out, that the Egypt Hieroglyph means both: Island and foreign country.

From Critias...

"As I said earlier, the gods parcelled out the entire world among themselves, allocated themselves larger or smaller territories, and established their own shrines and sacrificial rituals. Posiedon gained the island of Atlantis as his province, and he settled there the children borne for him by a mortal woman in a certain part of the island. To be specific, halfway along the coastline there was aplain which is said to be unsurpassable in its beauty, and good and fertile too. Close to the plain and halfway along its extent, about 50 stades distant from the coast, there was a hill of no great prominence. There lived on this hill a man who was one of the original earth-born men of the land. He was called Evenor, and he lived with his wife, Leucippe. They had just one child, a daughter called Cleito. When the girl reached the age for marriage, both her mother and father died, but Poseidon, who had come to desire her, made her his concubine. He gave the hill where she lived secure defences by breaking it off from the surrounding land and creating increasingly large concentric rings, alternately of land and water, around it. Two of the rings were of land, three of water, and he made them equidistant from the centre, as if he had taken the middle of the island as the pivot of a lathe."

Timaeus and Critias. Oxford World Classics. Translation by Robin Waterfield.

Atlantis was an island, with another island made of the hill in its interior. I don't know where the author of the article gained their information about Atlantis, but it wasn't from the original (and only) source.

[cormac mac airt]

The likelihood is that Plato pulled together a variety of flood myths he had heard of in an attempt to confuse the likes of us.

The likelihood is that Plato created a story to make a point to his audience. Which totally escapes many people now-a-days who are looking for a real location.

What some don't know or take into account, is that whether c.5600 BC or 7400 BC, both timeframes fall into a period when there is evidence that the Persian Gulf was (for the most part) dry.

Source

Anyone living in the southern part of Mesopotamia would have a better reason to remember stories of that rise in water level than some story from the Black Sea area, some 900+ miles away.

cormac

[SlimJim22]

Very interesting. It works for me. However, for the sake of argument here is some more speculation.

The Sumerians left behind legends about the gods and their early settlement as told in the "Barton Tablets". These according to Christian O'brian "The Genius of the Few", tell of a land "of the gods" which at one time became frozen and cold, and eventually forced them south. I consider these myths about the Sumerian "gods" to be ancient recollections of very early events remembered for millenniums, that actually happened to the ancestors of the Sumerians, about their old homelands in the frozen land areas like Siberia. They called this place "Karsag". I believe that this freezing was caused by the shift in the North Pole 13,000 years ago, which plunged Central Siberia from a temperate climate to a polar climate, where the ground a few feet from the surface never thaws out. Scientists have found frozen mammoths in Siberia, whose stomachs were still filled with plants that are known to live only in temperate climates, and not in the arctic regions.

http://users.cwnet.com/millenia/Sumer-origins.htm

Plato's Atlantis is a flood myth but there are other flood myths and this is only relevant as to a possible connection to the origins of the sumerians. An evaluation of Plato is not warranted imo.

Personally, I prefer the Persian Gulf to the Black sea as an origin for the sumerians but it is possible that weather flooded both areas at similar times, adding to the confusion.

[Guest]

My money is on Sundeland as the mythical Eden home in the east.

Br Cornelius

[Leonardo]

Plato's Atlantis is a flood myth but there are other flood myths and this is only relevant as to a possible connection to the origins of the sumerians. An evaluation of Plato is not warranted imo.

Personally, I don't see any connection between Plato, flood mythology, and a possible origin of the Sumerians. The Sumerians mythology did not describe their origin as being an escape from a flood, so I see no reason we should suppose that of them.

I appreciate this is not a discussion about Plato, or about Atlantis, but you presented something which may have been a precursor to an argument heading in that direction, and I wished to nip that in the bud.

There is certainly a flood mythology in Sumerian lore, but this is not describing their origins. The Barton Tablets, as you point out, suggest a migration enforced by climactic change, not by flood.

It is my understanding that some scholarship points to an area of southern Lebanon as being the location of Karsag, an area bordered by modern day Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. If so, it is possible that one of two 'dry events' of the Holocene (ocurring at ~8.6 and 8.2 kybp) led to a cooling of the area (or possibly a cooling event initiated the 'dry events') and instigated the proto-Sumerian migrations south and east.

Edited August 29, 2010 by Leonardo

[SlimJim22]

It just goes to show how complex and unsure archeologists and ancient historians are as to the facts and how to interpret them. The word Eden originates with Sumer.

Eden consists of the very special mountaineous region of central Asia where four great rivers spring out of the huge massif that separates the Hunza valley in north Pakistan from the Wakhan valley of the eastern Afghanistan province of Badakshan. This is also the region where four mighty mountain ranges join, namely the Karakorum from SE, the Hindukush from SW, the Pamir-Tienshan from NW, the Kunlun from NE. The precise borders of Eden are undefinable, but the fact that the Garden is said to lie in the eastern part suggests that several regions, consisting of fluvial valleys, made up Eden. This consideration will be reinforced by the analysis of the Sumerian texts presented in this paper. We think that Eden comprised at least the Hunza Valley ( the Garden, GAN), the upper Gihon valley, i.e. the Badakshan (location of the only known mine of lapislazuli in ancient times, the Blue Mountain; and probably of the antediluvian city of Bad Tibira), and the upper valley of the Mintaka-Tashkurgan river, the present Karakol, down at least to the city of Tashkurgan (the city of "Ashur" as we argued). Our discussion of Apsu has taken us to times much later than the creation event. We know from Sumerian texts that several cities existed before the Flood (three gods are even claimed to have reigned in Bad Tibira for 108.000 years, see [40]); we also know from Genesis that cities were build and metallurgy had been developed in the land settled by the descendents of Cain, the land of Nod, that we in [1] identified with the heart of Asia. From the previous scenario and our work in [1] we are led to a tentative identification of the location of the following prediluvian cities of the Sumerian tradition:

Uruk is the same as biblical Ashur, the "city of Asia"; thus it is possibly present Tashkurgan in the Karakol

Nippur, being associated with the Ekur, the mountain palace of Enlil, was probably the main settlement in the Hunza valley

Bad Tibira was located in Badakshan, at a place convenient for trade and for working the lapis lazuli of the Blue Mountain (and possibly work of the jade imported from the region of Khotan)

Shurrupak was in present Xinjang, probably at some distance from the southern shore of the Apsu

Sippar was also in Xinjang, or possibly near the flooded basin of Tsaidam, in Xinghai.

http://itis.volta.alessandria.it/episteme/ep7/ep7-eden.htm

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/gilgamesh.html

In one of the Mesopotamian

Six versions of the Ancient Near East flood story (Ziusudra, Atrahasis, Gilgamesh XI, Genesis 6-9, etc. [3.1]

Among the works written in Akkadian cuneiform are the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Atrahasis Epic. [3.2] The Atrahasis Epic was a story writted in the early 2nd millennium B.C. in Akkadian. [3.3]

The šuruppak flood fits this date, and it is perhaps not a coincidence that the hero of Eridu Genesis, the Epic of Atrahasis, and the Epic of Gilgameš is a king of šuruppak. [3.4]

http://cpedia.com/wiki?q=Atrahasis&guess_ambig=Tiamet+Apsu+

Maybe the Enuma Elish describes a tropical cyclone rather than a rise in sea levels, I really do not know but it has always appeared to me that Utnapistim was the basis for Noah. Mankind being saved and all that. You may be right though, their origins may not lie in the flood myth but they precede the flood by some margin. Perhaps following the flood it just became more important to keep records and build using stone. I seriously have no clue where they originate from although I'm aware of the many possibilities. This is one reason why I think it may be a case of polygenesis.

[Guest]

The linguistic elements of this article are interesting;

http://ezinearticles.com/?Tracing-the-Origin-of-Ancient-Sumerians&id=311587

I think the conclusion they draw is wrong in that I think the Indus Valley Civilization which they site as the origin is infact a contemporary rump of an older lost Ice age culture. It certainly suggests that a middle eastern or Eurasia origin is highly suspect.

Br Cornelius

[cormac mac airt]

It just goes to show how complex and unsure archeologists and ancient historians are as to the facts and how to interpret them. The word Eden originates with Sumer.

Eden consists of the very special mountaineous region of central Asia where four great rivers spring out of the huge massif that separates the Hunza valley in north Pakistan from the Wakhan valley of the eastern Afghanistan province of Badakshan. This is also the region where four mighty mountain ranges join, namely the Karakorum from SE, the Hindukush from SW, the Pamir-Tienshan from NW, the Kunlun from NE. The precise borders of Eden are undefinable, but the fact that the Garden is said to lie in the eastern part suggests that several regions, consisting of fluvial valleys, made up Eden. This consideration will be reinforced by the analysis of the Sumerian texts presented in this paper. We think that Eden comprised at least the Hunza Valley ( the Garden, GAN), the upper Gihon valley, i.e. the Badakshan (location of the only known mine of lapislazuli in ancient times, the Blue Mountain; and probably of the antediluvian city of Bad Tibira), and the upper valley of the Mintaka-Tashkurgan river, the present Karakol, down at least to the city of Tashkurgan (the city of "Ashur" as we argued). Our discussion of Apsu has taken us to times much later than the creation event. We know from Sumerian texts that several cities existed before the Flood (three gods are even claimed to have reigned in Bad Tibira for 108.000 years, see [40]); we also know from Genesis that cities were build and metallurgy had been developed in the land settled by the descendents of Cain, the land of Nod, that we in [1] identified with the heart of Asia. From the previous scenario and our work in [1] we are led to a tentative identification of the location of the following prediluvian cities of the Sumerian tradition:

Uruk is the same as biblical Ashur, the "city of Asia"; thus it is possibly present Tashkurgan in the Karakol

Nippur, being associated with the Ekur, the mountain palace of Enlil, was probably the main settlement in the Hunza valley

Bad Tibira was located in Badakshan, at a place convenient for trade and for working the lapis lazuli of the Blue Mountain (and possibly work of the jade imported from the region of Khotan)

Shurrupak was in present Xinjang, probably at some distance from the southern shore of the Apsu

Sippar was also in Xinjang, or possibly near the flooded basin of Tsaidam, in Xinghai.

http://itis.volta.alessandria.it/episteme/ep7/ep7-eden.htm

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/gilgamesh.html

In one of the Mesopotamian

Six versions of the Ancient Near East flood story (Ziusudra, Atrahasis, Gilgamesh XI, Genesis 6-9, etc. [3.1]

Among the works written in Akkadian cuneiform are the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Atrahasis Epic. [3.2] The Atrahasis Epic was a story writted in the early 2nd millennium B.C. in Akkadian. [3.3]

The šuruppak flood fits this date, and it is perhaps not a coincidence that the hero of Eridu Genesis, the Epic of Atrahasis, and the Epic of Gilgameš is a king of šuruppak. [3.4]

http://cpedia.com/wiki?q=Atrahasis&guess_ambig=Tiamet+Apsu+

Maybe the Enuma Elish describes a tropical cyclone rather than a rise in sea levels, I really do not know but it has always appeared to me that Utnapistim was the basis for Noah. Mankind being saved and all that. You may be right though, their origins may not lie in the flood myth but they precede the flood by some margin. Perhaps following the flood it just became more important to keep records and build using stone. I seriously have no clue where they originate from although I'm aware of the many possibilities. This is one reason why I think it may be a case of polygenesis.

If I knew of one, the top part of this post would deserve a TRIPLE face-palm.

cormac

[The_Spartan]

Funny thing is that ..after being really bothered about the origins of the people of sumer, i asked some experts at allexperts ....no answer...all sayit is beyond their area of expertise..hmmmmmmmm

[ShadowSot]

If I knew of one, the top part of this post would deserve a TRIPLE face-palm.

cormac

I'm helping.

[cormac mac airt]

I'm helping.

Thanks ShadowSot, much appreciated.

cormac

Edited August 29, 2010 by cormac mac airt

[Abramelin]

Very interesting. It works for me. However, for the sake of argument here is some more speculation.

The Sumerians left behind legends about the gods and their early settlement as told in the "Barton Tablets". These according to Christian O'brian "The Genius of the Few", tell of a land "of the gods" which at one time became frozen and cold, and eventually forced them south. I consider these myths about the Sumerian "gods" to be ancient recollections of very early events remembered for millenniums, that actually happened to the ancestors of the Sumerians, about their old homelands in the frozen land areas like Siberia. They called this place "Karsag". I believe that this freezing was caused by the shift in the North Pole 13,000 years ago, which plunged Central Siberia from a temperate climate to a polar climate, where the ground a few feet from the surface never thaws out. Scientists have found frozen mammoths in Siberia, whose stomachs were still filled with plants that are known to live only in temperate climates, and not in the arctic regions.

http://users.cwnet.com/millenia/Sumer-origins.htm

Jim, do you come to the same conclusions when you read the translation of those Barton Tablets?

Here they are:

http://www.piney.com/EnumaBar1.html

http://www.piney.com/EnumaBar2.html

http://www.piney.com/EnumaBar3.html

http://www.piney.com/EnumaBar4.html

http://www.piney.com/EnumaBar5.html

http://www.piney.com/EnumaBar6.html

http://www.piney.com/EnumaBar7.html

.

Edited August 29, 2010 by Abramelin

[lightly]

Scientists have found frozen mammoths in Siberia, whose stomachs were still filled with plants that are known to live only in temperate climates, and not in the arctic regions.[/i]

hey Slim, please excuse a small detour to ask for a short answer to a short question about the above statement ? I've run across that claim many times and i would simply like to know if it is true. Is it true?

Which one , or two, of you bipedal libraries would like to answer ? please? Thanks. ( Interesting exchange going on in here. )

[The_Spartan]

lightly, animals don't just stay in one place for all the time. They migrate to warmer climates during extreme winters.

Those mammoths could have migrated.

The mammoth "discovered" in the arctic doesn't have "stomachs were still filled with plants that are known to live only in temperate climates, and not in the arctic regions"

Check out Lubya

Upon finding, the calf was remarkably well-preserved; her eyes and trunk were intact and some fur remained on her body. The mammoth was transferred to Jikei University School of Medicine in Japan for further studying, including computer tomography scans. Lyuba is believed to have suffocated, from inhaling mud as she struggled while bogged down in deep mud in the bed of a river which her herd was crossing. The clay-like substance that likely suffocated her also "pickled" her, preserving the mammoth in a nearly pristine state. Her skin and organs are intact, and scientists were able to identify milk from her mother in her stomach, and fecal matter in her intestine, including evidence that, like some modern young elephants, she ate adult herd members' faeces to build up a normal intestinal flora of bacteria to help to digest plant material. While previously discovered mammoth specimens, which are less well-preserved than Lyuba, appeared to be starving, Lyuba appears very healthy. Lyuba's organs and skin are in perfect condition.[3] By examining Lyuba's teeth, researchers hope to gain insight into what caused Ice Age mammals, including the mammoths, to become extinct at the end of the Pleistocene era around 10,000 years ago.

Slim...do you have any links that provides evidence that the plants the mammoths ate, are not from arctic region and are from temperate areas?

Second, the website slim has quoted is a uber fringe website.

Hell...i googled/searched all over the place for "Karsag" and i got the same matter...in every site i could find.

I read the translation of the Barton tablets, searched for something that's mentioned in Slim's quote...came up with Nada, zilch!!

Then i googled for Karsag again and got one pdf file that is from University of Pennsylvania/University Museum/Babylonian section

SUMERIAN LITURGIES AND PSALMS

again..nothing!! hmmmmm

Edited August 29, 2010 by The Spartan

[SlimJim22]

They rejoiced, they uttered blessing: "Marduk is king!"

They bestowed upon him the scepter, the throne, and the battle-axe;

They gave him an unrivaled weapon, which turns back the foe,

"Go, Tiamat's Life cut off;

May the winds bear her blood to secret places!"

When the gods, his fathers had fixed Bel's fate,

The way of prosperity and success they caused him to take.

His bow he prepared, his weapon he chose,

A spear he bound on him at his waist.

He raised the heavenly weapon, with his right hand grasped it,

His bow and quiver at his side he hung,

He placed the lightning before his face,

With quivering flame his body he filled.

He made a net to enclose Tiamat's body,

He caused the four winds to seize so that nothing of her could escape;

The south wind, the north wind, the east wind, the west wind,

He brought to the side of the net, the gift of his father Anu,

He made the evil wind, the bad wind, the tempest and the hurricane,

The four winds, the seven winds, the whirlwind, the unhealthy wind;

He brought forth the winds which he had made, the seven of them,

To trouble the inward parts of Tiamat, they came after him.

The lord raised up the tornado, his mighty weapon,

As a chariot, a storm unrivaled for terror he mounted,

He harnessed for himself and attached to it four steeds,

"Destroyer," "Unmerciful," Overwhelmer," "Fleet-footed."

[Foam-covered] were their teeth, filled with poison,

Skilled were they [to run dow], taught to destroy.

http://www.piney.com/EnumaBar4.html

Does this describe in cloaked terms an extraplanetary body as some suggest? Or is it a history, written as myth of a matriarchal water based culture. I have said earlier how Atlantis could be read as an allegory of the demise of such a culture. Maybe there is no parallel but Tiamat sounds like one bad mutha.

Hurricanes are mentioned but as a way of fighting this dragoness. Either it was a pretty big event, perhaps including a flood or one hell of a fight with a culture that suffered in a storm. Far from clear either way but that's what I get from what I've read.

[SlimJim22]

lightly, animals don't just stay in one place for all the time. They migrate to warmer climates during extreme winters.

Those mammoths could have migrated.

The mammoth "discovered" in the arctic doesn't have "stomachs were still filled with plants that are known to live only in temperate climates, and not in the arctic regions"

Check out Lubya

Slim...do you have any links that provides evidence that the plants the mammoths ate, are not from arctic region and are from temperate areas?

Second, the website slim has quoted is a uber fringe website.

Hell...i googled/searched all over the place for "Karsag" and i got the same matter...in every site i could find.

I read the translation of the Barton tablets, searched for something that's mentioned in Slim's quote...came up with Nada, zilch!!

Then i googled for Karsag again and got one pdf file that is from University of Pennsylvania/University Museum/Babylonian section

SUMERIAN LITURGIES AND PSALMS

again..nothing!! hmmmmm

It is a load of balls. I do not adhere to the quick freeze hypothesis. I was putting forward that side of view as I learnt about it. This site seems to explain the reasons against it quite well.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/fit/chapter15.asp

I prefer the preceding sumerian culture to be based towards the south. Using the Tiamat idea above as a water based matriarchal culture they are most likely to be centred around the coast of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean and Med. Maybe Marduk is a metaphor for the northern tribes who defeated them thanks to horses and chariots. Resulting in the restructuring including agriculture to support a more European based culture. Sumerian propaganda perhaps.

This must be the Kharsag site you meant was it?

http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/kharsagresearch_3.php

[The_Spartan]

It is a load of balls. I do not adhere to the quick freeze hypothesis. I was putting forward that side of view as I learnt about it. This site seems to explain the reasons against it quite well.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/fit/chapter15.asp

I prefer the preceding sumerian culture to be based towards the south. Using the Tiamat idea above as a water based matriarchal culture they are most likely to be centred around the coast of the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean and Med. Maybe Marduk is a metaphor for the northern tribes who defeated them thanks to horses and chariots. Resulting in the restructuring including agriculture to support a more European based culture. Sumerian propaganda perhaps.

This must be the Kharsag site you meant was it?

http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/kharsagresearch_3.php

Regarding using a creationist website as a source is not at all proving anything. How about scientific Journals etc??

But where is this Karsag/Khasag mentioned in the barton tablets or any other such literature?

The Sumerians left behind legends about the gods and their early settlement as told in the "Barton Tablets". These according to Christian O'brian "The Genius of the Few", tell of a land "of the gods" which at one time became frozen and cold, and eventually forced them south. I consider these myths about the Sumerian "gods" to be ancient recollections of very early events remembered for millenniums, that actually happened to the ancestors of the Sumerians, about their old homelands in the frozen land areas like Siberia. They called this place "Karsag".

I dont find any mention.

The quote you have posted is from the golden age project, a fringe offering.

Why isnt this Kharsag Epics, which were translated by O'Brien not validated by experts? Peer Review??? If O'Brien claims to have discovered the location of Kharsag, why didnt he not give the location to proper archaeologists to study/excavate?? Fishy!!!

There is no excavations anywhere in any place called kharsag.

More on O'Brien

He further argues that the suggestion that the Sumerians introduced a calendar which made agriculture viable ignored the fact that agriculture had already existed in the area for over a thousand years, saying that "the book is full of statements which only confirm O'Brien's ignorance of our current knowledge of prehistory."[5] O'Brien made the geological discovery of a substantial hanging river bed on São Miguel Island. From detailed surveys[citation needed] of the Portuguese Admiralty Charts of the ocean floor in the area of the Azores in February 1973, he argued for the former existence of a large island at this location on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge which he believed to be Atlantis. He also made updated translations of the Bruce Codex, Askew Codex and what he called the Kharsag Epics.

Oh Boy! here comes Atlantis!!

O'Brien has been now categorized as GENUINE FRINGE!!

Edited August 29, 2010 by The Spartan

[SlimJim22]

Climb down. I agree entirely. I didn't notice the link on the mammoths was a creationist site. Terms like that go over my head. It looked like it was based on science at first glance and it was the first I foundm it told me what I wanted. That plants could have survived depite quick freeze nd that there are up to 50,000 preserved mammoths compared to a million decaying ones. Ergo no need to think it was a tropical climate or that any kind of event other than what science confirms.

On the Kharsag site. It kind of gives it a way with the hold goldenageproject but yeah it is as fringe as it gets. I didn't think I need to express this as it is clearly evident.

Kharsag however, means mountain so this O'Brian dude has just picked a mountain with a bit of pedigree. Obviously being such a sensitive area means his theoires can be neither proved or disproved. To give you a flavour of what sort of thing he believes. It is something like a temple of Hathor on Mt Hermon that has signs of metalurgy and alchemy. The location where the sons of God or watchers descended, etc, etc. You get the gist it is all a load of make believe but how many people have surveyed the area to sy this is all a crock. That's what you get for reading the book of Enoch without your skeptic glasses on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Hermon

[Harte]

hey Slim, please excuse a small detour to ask for a short answer to a short question about the above statement ? I've run across that claim many times and i would simply like to know if it is true. Is it true?

Which one , or two, of you bipedal libraries would like to answer ? please? Thanks. ( Interesting exchange going on in here. )

Lightly,

As you certainly suspected, the claim is false.

Then Mr. Hancock in MOM further claimed;

When their stomachs contents are examined, as they have been, they are found to have been grazing on warm weather vegetation. Yet, they are now positioned extremely close to the North Pole.

Numerous studies of the pollen and vegetable remains found in the stomachs clearly prove these claims to be false. Uraintseva (1993) summarizes the results of studies by several Russian geologists and palynologists from the guts or sediments surrounding these carcasses, i.e. Dima (Belya and Kisterova 1978), Berezoka Mammoth (Tikhomirov and Kupriyanova 1954), the Selerikahn Horse (Tikhomirov and Kultina 1973), and many more studies. (See Uraintseva for the references.) In none of these cases were any evidence of "warm weather vegetation" found. On this point, an abundance of evidence clearly proves MOM and Mr. Hancock to be greatly mistaken and unaware of significant data and research concerning the subject about which they are talking.

Source

"MOM" refers to the crockumentary "Mysterious Origins of Man" with Charleton Heston.

The claim that mammoths were found with buttercups in their stomachs and mouths is possibly quite valid though.

But the scam artists foisting their fantasies on you either don't know, or count on you not knowing (or not bothering to find out) that the buttercups found were native to the Steppes and the tundra.

Arctic Buttercups.

As an aside, another claim made about these mammoths is that "thousands" of them died very quickly and then were "flash-frozen" by some extreme event, after which the claim of some connection to the destruction of the "ancient unknown civilization" that left a mighty legacy (of, apparently, neatly stacking stones in a stable shape) to the survivors is made.

In fact, only about ten such mammoths have ever been found. Most of them were in pieces. And all of them died in different times - usually there are thousands of years difference between the ages of these carcasses.

So, there you have it.

Harte

EDIT: Forgot to include the link to Talk Origins.

H.

Edited August 30, 2010 by Harte