1

The stars of Göbekli Tepe

and their survival in Sumerian and Akkadian myths

© Elke Baumgarte

Knowing is a barrier to learning. (Frank Herbert)

Scientists in the field of Ancient Near Eastern studies have always denied that the ancient

Mesopotamians had any knowledge about precession of the poles and equinoxes. It seems that

the archaeological findings at Göbekli Tepe have proved them wrong.

The mysterious site in the south-east of Turkey, being excavated by a joint Turkish-German

team, is possibly the most important archaeological discovery ever. Many of the animals

carved into the stones are animals known to be representations of stars and constellations: bull

(Taurus), several snakes (Draco, Hydra, Serpens), scorpion (Scorpio), eagle (Aquila), which

managed to survive until the present time. Others, like boar (šaḫ), spider (uttu),

leopard/panther (nimru) and more, are known to have been Sumero-Babylonian stars or

constellations1. Göbekli Tepe may not only have been the ‘first temple’, as the excavator, the

German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt2 proposed, but also the ‘first university’, with

astronomy as curriculum.

Göbekli Tepe’s circles of pillars were clearly built for astronomical observation and

documentation. The observations here go incredibly deep into the past, so this must have been

the place (or maybe one of the places) where over thousands of years ‘problems’ like

precession of the poles and equinoxes and other celestial mysteries were discovered and

documented. When Neolithic people, mostly being nomads, who by definition are always on

the move, want to study the - very slow - changes in the sky over long periods of time, they

have to find themselves a fixed place from where to observe. Circle formations all over the

world are known to be tools for observing the movement of celestial bodies. Stone circles, be

it Stonehenge in the UK, Nabta Playa in Egypt, Mzora in Morocco or Native American

medicine wheels, helped to recognize and remember the slow changes in the location of rising

and setting stars and planets on the horizon. Too slow to notice in one person's lifetime, but

noticeable if you manage to remember what your ancestors told you. And if you live in a

1 The animals identified as northern lions in Göbekli Tepe are probably leopards. Male lions have manes and the

creatures here are clearly male, but have no manes. Also, lion’s tails are relatively thin, with a tassel at the end,

while the tails on the Göbekli Tepe pillars look like leopards’ tails. Leopards are also very much present in not so

far away Ҫatalhöyük. 2 (Schmidt, 2008)

2

society that has not yet invented writing, the next best thing to do is to create symbols and

pictures as memory aids, carve them into stone or paint them onto cave walls or scratch them

into rock or wood. Ĝiš-ḫur, the Sumerian word for plan, design, blueprint (of the world, the

universe or a building), literally translated means: ‘scratch wood’. A hint, that before the

Sumerians invented clay tablets, they probably already used wood and stone to memorize

symbols.

Every time the known constellations had changed too much through precession – some had

disappeared below the horizon, new ones had risen – the visible sky no longer matched the

myth, which memorized the layout of known stars and constellations. The old circle would

have to be left, a new circle had to be built, and the myth had to be edited. This would explain

why the circles in Göbekli Tepe were covered up so often. They no longer were up to date.

Ever since Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha von Dechend’s book ‘Hamlet’s mill’ was

published3 , we know how knowledge was transmitted through time. But it is Göbekli Tepe

that shows us how it was acquired. The stone carvings at Göbekli Tepe demonstrate that the

knowledge the Sumerians remembered was at least 12,000 years old at the time when they

first wrote it down. The stories depicted on the pillars of Göbekli Tepe are referred to in

several Sumerian and Assyro-Babylonian epics and myths. The Sumerian poem ‘Ninurta and

the turtle’4 for instance, and the Akkadian ‘Anzu Epic’

5 tell about the precession of the North

Pole.

Pillar 43 in Göbekli Tepe in particular commemorates a moment in time when the North Pole

was in the constellation Cygnus (the original Anzu(d) bird) and the vernal equinox point was

in ‘the Claws of Scorpio’ around 15,000 BCE.

Precession

The earth's axis is off the right angle to the rotational plane by 23,5 ° and behaves like a

spinning top, due to the combined pull of the gravity of sun and moon. The extension of the

axis through the center of the earth and both celestial poles describes a full circle around the

pole of the ecliptic against the background of the stars. The celestial pole’s movement along

this circle is 1° in 72 years and takes nearly 26,000 years to complete.6

3 (Santilliana, 1969)

4 ETCSL 1.6.3. Ninurta and the Turtle

5 (Dalley, revized edition 2000), p. 203 onward

6 see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession

3

On its way around this precessional circle the pole moves through several constellations.

Through Cepheus with Panther/Leopard (they were joined at the hip, so to speak) from

approximately 22,000 to 18,000 BCE. Through Cygnus from about 16,000 to 13,000 BCE.

Through Lyra around 12,000 BCE. It entered the constellation Hercules by 10,000 BCE, but

the stars of Hercules are weak and rather far from the precessional circle, and the following

stretch has no visible stars at all. So for the next seven thousand years there was no visible

Pole Star in the North and people had to look for guidance somewhere else, namely to the

South Pole and its precessional circle, and to Canopus after it became visible above the

horizon in Mesopotamia. From about 3000 BCE onward Canopus was sitting exactly on the

horizon for a short time every year, and for the next few thousand years it slowly lifted a little

off the southern horizon in a very low arc. But around 3000 BCE the pole in the north then

entered the constellation Draco, and Thuban (α Draconis) became the northern Pole Star. In

our time Polaris (α Ursae Minoris) is Pole Star and 2000 years from now it will be - full circle

- back in Cepheus again.

Going around in circles

The Panther

The leopard or panther is the first in the circle of constellations that can be identified on the

pillars of Göbekli Tepe and later still can be recognized in Sumerian myths with the help of

ancient texts. Its general position in the sky was passed down through the millennia and

eventually written down on clay tablets by Assyrian and Babylonian astronomers. How old

the actual observations really are is not known. But in the first Millennium BCE they were

collected and written down by Mesopotamian scribes in a series of texts called MUL.APIN

(‘plow star’), after the first line on the tablet, as was customary for ancient Mesopotamian

texts. Broken clay tablets with fragments of these texts were found by archaeologists in

temple and palace libraries and scribal schools all over the Middle East. An astronomer and a

philologist, David Pingree and Hermann Hunger have collected, compiled, transcribed and

translated this esoteric material under the name MUL.APIN.7

In these first millennium BCE texts, the name of the panther is written with the cuneiform

signs UD.KA.DUḪ.A, which literally translated means “The (storm)demon with the wide

open mouth”. It is read ‘nimru’ ˃ leopard/panther, however, by ancient and modern scholars

7 (Pingree, 1989)

4

alike, an Akkadian name derived from the word for “bright”. Hunger and Pingree placed it in

the northern sky, built from parts of the constellations: “Cygnus, Lacerta, and parts of

Cassiopeia and Cepheus”.8

The ‘Lion’ stele from Göbekli Tepe enabled the recognition of the panther constellation in the

sky. The texts in MUL.APIN already pointed in the right direction.

The head of the panther is made up of the stars Schedar (α Cas), Caph (β Cas), Kappa (ϰ) and

Gamma (γ) Cassiopeiae. The stars Eta (η) and Upsilon (υ1+υ

2) Cas. make up the “wide open

mouth”. The square shape of the head is easily detected with the naked eye (lower part of

Cassiopeia). The back is shaped by the sharp contrast between the Milky Way (contour of the

back) against the black starless background of the sky.

8 (Pingree, 1989), p. 138: (Path of Enlil) 27

Illustration 1: The northern ‘lion’in Göbekli Tepe

5

mul

UD-KA-DUḪ-A > dU.GUR > nimru Nergal > The panther Nergal

9

Illustration 3: Naked eye impression of Panther

9 (Pingree, 1989), p.26: I i 28

Illustration 2: The panther Nergal

6

The belly is not clearly visible, but the belly of an earthly panther would be hidden in

vegetation too. The only visible parts of a leopard on the prowl are its head, back and tail. The

constellation of Lacerta forms part of its hind legs, but most important is the tail. The panthers

tail shares several stars with Cepheus, beginning at the base with Erakis, Herschel’s blood-red

Garnet star (μ Cep), Nu (ν Cep), and Al-Kurhah, Xi (ξ Cep), who all three in time were Pole

Star on or near the precessional circle. The rest of the tail consists of Iota (ι) Cep, HIP

11386410

, Omicron (ο) Cephei and HIP 114831, forming an S-curve over the panther’s back.

For four thousand years - from 22,000 to 18,000 BCE - the pole moved through the

constellation Cepheus. From 20,000 to 18,000 BCE it also wandered along the tail of the

‘Panther’. To the Stone Age people that must have been quite a sight, especially when

observing the behavior of the red star Erakis. The ‘Panther’ and Cepheus turning around each

other all night every night for thousands of years. A scene worth remembering. It might even

have been the behavior of this bright red star - Erakis - that inspired the ancients to undertake

efforts to keep an eye on the situation and to remember it. At first - when Al-Kurhah was Pole

Star - they would have seen this bright red star making circles around the pole. In time the

circle would have grown smaller when Xi Cephei became Pole Star until at last it would make

circles around empty space for a very long time. No wonder the Sumerians and the

Babylonians after them still held some faint memories of that far past. Though by then the

accent was no longer on the ‘Panther’ Nergal, but more on the ‘god’ Nergal - dNergal

11. The

Sumerians visualized Nergal as a young warrior with a scimitar and a mace12

, the son of Enlil,

the Lord of the northern hemisphere of the sky (air), but some of the qualities he was

endowed with remember his predatory past:

Nergal, dragon covered with gore, drinking the blood of living creatures.13

Nergal, you pour their blood down the wadis like rain14

(Said of Šulgi): “…as if you were Nergal, your battle mace drools with gore and your spear

reaches into the blood of the land”.15

10

HIP = Hipparcos star catalogue 11

The little d before the gods name is the determinative for divinity. It always means that the name following the

little d is the name of a god 12

http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/nergal 13

ETCSL 2.5.2.1. An adab to Nergal for Šu-ilīšu (A) - 16 14

ETCSL 2.5.2.1. An adab to Neragal for Šu-ilīšu (A) - 52 15

ETCSL 2.4.2.24 A praise poem of Šulgi 119-120

7

Moreover, the several cuneiform signs with which Nergals

name was written over time, record either his position on or

his movement around the precessional circle of the North

Pole. The oldest and also the longest remembered name is

UD-KA-DUḪ-A, the “(storm)-demon with the wide open

mouth”. It stems from the time when the North Pole was in

the tail of the panther. The name UD-KA-DUḪ-A was still

remembered in Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian times (first

millennium BCE), when it was written down in MUL.APIN.

Before this statement can be validated, something needs to be said about the first sign in the

name – UD. It is one of many ancient code words which carried the knowledge about

precession through the millennia. (There are more. They will be dealt with later.) This sign

has many meanings and can be read and pronounced in many ways: ud – storm; u4 –

day,daylight; utu – sun, sun god; babbar – white and several other words meaning bright, pure

and/or shine. In the compound name UD-KA-DUḪ-A, ud here means storm.

When mythographers speak about ‘storm’, they do not talk about the weather. They often use

weather terminology to explain heavenly phenomena. The ‘ud /storm’, refers to the nightly

and eternal movement of the stars around the North Pole and is tied to the pole, a whirlwind

of stars.

When the pole moves along the precessional circle toward the next constellation, the ‘storm’

moves with it. Whoever holds the pole - constellation, animal or god – has power over the

storm(weapon), the tool to destroy the old ‘world’ and to create a new one. The storm weapon

‘ud’ together with ‘amaru’ 16

, the flood weapon (= the movement of the celestial equator), are

the tools by which the ‘gods’ achieve the reorganization of the heavens, after precession has

obliterated the orally transmitted positions and stations of stars and constellations. When the

pole moves, the two equinox points and two solstice points also move, they move out of the

four constellations in which they reside at that moment, and with them the celestial equator

moves, turning to water what used to be land, hence the ‘flood’ (see later).

In several Sumerian texts the power of the ‘storm’ and the power to cause a ‘flood’ together

with the power to flatten the rebel lands (ki-bala) are attributed to Nergal:

1.Lord, furiously raging storm, confusing the enemies and unleashing (?) great terror over the

land

6. Lord, mighty storm, raging with your great powers 16

amaru – another of those code words

Illustration 4: Heavenly storm

8

14-15.Nergal, angry sea, inspiring fearsome terror, whom no one knows how to confront,

youth whose advance is a hurricane and a flood battering the lands

47. Warrior, you are a great and furious storm upon the land...17

1-3.Hero, majestic, awe-inspiring son of Enlil, battering like a storm and roaring against the

rebel lands (ki-bal). Immense at his front, at his rear surging as a flood, after he ……, …

17-18. When … you command the storm which flattens the hostile land, you devastate its

evil18

These citations place the power of precession of the pole and of the equinoxes, to rearrange

the heavens, into the hands of Nergal, the Panther: storm, flood and ki-bala (see later)

Other names of Nergal19

mirror the fact that he eventually ended up in the ‘underworld’.

When the North Pole moved away from the constellation UD-KA-DUḪ-A ‘nimru’, the

‘Panther’ slowly left the circumpolar space and disappeared below the horizon. The

circumpolar space is a circle around the pole. The stars inside this circle never set. They are

visible all night, every night, all year round. When the pole with its circle moves because of

precession, old stars and constellations are slowly left behind, while new ones enter. While the

pole moved forward, the ‘Panther’ slowly slipped backward, to disappear eventually for

longer and longer periods every night below the northern horizon, the ‘underworld’, which is

expressed by several of his names, for instance: dKIŠ.UNU and

dKIŠ.GIR3.UNU.GAL. Both

are to be read ‘dNergal’, but the original meanings of the cuneiform signs with which these

names are written hint at the fact that he no longer was the center around which the universe

used to circle, but that he was in the underworld. (UNU ˃ urugal2 ˃ underworld), or in his

tomb (UNU.GAL ˃ unugal ˃ tomb). The name dU.GUR also reads ‘

dNergal’. By this name

he was known in Neo-Assyrian times in the first Millennium BCE20

, which confirms the fact

that the priests of that time must have known about the precessional movement of the

northern stars, because the name dU.GUR speaks about it: U˃ u ˃ totality, world (same

meaning as kiš) ; GUR ˃ gur ˃ to turn, to turn away, to return!21

Nergal you, Lord, are one who has the power to carry off and bring back... 22

17

ETCSL 2.5.2.1. An adab to Nergal for Šu-ilīšu (A) – 1, 6, 14-15, 47 18

ETCSL 4.1.5.2 A hymn to Nergal 1-3, 17-18 19

http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/nergal/index.html 20

(Pingree, 1989), I i 28. p.26 21

ePSD 22

ETCSL 2.5.2.1. An adab to Nergal for Šu-ilīšu (A) - 26

9

The Anzud bird and its chick

17,000 years ago, an otherwise nameless star (δ Cygni) was Pole Star. Pillar 43 in Göbekli

Tepe tells exactly that. The constellation we know as Cygnus, the swan, with the star Albireo

as its head at the end of a long neck, was seen by the ancients in an ‘upside-down’ position,

with Deneb (α Cygni) as its head, and Albireo (β Cygni) as its tail. The bird they projected

into the sky and carved into stone was recognizably a vulture. Vultures had a very revered and

possibly feared position in ancient societies. It seems to have been connected to the cult of the

dead. Giving the bodies of the dead to the vultures was part of an ancient ritual, as can be seen

on the murals of Çatalhöyük.23

It is still practiced by Zoroastrians in Iran and Parsi in India.

The bird’s impressive presence in the (night) sky has been passed down to the Sumerians

through the millennia. They knew it as the Anzu(d) bird (IM.DUGUDmušen

). As the Sumerians

had different burial customs, the association with the cult of the dead eventually got lost.

The fledgling on pillar 43 is the representation of the constellation Lyra - the Anzud chick.

Illustration 5: Pillar 43 in Göbekli Tepe, Turkey

23

Ҫatalhöyük is a Neolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, Turkey, which had its heyday about 6000 BCE

10

This scene documents a time around 15,000 BCE, when the Pole Star was near the elbow of

the Anzud Bird (delta Cygni) and the vernal equinox was in the ‘Claws of the Scorpion’24

,

part of contemporary Libra. The star chart below shows the sky as the makers of pillar 43 in

Göbekli Tepe wanted it to be remembered. The line through the North Pole near the elbow of

the Anzud bird is the equinoctial colure, the meridian which passes through both celestial

poles and both equinox points. A few thousand years earlier, around 17,000 BCE, when the

pole was half-way between Erakis in the Panther’s tail and Deneb, the Anzud bird’s eye, this

equinoctial colure lay almost exactly parallel to the Milky Way through the ‘Eagle’ (Aquila),

Illustration 6: 15,000 BCE seen from Göbekli Tepe, Turkey

the ‘Dead Man’ (Scutum) all the way to Scorpio. That the ancient star gazers oriented

themselves by the Milky Way as long as possible, even after the celestial colure had changed

its position, as can be seen in Pillar 43, is easy to understand. The Milky Way is a strong

beacon for finding your bearings in the sky, but even the Milky Way is affected by precession

eventually. When the sky changed so much that the visible stars and constellation no longer

matched the ‘myth’ - the story that was memorized to remember them by - it was time for the

‘gods’ to act, to destroy the old ‘world’ and to create a new one.

24

The names ‘Zubenelgenubi’ = The southern claw (α Lib) and ‘Zubeneshamali’ the northern claw (β Lib), are

Arab names which are still with us, but no longer part of Scorpio.

11

The Tablet of Destinies

The time documented on pillar 43 shows the Pole Star safely ‘installed’ in the constellation

Cygnus (Anzud bird), but the time before that - after it had left Cepheus and the panther, but

before it entered Cygnus (about 17,000 BCE) is remembered in the Akkadian Anzû epic.25

This epic recounts the controversy and strife about the ownership of the ‘Tablet of Destinies’

(Sum.: dub-nam-tar-ra; Akk.: ṭup šīmāti ). Whoever holds the ‘Tablet of Destinies’ has the

authority to rule the world, the universe. It is the legitimation to wield those powers. The

‘Tablet of Destinies’ is one of the code words which carried ancient knowledge through time.

The ‘storm’ was the hurricane of stars dancing around the pole that moves with the pole

wherever it goes, but the ‘Tablet of Destinies’ refers to the pole itself. The god Enlil is the

original holder of those powers. He is the ruler of the northern hemisphere of the sky. It is his

Enlilship, his power of kingship, his power to rule, his power to decree fates, his power to

create and destroy worlds. He grants these powers consecutively to his sons Nergal (the

Panther) and Ninurta (most probably our constellation Hercules). The constellations on the

precessional circle of the North Pole, as the sons of Enlil, in time inherited the ‘Tablet of

Destinies’. Exceptions are Thuban (α Draconis), who is the mother of them all 26

and the

Anzud bird (Cygnus), who did not inherit the ‘Tablet’, but stole it.

It was recorded that after the pole had left the constellations ‘Panther’ and Cepheus, the gods

got worried and warned Enlil about an intruder. Enlil saw this stranger (Anzu(d) ˃ Cygnus)

coming nearer and nearer, and he wondered: he is not one of mine, whose (son) is he?

Following the old adage “Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer” he gave him a

position as doorkeeper:

“Ellil27

appointed him to the entrance of the chamber which he had perfected.

He would bathe in holy water in his presence. His eyes would gaze at the trappings of Ellil-

power: His lordly crown, his robe of divinity, the Tablet of Destinies in his hands. Anzu gazed,

and gazed at Duranki’s god, father of the gods, and fixed his purpose, to usurp the Ellil-power.

Anzu often gazed at Duranki’s god, father of the gods, and fixed his purpose, to usurp the

Ellil-power.

25

(Dalley, revized edition 2000) p.203-227 26

she has many names: ‘Ninmena,Lady of the crown’, ‘Nintur, Lady who gives birth’, ‘Ninmaḫ, Great Lady’,

‘Mother of the Gods’ , ‘Ninḫursaĝa’ and many more 27

Akkadian name of Sumerian Enlil

12

“I shall take the god’s Tablet of Destinies for myself and control the orders for all the gods,

and shall possess the throne and be master of rites! I shall direct every one of the Igigi!”

He plotted opposition in his heart, and at the chamber’s entrance from which he often gazed,

he waited for the start of day.

While Ellil was bathing in the holy water, stripped and with his crown laid down on the

throne, he gained the Tablet of Destinies for himself, took away the Ellil-power. Rites were

abandoned, Anzu flew off and went into hiding”.28

The powers bound to the ‘Tablet of Destinies’: the right to rule the world, the capacity to

change heaven and earth, to flatten mountains (kur), to destroy enemy lands (ki-bala), to

cause a flood (amaru), the right to decree the fates of the gods (nam-tar) are all linked to the

precessional movements of the North Pole. That the ‘rites were abandoned’ documents the

fact that worship to one god stopped – he lost the ‘Tablet of Destinies’ (the pole), meaning his

legitimation to rule - while offerings to and worshipping the new one are still pending.

- The right to rule is originally derived from the task to ‘measure’, that is: to measure and

survey the sky, after precession changed it so much that it no longer fitted the traditional

description of Heavenly Geography. (cf. the double meaning of the word ‘ruler’). Gods are

very often depicted with a rod and a coil of rope in their hands: surveyor’s tools!

- The capacity to change heaven and earth also is a consequence of precession. Stars and

constellations very slowly move from their ‘rightful’ stations, while new ones are taking their

places. It is remarkable that the Sumerian social organization was based on the concept of the

rotation of terms of office (bala), borrowed from the ‘gods’, who suffered this eternal, forced

replacement over and over again through the millennia.

- The capacity to flatten mountains and destroy enemy lands: In mythological texts and

references mountains (kur) are solstices.

A very famous cylinder seal29

portrays the sun god Utu/Šamaš rising at vernal equinox in the

middle between two mountains, the summer and winter solstices (kur), with Inanna/Ištar

(Venus) rising heliacally before him and holding a date spadix (an), a symbol for the sky god

An/Anu, over his head, which places Šamaš at the place were the ‘Stars of Anu’ rise.30

Compare Egyptian hieroglyphs N 26 ‘mountain’ and N27 ‘horizon’, two mountains on

the horizon and the sun rising between them. 31

28

(Dalley, revized edition 2000), p. 206-207 29

ME 89115AN32572001 (the Adda seal) © The Trustees of the British Museum 30

due east. See also: (Pingree, 1989), p.139 31

(Gardiner, 1988 (3rd ed.)), p. 489. See also Egyptian mythology: Sunrise at creation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_creation_myths#mediaviewer/File:Sunrise_at_Creation.jpg

13

Illustration 7: Utu/Šamaš rising due east in the middle between two mountains (kur)

As stated before, when the pole moves, the equinox points move, as do the solstice points.

They move slowly out of one constellation into the next one or better, the constellations

slowly move away from the equinox and solstice points, while new ones take their places and

by doing so the old ‘mountains’ flatten, while the next ones are slowly growing: ki-bala.

Myths, which memorized ‘the old mountains’ had to be edited to accommodate the new ones.

In Mesopotamia the mountains on the Eastern horizon, the Zagros Mountains, provided an

excellent metaphor to use as symbol for these heavenly goings-on. The peoples living in the

Zagros Mountains were constantly tempted to raid the fertile and rich lowlands of Sumer and

Akkad. So the Sumerians and their successors, the Babylonians, were forever battling these

pesky invaders. There are countless praise poems to gods and kings lauding them for

defeating these ‘rebel lands’ (ki-bala). The ‘battling of the gods’ referred to the precessional

activities concerning the ‘heavenly’ mountains (kur ˃ the solstice points). The kings, however,

were obliged to do the same on the earthly plane (the Zagros mountains). The Sumerian word

ki-bala mostly translated as ‘rebel lands’ or ‘enemy lands’ literally translated means

‘overturned’ or ‘revolving’ Earth, describing precession of the equinoxes.

- The capacity to cause a flood: From most ancient times onward people saw in the patterns in

the starry night sky mirror images of their world below. Animals, trees, rivers, mountains,

deserts, oceans, even cities had their counterparts in the sky. They divided the sky into two

equal hemispheres, most perfectly at spring equinox. The dividing line between these two

halves is the celestial equator. South of this imaginary line was water (Abzu), where sea

creatures lived, like fish (Piscis austrinus), whales (Cetus), and snakes (Hydra, the seven

headed serpent of mythology, among others). Biblical Leviathan also lived here.

The northern hemisphere was seen as being air, where birds (Cygnus, Aquila) and other

winged creatures lived, winged horses (Pegasus), winged lions, winged and/or feathered

14

serpents and eventually winged gods, and of course other air breathing creatures, like deer,

gazelles, bears, lions, goats, sheep, and humans. The surface of the earthly oceans served as

metaphor for this dividing line, the celestial equator. Creatures living on the surface of the

waters, across the borderline, partly in water and partly in the air above show qualities of

both: man with fishtail (kulīlu32

˃ fishman, mermaid ˃ Aquarius), goat with fishtail (suḫur-

maš ˃ Goatfish ˃ Capricorn) and even the ‘Bull of Heaven’ (Taurus), who in Sumerian times

stood in the vernal equinox point, partly in ‘air’ and partly in ‘water’, was equipped with

wings and sometimes a fishtail33

. This dichotomy of the sky into water and air is known to

many mythologies, for instance Chinese ‘Feng Shui’, the basic philosophy of cosmic

harmony, means Wind/Water and in Genesis 1, 2 God’s spirit (ruaḥ) hovers over the waters of

the deep. Ruaḥ meaning: ˃ wind, spirit, breeze, ghost, phantom, mind or air. Interesting in

this context is the fact that the Sumerian word líl in the name of Enlil, the Lord of the northern

hemisphere, has exactly the same meanings and he also hovers over the waters of the deep

(abzu).

Concerning the celestial equator, some more can be said about the constellation Hydra. In

Sumerian times the celestial equator ran through the whole length of the constellation Hydra,

the water snake, making the equator clearly visible to any observer. Gudea of Lagaš (about

2130 BCE) called it dNiraḫ:

‘The shining ropes attached to the doors are holy dNiraḫ parting the abzu’.

34

‘Parting the Abzu’ means parting ‘heavenly waters’ from ‘heavenly air’- the celestial equator.

The doors of the temple are metaphors for the ‘Gates of Heaven’ - sun-rise and sun-set at

vernal equinox - and dNiraḫ (Hydra) is connecting them (more or less). Gudea, the builder of

Ninĝirsu’s temple, used heavenly terminology to describe an earthly structure.

It is also Hydra, which shows most easily the movements of the celestial equator. The star

chart below shows the sky as the Sumerians saw it around 3000 BCE, when Thuban (α

Draconis) was Pole Star and the sun rose in the constellation ‘Bull of Heaven’ (Taurus) at the

spring equinox.

32

ku6-lu2-u18/19-lu > kulīlu, kulullu > Fischmensch (Borger, 2003), p.441 33

(Macgregor, 1998), Festschrift Römer p. 150-153 34

ETCSL 2.1.7. The building of Ninĝirsu’s temple - 733

15

Illustration 8: Niraḫ (Hydra) parting the Abzu

8000 years earlier, around the year 11,000 BCE, when the pole was still close to Vega and the

vernal equinox was in Virgo, the constellation Hydra was deep inside the ‘heavenly waters’ as

is shown below.

Illustration 9: 11,000 BCE Hydra deep inside the ‘Heavenly Waters’

16

It is the movement of the celestial equator at the equinox points, however, which is causing

the ‘flood’. It covers with water what used to be land. A square earth inside a round heaven is

a very ancient mind picture that is known to many mythologies. The Sumerians called it ki-

ub-da-limmu-ba, the ’Four corners of the earth’, or an-ub-da-limmu-ba. the ‘Four corners of

the sky’.

Illustration 10: The square earth (the four corners of the earth – ki-ub-da-limmu-ba)

The quadrangular earth is a square plane stretched inside the circle of the ecliptic, each corner

touching the ecliptic at the start of a new season: spring – summer – autumn – winter,

covering the sun’s path in a year’s time.

The plane of the ecliptic crosses the celestial equator at an angle of 23,5°, plunging half of the

‘Earth’ into (heavenly) water - the Abzu , one of the several underworlds the Sumerians

distinguished.

Both halves are called ‘earth’, ki in Sumerian and erṣetu in Akkadian. At the equinox points,

where constellations slowly slip under ‘water’ and others rise out of it, parts of the square

earth, which used to be above water, where ‘people and gods’ lived , is slowly covered by the

moving equator and is thus ‘flooded’ by the waters of the underworld – the flood ( amaru) of

the Sumerians, and also Noah’s flood and all the other ‘floods’ in worldwide mythologies.

17

In real life the Sumerians lived in a low lying river delta, floods were familiar to them, so they

did not have to look far for a metaphor for rising ‘heavenly’ waters.

- Decreeing the fate of the gods: the holder of the ‘Tablet of Destinies’ (North Pole) had the

power to decide the fate of the gods, to determine their place in the order of things. Stars or

constellations, holding important places and functions in the heavens, for instance on the four

corners of heaven, the two solstice and two equinox points, guarding entrances and exits to

and from the underworld and the heavens,or being servants and ministers to certain gods, the

resident ‘gods’ slowly lose their stations and are replaced by others. The ‘winged’ inhabitants

of the northern hemisphere slowly disappear below the surface of the ‘Heavenly waters’ and

glide into the ‘underworld’ - the ‘fallen angels’ of mythology: That is the ‘fate of the gods’.

The Sumerian word for ‘god’ is diĝir (= dingir). J.Halloran35

analyzed the etymology of this

word as derived from: di ˃ decision and ĝar ˃ to deliver. Thus diĝir is the one who makes

decisions over one’s life. In the land that invented astrology, this means that the Sumerian

gods originally were based on stars and constellations, until the cloak of divinity of the stars

took on a life of its own, and the stars became ‘gods’. These ‘gods’ from then on could act

independently of their ‘starry origins’, particularly after politics and the power plays of

rulers and priests got involved.

The Eagle and the Dead man

There is another remarkable scene to be found on pillar 43 in Göbekli Tepe. That is the Eagle

(Aquila) with the ‘Dead Man’. The headless and erect little man is part of the constellation

Scutum (the Shield). In the Akkadian MUL.APIN text, he is listed as mul

AD6 ˃ corpse ˃

pagru36

‘Dead Man’. It is an unobtrusive constellation with weak stars, but it is located in the

middle of a bright spot in the Milky Way. When one is lucky and lives in a place with little

humidity and no light and air pollution, as the builders of Göbekli Tepe surely did, one can

actually see the headless little man.

35

(Halloran, 2006), p.43 36

(Pingree, 1989), I i 12, p. 33

18

Illustration 11: The Dead Man (Scutum)

One arm upraised towards Aquila (λ Aql, ι Aql and η Sct), one arm straight down shoulder to

hip (α + β Sct) , and three weak nameless stars suggesting an erected penis37

at the lower end

of the rump (ε + δ Sct). Headless, because the heads of the dead were probably preserved by

those ancient people and reconstructed with clay to resemble the former owners, for worship

or loving memory, as is documented in Jericho and several places in ancient Syria. The body

was then offered to the vultures.

This scene shows similarities to an Akkadian myth called ‘Etana and the Eagle’, and though

the poem may have been inspired by the same group of constellations portrayed on pillar 43,

an eagle, a serpent and a man, this little man seems not to be the Etana of the myth.

In short, the myth tells about an eagle and a snake living together in the same tree, the eagle in

the branches, the snake between the roots. They had sworn before the sun god not to harm

each other. The eagle in a weak moment could not resist temptation and ate the snake’s young.

When the god heard the wailing of the snake about the loss of its offspring he gave him

advice how to punish the eagle. “You must seize it by the wing, cut its wings, feather and

pinion, and throw it into a bottomless pit, ….”, and so he did.

The eagle cried for mercy for a very long time and eventually the sun god showed pity and

sent a man, Etana, to find the eagle in his pit. The eagle would show him a place where the

plant of birth grew, for which Etana had prayed to the sun god for a very long time, because

he wanted a son. Etana found the eagle in his bottomless pit (underworld), fed him until he

37

Nameless objects that only rated numbers: HIP 92136, HIP 92488 and HIP 92674

19

was strong enough, and taught the eagle to fly

again. The eagle then took Etana on his back and

together they flew out of the pit and up to heaven.38

The little man on pillar 43 seems not to be the man of this myth, because he is clearly dead

(headless), while Etana still had his head when he left the underworld ( bottomless pit) on the

eagle’s back and he even got his son, as promised.39

On the other hand, this might just be an

example of how the ancients edited their orally transmitted knowledge, to keep up with the

changes in the sky, due to precession

The Boar

To return to the precessional circle, the creators of Göbekli Tepe had to deal with the fact that

there was no star strong enough to be easily seen anywhere near that circle for over 7000

years after it left Vega (α Lyrae)40

. For a while Vega still could have served as Pole Star

because of its brightness. But when the pole entered the constellation Hercules, the ancients

had to think of something else. They found a way to keep track of the pole, even when they

could no longer see it. They worked with two fixed points, the Boar (šaḫ), the head of the

constellation Draco and the star iota Herculi. By connecting Eltanin ( γ Dra) and iota Herculi

(ι Her) with an imaginary line and then extend that line until it crossed the precessional circle,

they knew approximately where the pole was supposed to be at that time (10,000 BCE).

38

(Dalley, revized edition 2000), p.194. See also illustration 6: The Eagle reaches Heaven (circumpolar space)

This means the Etana myth covers (and therefore remembers) about 11,000 years. 39

ETCSL 2.1.1. The Sumerian Kinglist 68-69 40

A possible exception existed for a short period around 7800 BCE, when one of the stars of the constellation

Hercules (Ninurta?) was near enough to the precessional circle and strong enough to be seen with the naked eye,

to have served as Pole Star.

Illustration 12 The Eagle in the deep pit with his

wing and tail feathers clipped (by the celestial

equator)

20

Illustration 13: The Boar (Pillar 12, compl. C., Göbekli Tepe and Boar = head of Draco. Pointer stars: Eltanin – iota

Her and North Pole.

On pillar 43 in Göbekli Tepe the pole is shown as a raised dot. When the pole was in δ Cygni,

the intended star was near enough to the precessional circle and strong enough to be seen with

the naked eye. On pillar 12, though, the dot is represented as a hole, a ‘negative’ dot, because

the indicator star is weak and far from the precessional circle. The hole in front of the Boar’s

head is not the pole itself, but a pointer in the direction of it, through iota Herculi.

Although the Boar has not made it into Sumerian mythology – by then pigs had been

thoroughly domesticated and the Sumerians valued them mostly as pork – there are some

remnants of his being a constellation to be found in Scandinavian myths. There he was

known as Gullinbursti, Freyr’s Golden Boar.

“He is Gullinbursti, he can charge over earth, air and sea alike, and no horse can keep up with

him. And no matter where he goes, running through the night or plunging into the gloom under

all the worlds, he’ll always be surrounded by brilliant light. He carries it himself, because his

bristles shine in the dark”41

After this last effort to keep track of the whereabouts of the North Pole, there was no longer

any fixed place in the north from where to measure the sky, so people needed to look for that

stable, unmoving spot from where to start surveying the heavens, somewhere else. In the epic

‘Ninurta and the turtle’ the Anzud chick dropped the ‘Tablet of Destinies’ into the Abzu, the

cosmic underground waters, where Enki/Ea lived, the Lord of the southern hemisphere, the

Lord of the ‘Heavenly Waters’. From then on people looked at the precessional circle of the

South Pole and to Lord Enki for guidance for the next 7000 years.42

41

(Crossley-Holland, 1982), The Norse Myths, p.52 42

Ninmena (α Dra), who expected to be the next in line to inherit the ‘Tablet of Destnies’ was upset:

ETCSL 1.6.3. 6-7: ‘Ninmena gave out a wail: “And what about me? These divine powers have not fallen into my

21

Bibliography

Allen, R.H. (1063). Star Names, Their Lore and Meaning. New York: Dover Publications

ETCSL: Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., J.Fluckiger-Hawker, E., Robson, E., Taylor,J., and Zólyomi,

G.: The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature

(http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/), Oxford 1998-2006

ETCSL 1.6.3. Ninurta and the turtle

ETCSL 2.1.1. The Sumerian Kinglist

ETCSL 2.1.7 The building of Ninĝirsu’s temple

ETCSL 2.2.2. The lament for Urim

ETCSL 2.4.2.24. A praise poem of Šulgi

ETCSL 2.5.2.1. An adab to Nergal for Šu-ilīšu

ETCSL 4.15.2. A hymn to Nergal (B)

Dalley, Stephanie (revised edition 2000). Myths from Mesopotamia. Oxford:

Oxford University Press

Dietrich, Manfried &. Loretz, O.: (1998)dubsar anta-men, Festschrift Willem H.Ph.Römer, Ugarit-

Verlag, Münster,

Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project (PSD)

ePSD: http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/nepsd-frame.html -

oracc: http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/index.html

Halloran, J. A. (2006); Sumerian Lexicon, Los Angeles: Logogram Publishing

Macgregor, Sherry; Two Neo-Assyrian Examples of Lahmus, from Festschrift Römer (Dietrich &

Loretz, 1998) p. 150-153.

Pingree, H.H. (1989). MUL.APIN, An Astronomical Compendium in Cuneiform,

Archiv für Orientforschung, Beiheft 24

Santilliana, G., (1969); Hamlet's Mill, An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and

its Transmission through Myth; Jaffrey, New Hampshire: David R.Godine Publ.

Schmidt, Klaus, (2008); Sie bauten die ersten Tempel; Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag

All citations of Sumerian texts, unless otherwise mentioned, are from ETCSL

Illustrations

The Göbekli Tepe pictures are copyrighted by D.A.I (German Archaeological Institue)

They gracefully allowed me to use them in my article.

Page 4: Northern Lion; page 9: Pillar 43; page 18: Pillar 43 (detail); page 20: The Boar, Pillar 12 in

structure C.

Page 13: The Adda Seal ME 89115AN32572001 © The Trustees of the British Museum

All star charts are generated by Starry Night Pro 6 and 7

(continuation from page 20) hands. I shall not exercise their authority.” Also: after the ‘Tablet of Destinies’ fell

into the Abzu, it was no longer Enlil who fathered her children, but Enki (cf. Marduk)

22

Glossaries

Reading and writing conventions:

Sumerian words in the text are written in italics. Words written with upper case letters are the names

of CUNEIFORM SIGNS.

- Question marks (?) in the citated texts means: original cuneiform text at this point is either damaged

or not (yet) understood.

- Words marked with an asterisk (*) are words that double as code words for ancient knowledge,

concerning precession of the poles and equinoxes.

Sumerian

ab - sea, ocean

abzu [AB.ZU] - literally translated means:‘knowing/understanding the ocean’; (cosmic)

underground water, southern hemisphere of the sky; ‘Heavenly waters’

amar-anzudmušen

- the Anzu(d) chick; the constellation Lyra

amaru* - flood, disaster; precession of the equinoxes

an - 1. sky, heaven; sky god d An/Anu; 2. date spadix; 3. up, above

ki-ub-da-limmu-ba* - the four corners of the earth

AN.ZU - lit.: ‘knowing/understanding the heavens’, the sky of the northern

hemisphere

anzu(d) mušen

- a mythological bird of prey (eagle/vulture); the ‘Thunderbird’ of mythology;

the constellation Cygnus

apin - plow

babbar - white

bala* - to rotate, to turn over; term of office, reign; rotation

di - judgement, decision

diĝir - god, deity; determinative for deities

dub - tablet, (clay)tablet

dub-nam-tar-ra* - Tablet of Destinies; code word for the North Pole

duḫ - to open

dur-an-ki* -‘bond of heaven and earth’, umbilical cord; (part of) equinoctial

colure, connects the North Pole with the vernal equinox point. When

one moves, the other moves, too.

ĝar - to deliver, to deposit

ĝiš-ḫur - (lit.: scratch wood) plan, design, drawing, blueprint

gur - to make a circular motion, to go around, to return (to)

dIM.MI /

dIM.DUGUD

mušen - The cuneiform signs with which the name of the Anzud bird is written,

should be read Anzu(d) (Sum.) or Anzû (Akk.)

ka duḫ - to open the mouth

ki - place, earth, land, underworld, country; determinative for cities

23

ki-bala* - ‘rebel lands’, lit.: overturned or revolving earth; precession of the

equinoxes and solstices

kiš - totality, world

dKIŠ.UNU -

dNergal

dKIŠ.GIR3.UNU.GAL -

dNergal

kulīlu43

- fishman, mermaid; constellation Aquarius

kur* - land, (foreign) country, mountain, underworld; east, east wind;

points of summer and winter solstice sun rise

kur-nu-gi* - land of no return, underworld; the southern (watery) half of the

‘plane earth’ inside the ecliptic circle

líl (lil2) - air, wind, breeze, ghost, breath, spirit, phantom

maš - goat

me - aura, ideal norm; the emanation of a gods power and splendor, also

said of sacred objects and cultural achievements.

mul - star, constellation, planet; determinative for stars

mušen - bird; determinative for birds

nam-tar - destiny, fate

šaḫ - pig, a constellation (the head part of the constellation Draco)

suḫur - carp

suḫur-maš - goatfish; constellation Capricorn

u - totality, world

ud* - storm, storm demon, storm weapon; the ‘Heavenly Storm’

UD-KA-DUḪ-A - the ‘storm-demon with the wide open mouth’; the constellation Panther

unugal - tomb

urugal - underworld

uttu - spider; the goddess dUttu; a constellation, not yet identified

zu - wisdom, knowledge; to know, to understand

Akkadian

anzû - a mythological eagle/vulture; Akkadian name for Sumerian anzu(d);

constellation Cygnus

apsû - Akkadian word for Sumerian abzu, celestial underground water

erṣetu(m) - earth; earth beneath the surface, underworld44

nimru - leopard, panther; a demon; the constellation ‘Panther’

pagru - body, corpse, dead person; (part of) the constellation Scutum

ṭup šīmāti * - Tablet of Destinies, codeword for the North Pole

43

(Borger, 2003), p. 441: kulīlu, kulullu > Fischmensch 44

(Black, George, & Postgate, 2004 ,2nd corrected printing), p. 79

24

Astronomical terms

A.E. - autumnal equinox

celestial equator - is an imaginary line in the sky that mirrors the earthly equator, forming a

circle that connects the two equinox points at vernal equinox, cutting the

sky into two equal halves.

circumpolar circle - a circle around the poles. The stars inside this circle never set. They are

always visible all year round.

equinoctial colure - the meridian that connects both celestial poles and two equinox points

precessional circle - see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession

solstitial colure - the meridian that connects both celestial poles and two solstice points

V.E. - vernal equinox

ecliptic - The ecliptic is the apparent road of the sun, moon and planets across the sky.

The plane of the ecliptic crosses the plane of the celestial equator at an angle

of 23,4° due to the inclination of earth’s rotational axis, which also causes the

wobble that creates the precessional circles at the poles.

Names of Gods

An/Anu - The Sumerian/Akkadian name of the sky god

Enki/Ea - The Sumerian/Akkadian name of the god of the waters,springs, rivers,

oceans; Lord over the southern hemisphere of the sky.

Enlil/Ellil - The Sumerian/Akkadian name of the god of air, winds, spirits;

the Lord of the northern hemisphere of the sky.

Igigi - originally a name for the ‘Great gods of heaven’, later for all the gods

of heaven dNisaba - Sumerian goddess of writing and accounting; also responsible for feeding the

gods45

and the daily distribution of barley rations46

, a hint at the beginnings of

bookkeeping

Ninḫursaĝa - ‘Lady of the mountain range’ (in the north), another name of the mother of

the gods

Ninmena - ‘the Lady of the Crown’, one of the many names of the mother of the gods;

also Pole Star about 3000 BCE (α Dra)

Ninurta - Sumerian god, son of Enlil (possibly the constellation Hercules)

Šamaš - sun, Sun God; Akkadian name of dUtu

dU.GUR -

dNergal

Utu - dUtu, sun, sun god; Sumerian name of the Akkadian god Šamaš

45

ETCSL 1.1.3. Enki and the world order – 417: …The planning of the gods’ meals is to be in her (Nisabas)

hands.” 46

Excerpt ‘Handbuch der Assyriologie’, Selz: 1989, 492 proposes that Nisaba(k) derives from Nin-saba-(ak),

which in turn comes from Nin-še-ba-(ak) “Lady of grain rations”.