Questions for the New Year from the Ancients

Long, long ago (perhaps in the first half of the third millennium B.C.) in a land once called Mesopotamia, people wrote their stories in the wedge-shaped language of cuneiform in wet clay tablets and then baked the tablets for posterity. They couldn’t know that repeated floods would bury and wash away many of their records. Some have been recovered, but yet older tablets may exist beyond even modern reach deeper beneath the waters. Looters later stole many surviving tablets to sell to wealthy collectors, re-used the blocks in construction, or destroyed them to prevent descendants from questioning the version of history they preferred (acts that still happen today). The records were the work of extremely ancient peoples, the most enigmatic of whom we call the Sumerians who were distinct from neighboring cultures and whose language bore no resemblance to others. Why do we care? Their records may describe a turning point for humankind.

In his book EDEN: THE SUMERIAN VERSION OF GENESIS, Anton Parks tells us what he has laboriously translated and concluded from extant bits of tablets. He contends the Sumerian versions of Genesis were written much, much earlier than the Biblical offering and are the easily identifiable source for many Genesis stories. Aside from his acknowledged expertise in translating ancient languages, Parks is also known for daring to question material that religious zealots have adapted into their doctrines. Parks follows his own reasoning.

Ancient timelines are dependent upon evidence, and as explorers discover previously unknown cities, we realize that pinning those pre-history societies to a particular point is a task beyond our current capabilities. Many are adamant that such a revelation will end in no good. So, for our purposes (stimulating thought), we’ll blindly accept that we’re talking about thousands of years ago—perhaps a hundred thousand or more—when the geography of Earth looked much different. According to tablet histories, a group of what we’ll call Anunnaki (referred to as gods due to their unique abilities) were permanently banished from their home star cluster of the Pleiades and sent to Earth. They chose to genetically improve upon the primitive humans they found to make them suitable as laborers—essentially slaves they deemed animals and kept in pens. Little did they know that the dark indigenous humans carried diseases that were unknown to the newcomers, diseases that contaminated their gardens when the gate was left open so that they were forced to burn large sections. In reaction, the Anunnaki built wooden barriers to keep the humans out.

One of the Anunnaki (Enki), sympathetic to their plight, chose to intervene on behalf of the humans. He gave to Woman the secrets of weaving, agriculture and metallurgy to spread among the humans so they would be able to care for themselves. At this point, humans had a far-reaching decision to make. Would they use their new knowledge to create a peaceful civilization as Enki’s mother (a geneticist) had envisioned or would they choose to use their metals for weapons to make war? We know the answer so far. Whether we accept the scholarship of the Sumerians and Parks or not, we can’t escape the evidence around us.

As the clock ticks into a new year, we face the same choice that may have first been made in our beginning. Will we use our vast resources and intelligence to make life better for all living things on Earth—including the planet—or continue to run blindly after power and wealth, using war and violence to impose our will, using fellow humans as expendable pawns? What is it we’ve learned during our eons here?