127-432: Atra-Hasis ( Akkadian : 𒀜𒊏𒄩𒋀 , romanized: Atra-ḫasīs ) is an 18th-century BC Akkadian epic , recorded in various versions on clay tablets and named for one of its protagonists, the priest Atra-Hasis ('exceedingly wise').. The narrative has four focal points: An organisation of allied gods shaping Mesopotamia agriculturally; a political conflict between the gods, pacified by creating first human couples;
254-673: A lingua franca of the empire, rather than it being eclipsed by Akkadian. Texts written 'exclusively' in Neo-Assyrian disappear within 10 years of Nineveh 's destruction in 612 BC. Under the Achaemenids , Aramaic continued to prosper, but Assyrian continued its decline. The language's final demise came about during the Hellenistic period when it was further marginalized by Koine Greek , even though Neo-Assyrian cuneiform remained in use in literary tradition well into Parthian times. Similarly,
381-635: A voiced alveolar trill /r/ but its pattern of alternation with ⟨ ḫ ⟩ suggests it was a fricative (either uvular /ʁ/ or velar /ɣ/ ). In the Hellenistic period, Akkadian ⟨ r ⟩ was transcribed using the Greek ρ, indicating it was pronounced similarly as an alveolar sound (though Greeks may also have perceived a uvular trill as ρ). Several Proto-Semitic phonemes are lost in Akkadian. The Proto-Semitic glottal stop *ʔ , as well as
508-479: A base of operations in order to mine gold after discovering that the planet was rich in the precious metal. According to Sitchin, the Anunnaki hybridized their species and Homo erectus via in vitro fertilization in order to create humans as a slave species of miners. Sitchin claimed that the Anunnaki were forced to temporarily leave Earth's surface and orbit the planet when Antarctic glaciers melted, causing
635-517: A comparison with other Semitic languages, and the resulting picture was gradually amended using internal linguistic evidence from Akkadian sources, especially deriving from so-called plene spellings (spellings with an extra vowel). According to this widely accepted system, the place of stress in Akkadian is completely predictable and sensitive to syllable weight . There are three syllable weights: light (ending in -V); heavy (ending in -V̄ or -VC), and superheavy (ending in -V̂, -V̄C or -V̂C). If
762-452: A cow and even had an affair with Athena, who let him through a back door enter the olymp. Zeus solved this revolt by producing Pandora as Epimentheus' fatal wedding gift, dividing and ruling the titanic brothers. Similarly to Prometheus, Enki defies the orders of the upper gods, who now harbour genocidal intentions against the humans, and proves to be the benefactor of these creatures, who were of course only created as labour slaves to pacify
889-511: A deity's melam has on a human is described as ni , a word for the physical tingling of the flesh . Deities were almost always depicted wearing horned caps, consisting of up to seven superimposed pairs of ox-horns. They were also sometimes depicted wearing clothes with elaborate decorative gold and silver ornaments sewn into them. The ancient Mesopotamians believed that their deities lived in Heaven , after an earlier history of visiting earth in
1016-477: A deity's cult statue would be transported to the location of a battle so that the deity could watch the battle unfold. The major deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon, which included the Anunnaki, were believed to participate in the "assembly of the gods", through which the gods made all of their decisions. This assembly was seen as a divine counterpart to the semi-democratic legislative system that existed during
1143-481: A different chronology: Atra-Hasis is listed as a ruler of Shuruppak and a "gudug" priest, preceded by his father Shuruppak, who is, in turn, preceded by his father Ubara-Tutu, as in "The Instructions of Shuruppak". This tablet is unique in that it mentions both Shuruppak and Atra-Hasis. Subsequent versions of the flood myth in the Ancient Near East evidently alter (omit and/or editorially change) information about
1270-507: A disturbance. The disturbance causes a flood, which forces the resident gods of Nippur to take shelter in the Eshumesha temple to Ninurta . Enlil is enraged at Marduk's transgression and orders the gods of Eshumesha to take Marduk and the other Anunnaki as prisoners. The Anunnaki are captured, but Marduk appoints his front-runner Mushteshirhablim to lead a revolt against the gods of Eshumesha and sends his messenger Neretagmil to alert Nabu ,
1397-416: A dove, a swallow and a raven. The raven, the least able to fly, didn't return, so Utanpištim knew that the land – probably still hidden from his view under thick clouds – was accessible again. Atraḫasis descended from his ark and began to offer a food sacrifice to all the gods indiscriminately with a zeal eager to serve. How happy the gods were who had been starving for so long! As if they were flies lured by
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#17328513589221524-473: A few depictions of two or three individual members together have been identified. Deities in ancient Mesopotamia were almost exclusively anthropomorphic . They were thought to possess extraordinary powers and were often envisioned as being of tremendous physical size. The deities typically wore melam , an ambiguous substance which "covered them in terrifying splendor". Melam could also be worn by heroes, kings, giants, and even demons. The effect that seeing
1651-451: A giant serpent – and the god Abzu , a symbol of the cosmic freshwater ocean, who both created earth together, represent the first generation. The gods Enlil, Anu and Enki are also known as Anunnaki and Igigi , the superior and the inferior gods. They seem to have been united in an organization similar to that which existed in Greece between Zeus – as ‘pure spirit or air’ the leading party – and
1778-515: A king of Shuruppak on the Euphrates in the times before that flood, on one of the Sumerian King Lists . The oldest known copy of the epic tradition concerning Atrahasis can be dated by colophon (scribal identification) to the reign of Hammurabi ’s great-grandson, Ammi-Saduqa (1646–1626 BC). However, various Old Babylonian dialect fragments exist, and the epic continued to be copied into
1905-676: A lengthy span of contact and the prestige held by the former, Sumerian significantly impacted Akkadian phonology, vocabulary and syntax. This mutual influence of Akkadian and Sumerian has also led scholars to describe the languages as a Sprachbund . Akkadian proper names are first attested in Sumerian texts in the mid-3rd millennium BC, and inscriptions ostensibly written in Sumerian but whose character order reveals that they were intended to be read in East Semitic (presumably early Akkadian) date back to as early as c. 2600 BC . From about
2032-461: A locative ending in -um in the singular and the resulting forms serve as adverbials . These forms are generally not productive, but in the Neo-Babylonian the um -locative replaces several constructions with the preposition ina . In the later stages of Akkadian, the mimation (word-final -m ) and nunation (dual final -n ) that occurred at the end of most case endings disappeared, except in
2159-474: A major centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire ( c. 2334 –2154 BC). It was written using the cuneiform script , originally used for Sumerian , but also used to write multiple languages in the region including Eblaite , Hurrian , Elamite , Old Persian and Hittite . The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian went beyond just the cuneiform script; owing to their close proximity,
2286-408: A mighty flood should consume all of humanity. In addition, he made Enki swear before the Anunnaki that he would not speak another word to humans; he then began to consult with the assembled gods about the exact date and duration of the deluge to be unleashed. (Enki in his relation to Enlil can be seen to have parallels to Prometheus rebelling against Zeus. Zeus was also originally the wise leader of
2413-413: A political organisation (primeval Athens), in which the double party of Titans Prometheus and Epimetheus embodied the inferior gods. According to the story, Zeus' character changed after a period of flourishing civilisation: he became stingy and unjust. In any case, these are the arguments Prometheus used to justify his uprising against 'heaven': he stole the god's fire, cheated Zeus out of the best part of
2540-501: A prehistoric Earth. Däniken explains the origins of religions as reactions to contact with an alien race , and offers interpretations of Sumerian texts and the Old Testament as evidence. In his 1976 book The Twelfth Planet , author Zecharia Sitchin claimed that the Anunnaki were actually an advanced humanoid extraterrestrial species from the undiscovered planet Nibiru , who came to Earth around 500,000 years ago and constructed
2667-466: A roof "like Abzu " itself. Atraḫasis should not tell anyone about the coming flood, take a large supply of food with him (including live birds and even fish, as the poet added with humorous irony) and keep an eye on the hourglass for seven days from start of the catastrophe. So the priest ' Extremely Wise ' hurriedly left his belongings under a pretence and began building the ship. He invited his neighbours to help and had no scruples about promising them that
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#17328513589222794-403: A separate East Semitic language. Because Akkadian as a spoken language is extinct and no contemporary descriptions of the pronunciation are known, little can be said with certainty about the phonetics and phonology of Akkadian. Some conclusions can be made, however, due to the relationship to the other Semitic languages and variant spellings of Akkadian words. The following table presents
2921-411: A seven day feast in honour of Isthar , the goddess of war and sexuality.* Both obeyed. After 9 months, the land of the gods gave birth to its first human child, whose purpose of existence was similar to that of his parents. (* Cf. Gilgamesh epic : there, too, the gods arranged a seven-day sexual act to pacify a kind of cold war. Protagonists are Enkidu: an almost invincible, rebellious animal-man and
3048-528: A specific city and was expected to protect that city's interests. The deity was believed to permanently reside within that city's temple. One text mentions as many as fifty Anunnaki associated with the city of Eridu . In Inanna's Descent into the Netherworld , there are only seven Anunnaki, who reside within the Underworld and serve as judges. Inanna stands trial before them for her attempt to take over
3175-485: A utopian method to regulate the reproduction of their creatures to a bearable level. Two aspects of Athra-Hasis were adopted in the Epic of Gilgamesh around 1200 BC: the primal scene of the 7-day lasted mating of an rebel with a temple prostitute ( Enkidu's domestication ) and the devastating deluge. Obviously , the authors of Old Testament also referred to the epic, so we know the former as Adam and Eve 's creation and latter as
3302-487: A vast textual tradition of religious and mythological narrative, legal texts, scientific works, personal correspondence, political, civil and military events, economic tracts and many other examples. Centuries after the fall of the Akkadian Empire, Akkadian, in its Assyrian and Babylonian varieties, was the native language of the Mesopotamian empires ( Old Assyrian Empire , Babylonia , Middle Assyrian Empire ) throughout
3429-491: A written language, adapting Sumerian cuneiform orthography for the purpose. During the Middle Bronze Age (Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian period), the language virtually displaced Sumerian, which is assumed to have been extinct as a living language by the 18th century BC. Old Akkadian, which was used until the end of the 3rd millennium BC, differed from both Babylonian and Assyrian, and was displaced by these dialects. By
3556-609: Is PaRiStum (< *PaRiS-at-um ). Additionally there is a general tendency of syncope of short vowels in the later stages of Akkadian. Most roots of the Akkadian language consist of three consonants, called the radicals, but some roots are composed of four consonants, so-called quadriradicals. The radicals are occasionally represented in transcription in upper-case letters, for example PRS (to decide). Between and around these radicals various infixes , suffixes and prefixes , having word generating or grammatical functions, are inserted. The resulting consonant-vowel pattern differentiates
3683-403: Is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia ( Akkad , Assyria , Isin , Larsa , Babylonia and perhaps Dilmun ) from the third millennium BC until its gradual replacement in common use by Old Aramaic among Assyrians and Babylonians from the 8th century BC. Akkadian, which is the earliest documented Semitic language , is named after the city of Akkad ,
3810-442: Is divided into several varieties based on geography and historical period : One of the earliest known Akkadian inscriptions was found on a bowl at Ur , addressed to the very early pre-Sargonic king Meskiagnunna of Ur ( c. 2485 –2450 BC) by his queen Gan-saman, who is thought to have been from Akkad. The Akkadian Empire , established by Sargon of Akkad , introduced the Akkadian language (the "language of Akkad ") as
3937-458: Is marked by the Kassite invasion of Babylonia around 1550 BC. The Kassites, who reigned for 300 years, gave up their own language in favor of Akkadian, but they had little influence on the language. At its apogee, Middle Babylonian was the written language of diplomacy of the entire Ancient Near East , including Egypt ( Amarna Period ). During this period, a large number of loan words were included in
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4064-502: Is preserved on clay tablets dating back to c. 2500 BC . It was written using cuneiform , a script adopted from the Sumerians using wedge-shaped symbols pressed in wet clay. As employed by Akkadian scribes, the adapted cuneiform script could represent either (a) Sumerian logograms ( i.e. , picture-based characters representing entire words), (b) Sumerian syllables, (c) Akkadian syllables, or (d) phonetic complements . In Akkadian
4191-496: Is then [awat+su] > /awatt͡su/ . In this vein, an alternative transcription of ⟨ š ⟩ is ⟨ s̱ ⟩, with the macron below indicating a soft (lenis) articulation in Semitic transcription. Other interpretations are possible. /ʃ/ could have been assimilated to the preceding /t/ , yielding /ts/ , which would later have been simplified to /ss/ . The rhotic ⟨ r ⟩ has traditionally been interpreted as
4318-735: The Great Flood , which also destroyed the Anunnaki's bases on Earth. These had to be rebuilt, and the Anunnaki, needing more humans to help in this massive effort, taught mankind agriculture. Ronald H. Fritze writes that, according to Sitchin, "the Annunaki built the pyramids and all the other monumental structures from around the ancient world that ancient astronaut theorists consider so impossible to build without highly advanced technologies." Sitchin expanded on this mythology in later works, including The Stairway to Heaven (1980) and The Wars of Gods and Men (1985). In The End of Days: Armageddon and
4445-534: The Northwest Semitic languages and South Semitic languages in its subject–object–verb word order, while the other Semitic languages usually have either a verb–subject–object or subject–verb–object order. Additionally Akkadian is the only Semitic language to use the prepositions ina and ana ( locative case , English in / on / with , and dative -locative case, for / to , respectively). Other Semitic languages like Arabic , Hebrew and Aramaic have
4572-563: The Old Babylonian Period ( c. 1830 BC – c. 1531 BC), a new set of deities known as the Igigi are introduced. The relationship between the Anunnaki and the Igigi is unclear. On some occasions, the categories appear to be used synonymously, but in other writings, such as The Poem of Erra , there is a clear distinction between the two. In the late Akkadian Atra-Hasis epic, the Igigi are
4699-458: The Old Babylonian period . The following table shows Proto-Semitic phonemes and their correspondences among Akkadian, Modern Standard Arabic and Tiberian Hebrew : The existence of a back mid-vowel /o/ has been proposed, but the cuneiform writing gives no good proof for this. There is limited contrast between different u-signs in lexical texts, but this scribal differentiation may reflect
4826-701: The Olympians in his Theogony . The Greek sky-god Ouranos (whose name means "Heaven") is the father of the Titans and is derived from the Hittite version of Anu. In Hesiod's account, Ouranos is castrated by his son Cronus , just as Anu was castrated by his son Kumarbi in the Hittite story. Over a series of published books (starting with Chariots of the Gods? in 1968), pseudoarchaeologist Erich von Däniken claimed that extraterrestrial "ancient astronauts" had visited
4953-586: The Persian conquest of the Mesopotamian kingdoms contributed to the decline of Babylonian, from that point on known as Late Babylonian, as a popular language. However, the language was still used in its written form. Even after the Greek invasion under Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, Akkadian was still a contender as a written language, but spoken Akkadian was likely extinct by this time, or at least rarely used. The last positively identified Akkadian text comes from
5080-523: The Third Dynasty of Ur ( c. 2112 BC – c. 2004 BC). The earliest known usages of the term Anunnaki come from inscriptions written during the reign of Gudea ( c. 2144–2124 BC) and the Third Dynasty of Ur. In the earliest texts, the term is applied to the most powerful and important deities in the Sumerian pantheon: the descendants of the sky-god An. This group of deities probably included
5207-595: The consonants of the Akkadian language, as distinguished in Akkadian cuneiform. The reconstructed phonetic value of a phoneme is given in IPA transcription, alongside its standard ( DMG-Umschrift ) transliteration in angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ . Evidence from borrowings from and to Sumerian has been interpreted as indicating that the Akkadian voiceless non-emphatic stops were originally unaspirated, but became aspirated around 2000 BCE. Akkadian emphatic consonants are typically reconstructed as ejectives , which are thought to be
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5334-400: The status absolutus (the absolute state ) and the status constructus ( construct state ). The latter is found in all other Semitic languages, while the former appears only in Akkadian and some dialects of Aramaic. The status absolutus is characterised by the loss of a noun's case ending (e.g. awīl < awīlum , šar < šarrum ). It is relatively uncommon, and is used chiefly to mark
5461-473: The "seven gods who decree": An , Enlil , Enki , Ninhursag , Nanna , Utu , and Inanna . Although certain deities are described as members of the Anunnaki, no complete list of the names of all the Anunnaki has survived and they are usually only referred to as a cohesive group in literary texts. Furthermore, Sumerian texts describe the Anunnaki inconsistently and do not agree on how many Anunnaki there were, or what their divine function was. Originally,
5588-573: The 10th century BC when the Assyrian kingdom became a major power with the Neo-Assyrian Empire . During the existence of that empire, however, Neo-Assyrian began to turn into a chancellery language, being marginalized by Old Aramaic . The dominance of the Neo-Assyrian Empire under Tiglath-Pileser III over Aram-Damascus in the middle of the 8th century led to the establishment of Aramaic as
5715-556: The 1st century AD. The latest known text in cuneiform Babylonian is an astronomical almanac dated to 79/80 AD. However, the latest cuneiform texts are almost entirely written in Sumerian logograms. The Akkadian language began to be rediscovered when Carsten Niebuhr in 1767 was able to make extensive copies of cuneiform texts and published them in Denmark. The deciphering of the texts started immediately, and bilinguals, in particular Old Persian -Akkadian bilinguals, were of great help. Since
5842-511: The 21st century BC Babylonian and Assyrian, which were to become the primary dialects, were easily distinguishable. Old Babylonian, along with the closely related dialect Mariotic , is clearly more innovative than the Old Assyrian dialect and the more distantly related Eblaite language . For this reason, forms like lu-prus ('I will decide') were first encountered in Old Babylonian instead of
5969-541: The 25th century BC, texts fully written in Akkadian begin to appear. By the 20th century BC, two variant dialectic forms of the same language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively. The bulk of preserved material is from this later period, corresponding to the Near Eastern Iron Age . In total, hundreds of thousands of texts and text fragments have been excavated, covering
6096-462: The Anunnaki appear to have been heavenly deities with immense powers. In the poem Enki and the World Order , the Anunnaki "do homage" to Enki, sing hymns of praise in his honor, and "take up their dwellings" among the people of Sumer. The same composition twice states that the Anunnaki "decree the fates of mankind". Virtually every major deity in the Sumerian pantheon was regarded as the patron of
6223-460: The Anunnaki are referred to as karuileš šiuneš , which means "former ancient gods", or kattereš šiuneš , which means "gods of the earth". Hittite and Hurrian treaties were often sworn by the old gods in order to ensure that the oaths would be kept. In one myth, the gods are threatened by the stone giant Ullikummi , so Ea (the later name for Enki) commands the Former Gods to find the weapon that
6350-481: The Anunnaki, the "Great Gods", build Esagila , a "splendid" temple dedicated to Marduk, Ea, and Ellil. In the eighth-century BC Poem of Erra , the Anunnaki are described as the brothers of the god Nergal and are depicted as antagonistic towards humanity. A badly damaged text from the Neo-Assyrian Period (911 – 612 BC) describes Marduk leading his army of Anunnaki into the sacred city of Nippur and causing
6477-524: The Atrahasis epic in something approaching entirety. A further fragment was recovered in Ugarit . The epic of Atra-Hasis contains the myth of the creation of mankind by Enlil , Anu and Enki — the pantheon of a third generation of earlyest gods ( dingirs ; Sumerian : 𒀭 , lit. 'divines') mentioned in writing. Only the goddess Tiamat – a personification of the saltwater ocean imagined as
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#17328513589226604-462: The British conspiracy theorist who popularised the reptilian conspiracy theory , has claimed that the reptilian overlords of his theory are in fact the Anunnaki. Clearly influenced by Sitchin's writings, Icke adapts them "in favor of his own New Age and conspiratorial agenda". Icke's speculation on the Anunnaki incorporates far-right views on history, positing an Aryan master race descended by blood from
6731-471: The Flood unleashed by the omnipotent but in this case again failing god YHWH . The God-fearing priest Atraḫasis – the only one who was therefore allowed to survive the attempted delation with his wife and sons, ensuring continued existence of artificially constructed humanity – appears there as Noah . The epos taking place according to its incipit , "When the gods had to work like humans ( inuma ilu awilum = when
6858-463: The Garden of Eden, according to which the woman was made from a surgically amputated body part of Adam who had been put into deep narcotic sleep for this purpose, with the argument "It is not good that the man should be alone; therefore let Us make a woman (Eve) who fit to him and do help." Gen. 2.18 ) To complete the construction of humans in the optimal way, Mami encouraged the young couple to celebrate
6985-621: The Hurrio-Hittite religion; instead, the Hurrians and Hittites sought to communicate with the old gods through the ritual sacrifice of a piglet in a pit dug in the ground. The old gods were often invoked to perform ritual purifications . The Hittite account of the old gods' banishment to the Underworld is closely related with the Greek poet Hesiod 's narrative of the overthrow of the Titans by
7112-459: The Netherworld , depicting them as chthonic Underworld deities. In an abbreviated Akkadian version of Inanna's Descent written in the early second millennium, Ereshkigal , the queen of the Underworld, comments that she "drink[s] water with the Anunnaki". Later in the same poem, Ereshkigal orders her servant Namtar to fetch the Anunnaki from Egalgina, to "decorate the threshold steps with coral", and to "seat them on golden thrones". During
7239-510: The Post-Akkadian period, the Anunnaki are deities in the pantheon , descendants of An (the god of the heavens) and Ki (the goddess of earth), and their primary function was to decree the fates of humanity . The name Anunnaki is derived from An , the Sumerian god of the sky. The name is variously written " a-nuna", " a-nuna-ke 4 -ne", or " a-nun-na", meaning "princely offspring" or "offspring of An". The Anunnaki were believed to be
7366-740: The Prophecy of the Return (2007), Sitchin predicted that the Anunnaki would return to earth, possibly as soon as 2012 , corresponding to the end of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar . Sitchin's writings have been universally rejected by mainstream historians, who have labelled his books as pseudoarchaeology , asserting that Sitchin seems to deliberately misrepresent Sumerian texts by quoting them out of context, truncating quotations, and mistranslating Sumerian words to give them radically different meanings from their accepted definitions. David Icke ,
7493-401: The Sumerian myths, its bestowed on him by the earth mother goddess Ninḫursag herself (cf. Anzu myth ). His aptitude as the greatest warrior and chief strategist of the divine tribal alliance gives him power over the other parties of gods; only he has the ability to transform present circumstances back into their original state – redefining the course of fate . As a permanent legal document
7620-450: The Underworld; they deem her guilty of hubris and condemn her to death. Major deities in Sumerian mythology were associated with specific celestial bodies. Inanna was believed to be the planet Venus . Utu was believed to be the sun. Nanna was the moon. An was identified with all the stars of the equatorial sky , Enlil with those of the northern sky , and Enki with those of the southern sky . The path of Enlil's celestial orbit
7747-404: The archaeological evidence is typical of Anatolia rather than of Assyria, but the use both of cuneiform and the dialect is the best indication of Assyrian presence. Old Babylonian was the language of king Hammurabi and his code , which is one of the oldest collections of laws in the world. (see Code of Ur-Nammu .) Old Assyrian developed as well during the second millennium BC, but because it
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#17328513589227874-411: The artificial man suffered from the loneliness of his working day and nothing the gods advised him to do was able to restore his zest for life. So the gods may have decided to give him a wife to cheer him up. Where she came from remains open due to the missing passage – there may have been a similarly conceived act of creation. However, this assumption would conflict with Moses' version of the events in
8001-403: The assembly of all gods that they should first cleanse themselves for everything else. They do. On the fifteenth day of this project, he cut up Geshtu-E – 'ear', 'a god or partie who listened for wisdom' – into pieces (cf. Plato's dissection of the rebellious spherical people into single individuals) and began to create the first human being to the sound of drums. He took clay from the soil of
8128-480: The culprit whose treachery had once again enabled some humans to survive the genocide what was planned this time. Enki, however, as always never at a loss for creative ideas, devised a way that he hoped would finally solve the problem caused by the quarrelling gods themselves. He decreed that from now on the humans would be familiarised with suffering and death from birth, that there would be barren and untouchable women and that their lifespan would be severely limited from
8255-479: The dialects of Akkadian identified with certainty so far. Some researchers (such as W. Sommerfeld 2003) believe that the Old Akkadian variant used in the older texts is not an ancestor of the later Assyrian and Babylonian dialects, but rather a separate dialect that was replaced by these two dialects and which died out early. Eblaite , formerly thought of as yet another Akkadian dialect, is now generally considered
8382-401: The earlier stages of the language, the dual number is vestigial, and its use is largely confined to natural pairs (eyes, ears, etc.). Adjectives are never found in the dual. In the dual and plural, the accusative and genitive are merged into a single oblique case . Akkadian, unlike Arabic , has only "sound" plurals formed by means of a plural ending. Broken plurals are not formed by changing
8509-421: The earth while his father An carried away the sky. The Anunnaki are chiefly mentioned in literary texts and very little evidence to support the existence of any cult of them has yet been unearthed. This is likely because each member of the Anunnaki had his or her own individual cult, separate from the others. Similarly, no representations of the Anunnaki as a complete group have yet been discovered, although
8636-666: The editorial changes to the Atra-Hasis text in Gilgamesh , Jeffrey H. Tigay comments: "The dropping of individual lines between others which are preserved, but are not synonymous with them, appears to be a more deliberate editorial act. These lines share a common theme, the hunger and thirst of the gods during the flood." Examples of alterations to the Atra-Hasis story in Gilgamesh include: Akkadian language Akkadian ( / ə ˈ k eɪ d i ən / ə- KAY -dee-ən ; Akkadian: 𒀝𒅗𒁺𒌑(𒌝) , romanized: Akkadû(m) )
8763-464: The female temple servant Shamkat, endowed with all advantages necessary for that purpose. Enkidu, who had previously destroyed so many animal traps with his fierce group of relatives, fell into this new type of trap. After having sex for 7 days, he was ‘weakened’: the herd of animals he had been leading fled into the steppe in horror. He was shocked of his lonely separation, but Shamkat tried to comfort him: "Don't grieve; you have knowledge now, just like
8890-477: The fertility goddess Nisaba to devastate the land with storms and dry up the harvests. Enki – dwelling in the lower part of sky – told his priest Atraḫasis what to do about it each time: Only Adad and Nisaba should sacrificed, the other gods should left to starve. The pious priest acted according to this divine advice; Adad and Nisaba were so ashamed of this undeserved favour that they abandoned their endeavour. Enlil now completely enraged against Enki and decreed that
9017-450: The first millennium BC. The story of Atrahasis also exists in a later Assyrian dialect version, first rediscovered in the Library of Ashurbanipal , though its translations have been uncertain due to the artifact being in fragmentary condition and containing ambiguous words. Nonetheless, its fragments were first assembled and translated by George Smith as The Chaldean Account of Genesis ,
9144-420: The first one bears stress. A rule of Akkadian phonology is that certain short (and probably unstressed) vowels are dropped. The rule is that the last vowel of a succession of syllables that end in a short vowel is dropped, for example the declinational root of the verbal adjective of a root PRS is PaRiS- . Thus the masculine singular nominative is PaRS-um (< *PaRiS-um ) but the feminine singular nominative
9271-543: The flood and the flood hero found in the original Atra-Hasis story. In particular, a lost, intermediate version of the Atra-Hasis flood myth seems to have been paraphrased or copied in a late edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh ( Tablet XI ). This modern addition of Gilgamesh , known as the 'standard version', is traditionally associated with the Babylonian scribe Sîn-lēqi-unninni ( circa 1300–1000 BC), though some minor changes may have been made since his time. Regarding
9398-516: The flood comes, Ishtar (the East Semitic equivalent to Inanna) and the Anunnaki mourn over the destruction of humanity. In the Babylonian Enûma Eliš , Marduk assigns the Anunnaki their positions. A late Babylonian version of the epic mentions 600 Anunnaki of the underworld, but only 300 Anunnaki of heaven, indicating the existence of a complex underworld cosmology . In gratitude,
9525-624: The flood story took place after or during the rule of Ubara-Tutu. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, first recorded in the 17th century BC (i.e., the Old Babylonian Empire ), the hero is named Ziusudra , who also appears in the Instructions of Shuruppak as the son of the eponymous Shuruppak, who himself is called the son of Ubara-Tutu. The "Sumerian King Lists" also make no mention of Atra-Hasis, Utnapishtim, or Ziusudra. Tablet "WB 62", however, provides
9652-528: The fricatives *ʕ , *h , *ḥ are lost as consonants, either by sound change or orthographically, but they gave rise to the vowel quality e not exhibited in Proto-Semitic. The voiceless lateral fricatives ( *ś , *ṣ́ ) merged with the sibilants as in Canaanite , leaving 19 consonantal phonemes. Old Akkadian preserved the /*ś/ phoneme longest but it eventually merged with /*š/ , beginning in
9779-405: The god of deadly diseases so much that as soon as he had begun his pandemic work, he ceased to eliminate people. Tablet II is about the unstoppable increase in overpopulation. After another 1200 years there were many more humans, they roamed around like roaring herds of cattle. Because the gods in upper part of heaven could no longer even sleep, Enlil sent Adad and, again 1200 years later,
9906-450: The god of literacy. When the Eshumesha gods hear Nabu speak, they come out of their temple to search for him. Marduk defeats the Eshumesha gods and takes 360 of them as prisoners of war, including Enlil himself. Enlil protests that the Eshumesha gods are innocent, so Marduk puts them on trial before the Anunnaki. The text ends with a warning from Damkianna (another name for Ninhursag) to the gods and to humanity, pleading them not to repeat
10033-499: The gods were humans)", there was a quarrel between the upper Anunnaki and the Igigu, the lower gods. While the latter had the task of ensuring the supply of the land through construction of irrigation canals, for which they must dig out the beds of big rivers, the Anunnaki ruled from above – presumably watching over the implementation of their plans and dividing the fruits of this great civilising project as they saw fit. After 40 years, however,
10160-728: The gods!" See also Adam's and Eve's enjoyment of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, in Eden. ) 1200 years later, humans had multiplied to such an extent that they disturbed the gods with their noise. Enlil was annoyed and decided that Namtar , his god of the dead's realm , should carry off most of humans with frost fever, so a great extinction began. Enki, probably worried that he would end up having to work again himself, approached his faithful priest Atraḫasis and advised him to do following: The other gods should no longer be worshipped, but only Namtar. This flattered
10287-554: The groups round Poseidon (ocean) and Hades (earth). It is not unlikely that the story refers to the era of the Neolithic Revolution , when Homo sapiens, similar to chimpanzees evolving in small autarkic hordes, began to establish political inter-group organisations. Instead of fighting each other as before, this groups of hunter-gatherers concluded to share the coveted territory in peace, to defend it together and to erect impressive monuments such as those at Göbekli Tepe (so
10414-444: The hero of which had his name corrected to Atra-Hasis by Heinrich Zimmern in 1899. In 1965, Wilfred G. Lambert and Alan Millard published many additional texts belonging to the epic, including an Old Babylonian copy (written c. 1650 BC) which is the most complete recension of the tale to have survived. These new texts greatly increased knowledge of the epic and were the basis for Lambert and Millard’s first English translation of
10541-458: The immense destruction, and Mami ( Belet-ili ) raised serious accusations against Enli: "Why didn't you, the greatest warrior of all gods, fight the rebels" (instead of constructing humans)?! A few lines are missing here again, but these can be added according to the Epic of Gilgamesh: After the ark is stranded high up on Mount Nisir, Uta-napišti (the name of Atraḫasis in the Epic of Gilgamesh) sends out three birds - presumably at daily intervals:
10668-752: The language from Northwest Semitic languages and Hurrian . However, the use of these words was confined to the fringes of the Akkadian-speaking territory. From 1500 BC onwards, the Assyrian language is termed Middle Assyrian. It was the language of the Middle Assyrian Empire . However, the Babylonian cultural influence was strong and the Assyrians wrote royal inscriptions, religious and most scholarly texts in Middle Babylonian, whereas Middle Assyrian
10795-454: The last syllable is superheavy, it is stressed, otherwise the rightmost heavy non-final syllable is stressed. If a word contains only light syllables, the first syllable is stressed. It has also been argued that monosyllabic words generally are not stressed but rather function as clitics . The special behaviour of /V̂/ syllables is explained by their functioning, in accordance with their historical origin, as sequences of two syllables, of which
10922-572: The later Bronze Age, and became the lingua franca of much of the Ancient Near East by the time of the Bronze Age collapse c. 1150 BC . However, its gradual decline began in the Iron Age, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire when in the mid-eighth century BC Tiglath-Pileser III introduced Imperial Aramaic as a lingua franca of the Assyrian empire. By the Hellenistic period , the language
11049-404: The latter being used for long vowels arising from the contraction of vowels in hiatus. The distinction between long and short is phonemic , and is used in the grammar; for example, iprusu ('that he decided') versus iprusū ('they decided'). There is broad agreement among most Assyriologists about Akkadian stress patterns. The rules of Akkadian stress were originally reconstructed by means of
11176-426: The lesser gods rebelled and refused to do strenuous labor. At night, they surrounded the dwelling place of Enlil , who was considered the main god of Sumerian civilisation, the seperator of air and earth in the midst of the cosmic ocean. Enlil was surprised and called for Anu and Enki. Nusku, one of the sons and Enlil's ambassador here, tried to negotiate with the rebellious party, but had no success. Enlil, who also
11303-434: The locative. Later, the nominative and accusative singular of masculine nouns collapsed to -u and in Neo-Babylonian most word-final short vowels were dropped. As a result, case differentiation disappeared from all forms except masculine plural nouns. However, many texts continued the practice of writing the case endings, although often sporadically and incorrectly. As the most important contact language throughout this period
11430-478: The male groups of gods were concerned, the separate task of reproduction fell to the seven divine wombs, the shassuratu presided over by Ninḫursag ( Mami ). The plot of the epic follows a simple pattern: As is well known, this genocidal project failed. The reason for this divine misadventure was not so much the human's shipbuilding skills ( Noah's Ark ), but the quarrelling between the gods. Finally, they seal their fate as well as that of mankind by agreeing on
11557-508: The mass reproduction of this humans; and a greate deluge, as has been handed down many times in the different flood myths of mankind. Probably the relic of a natural catastrophe (melting of glacial ice cap as documented in Drain the Oceans or Platos allegory of Atlantis ), the epic links this flood with the god's intention to eliminate their artificial creatures. The name "Atra-Hasis" also appears, as
11684-450: The midst of the cosmic freshwater primordial ocean to clarify their hierarchical relationship. Enlil represents the leading party in the council of gods; the party of Anunnaki around Anu belongs more to the upper heaven, and that of Igigi around Enki more to that below the earth (half) sphere. All three parties are bound by the Tablet of Destinies , which Enlil is the only one to possess. In
11811-676: The mythological texts, and that a god's statue was a physical embodiment of the god himself. As such, cult statues were given constant care and attention and a set of priests was assigned to tend to them. These priests would clothe the statues and place feasts before them so they could "eat". A deity's temple was believed to be that deity's literal place of residence. The gods had boats, full-sized barges which were normally stored inside their temples and were used to transport their cult statues along waterways during various religious festivals . The gods also had chariots , which were used for transporting their cult statues by land. Sometimes
11938-461: The name of the flood hero is Utnapishtim , who is said to be the son of Ubara-Tutu , king of Shuruppak : "Gilgamesh spoke to Utnapishtim, the Faraway... O man of Shuruppak, son of Ubara-Tutu." Many available tablets comprising the Sumerian King Lists support the lineage of the flood hero given in Gilgamesh by omitting a king named Shuruppak as a historical ruler of Shuruppak, implying a belief that
12065-429: The offspring of An and the earth goddess Ki . Samuel Noah Kramer identifies Ki with the Sumerian mother goddess Ninhursag , stating that they were originally the same figure. The oldest of the Anunnaki was Enlil , the god of air and chief god of the Sumerian pantheon. The Sumerians believed that, until Enlil was born, heaven and earth were inseparable. Then, Enlil split heaven and earth in two and carried away
12192-526: The older la-prus . While generally more archaic, Assyrian developed certain innovations as well, such as the "Assyrian vowel harmony ". Eblaite was even more so, retaining a productive dual and a relative pronoun declined in case, number and gender. Both of these had already disappeared in Old Akkadian. Over 20,000 cuneiform tablets in Old Assyrian have been recovered from the Kültepe site in Anatolia . Most of
12319-516: The oldest realization of emphatics across the Semitic languages. One piece of evidence for this is that Akkadian shows a development known as Geers's law , where one of two emphatic consonants dissimilates to the corresponding non-emphatic consonant. For the sibilants, traditionally ⟨ š ⟩ has been held to be postalveolar /ʃ/ , and ⟨ s ⟩, ⟨ z ⟩, ⟨ ṣ ⟩ analyzed as fricatives; but attested assimilations in Akkadian suggest otherwise. For example, when
12446-464: The original meaning of the root. The middle radical can be geminated, which is represented by a doubled consonant in transcription, and sometimes in the cuneiform writing itself. The consonants ʔ , w , j and n are termed "weak radicals" and roots containing these radicals give rise to irregular forms. Formally, Akkadian has three numbers (singular, dual and plural) and three cases ( nominative , accusative and genitive ). However, even in
12573-841: The other Semitic languages in the Near Eastern branch of the Afroasiatic languages , a family native to Middle East , Arabian Peninsula , parts of Anatolia , parts of the Horn of Africa , North Africa , Malta , Canary Islands and parts of West Africa ( Hausa ). Akkadian is only ever attested in Mesopotamia and neighboring regions in the Near East. Within the Near Eastern Semitic languages, Akkadian forms an East Semitic subgroup (with Eblaite and perhaps Dilmunite ). This group differs from
12700-518: The outset (in biblical terms to 120 years), in the hope that their reproduction would be regulated in future. With this promise that the gods would have sufficient living space of their own on earth for all time, Enlil could be content and make peace with Enki. In later versions of the flood story, contained in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Eridu Genesis , the hero is not named Atra-Hasis. In Gilgamesh ,
12827-463: The possessive suffix -šu is added to the root awat ('word'), it is written awassu ('his word') even though šš would be expected. The most straightforward interpretation of this shift from tš to ss , is that ⟨ s, ṣ ⟩ form a pair of voiceless alveolar affricates /t͡s/ /t͡sʼ/ , ⟨ š ⟩ is a voiceless alveolar sibilant /s/ , and ⟨ z ⟩ is a voiced alveolar affricate or fricative /d͡z/~/z/ . The assimilation
12954-447: The predicate of a nominal sentence, in fixed adverbial expressions, and in expressions relating to measurements of length, weight, and the like. Anunnaki The Anunnaki (Sumerian: 𒀭𒀀𒉣𒈾 , also transcribed as Anunaki , Annunaki , Anunna , Ananaki and other variations) are a group of deities of the ancient Sumerians , Akkadians , Assyrians and Babylonians . In the earliest Sumerian writings about them, which come from
13081-461: The prepositions bi/bə and li/lə (locative and dative, respectively). The origin of the Akkadian spatial prepositions is unknown. In contrast to most other Semitic languages, Akkadian has only one non-sibilant fricative : ḫ [x] . Akkadian lost both the glottal and pharyngeal fricatives, which are characteristic of the other Semitic languages. Until the Old Babylonian period, the Akkadian sibilants were exclusively affricated . Old Akkadian
13208-476: The rebellion of the sub-gods around Enki.) Tablet III contains the flood myth . Well informed with all details, Enki went to his priest's reed hut, but waited until Atraḫasis began to lie down to sleep. Then, speaking cunningly to the hut's wall so as not to breach the contract, Enki told 'it' what to do: ‘ Separate yourself from your house, build a ship, spurn your possessions, save your life .’ The ship should be cube-shaped and also be watertight from above with
13335-419: The reward would soon come richly from heaven. The deadline was pressing, so he organised a big party to attract more workers. He himself was unable to eat during the lavish feast, so nauseous was he with fear of the impending punishment of the gods. When Adad gathered the clouds and the winds began to roar from all ends of the world, Atraḫasis and at least one fertile woman (the masters sons too) climbed into
13462-483: The same syllable in the same text. Cuneiform was in many ways unsuited to Akkadian: among its flaws was its inability to represent important phonemes in Semitic, including a glottal stop , pharyngeals , and emphatic consonants . In addition, cuneiform was a syllabary writing system—i.e., a consonant plus vowel comprised one writing unit—frequently inappropriate for a Semitic language made up of triconsonantal roots (i.e., three consonants plus any vowels). Akkadian
13589-427: The scent, they swarmed in from all sides to the altar's fire and began to feast to their hearts' – for which they later endowed Anthrahais-Noah with their immortality in gratitude and settled him with his wife on the island of Dilmun on the distant edge of the world (see Gilgamesh flood myth ). Enlil, however, who as a wise ruler was responsible for the welfare of this great civilisation, was still furious with Enki,
13716-404: The script practically became a fully fledged syllabic script , and the original logographic nature of cuneiform became secondary , though logograms for frequent words such as 'god' and 'temple' continued to be used. For this reason, the sign AN can on the one hand be a logogram for the word ilum ('god') and on the other signify the god Anu or even the syllable -an- . Additionally, this sign
13843-420: The ship and sealed its entrance hatch from inside with earth pitch . The ark swirled like a pot on the waves of the mighty flood thundering down from the open floodgates of the cosmic primordial ocean. And how furious Enlil was at his foiled plan to destroy mankind! - The other gods, however, suffered from hunger, as they were unable to find any more humans to feed them in the midst of the raging chaos. They cry at
13970-489: The sixth generation of the gods who are forced to perform labor for the Anunnaki. After forty days, the Igigi rebel and the god Enki , one of the Anunnaki, creates humans to replace them. From the Middle Babylonian Period ( c. 1592 – 1155 BC) onward, the name Anunnaki was applied generally to the deities of the underworld; whereas the name Igigi was applied to the heavenly deities. During this period,
14097-505: The southern Caucasus and by communities in the Assyrian diaspora . Akkadian is a fusional language with grammatical case . Like all Semitic languages, Akkadian uses the system of consonantal roots . The Kültepe texts , which were written in Old Assyrian , include Hittite loanwords and names, which constitute the oldest record of any Indo-European language . Akkadian belongs with
14224-404: The steppe (Mami was regarded as the primordial mother earth , so the divine wombs come into play here), mixed it with some of the spilt blood and added a touch of cosmic water, bringing it to its living form. When the creature awoke, Mami approached, handed it a carrying basket and taught it to work for the gods from then on. ( Here is a gap in the tablet in which it could have been described how
14351-407: The superimposition of the Sumerian phonological system (for which an /o/ phoneme has also been proposed), rather than a separate phoneme in Akkadian. All consonants and vowels appear in long and short forms. Long consonants are transliterated as double consonants, and inconsistently written as such in cuneiform. Long vowels are transliterated with a macron (ā, ē, ī, ū) or a circumflex (â, ê, î, û),
14478-421: The tablet was provided with a seal , a sign mechanically applied by means of a special technique, which in ancient Mesopotamia was regarded as a symbol of a contract. Contracts have been directly related to tribute payments to be made: often parts of the food produced, but generally assistance in battlel or labour, such as the construction of mighty irrigation channels, as described in the epic Atra-Hasis. As far as
14605-591: The texts contained several royal names, isolated signs could be identified, and were presented in 1802 by Georg Friedrich Grotefend . By this time it was already evident that Akkadian was a Semitic language, and the final breakthrough in deciphering the language came from Edward Hincks , Henry Rawlinson and Jules Oppert in the middle of the 19th century. In the early 21st century it was shown that automatic high-quality translation of Akkadian can be achieved using natural language processing methods such as convolutional neural networks . The following table summarises
14732-475: The thesis of its discoverer K. Schmidt ). More or less from this date, they also developed agriculture, became sedentary and transformed Mesopotamia's steppe into the blooming landscape that went down in the myths of mankind as the Garden of Eden . In the main, the epic reports on a conflict between some of the first Sumerian gods and draws on the earlier myth of the separation of air and earth (‘above’ and ‘below’) in
14859-412: The underworld deities Damkina , Nergal , and Madānu are listed as the most powerful among the Anunnaki, alongside Marduk , the national god of ancient Babylon. In the standard Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh ( c. 1200 BC) Utnapishtim , the immortal survivor of the Great Flood , describes the Anunnaki as seven judges of the Underworld, who set the land aflame as the storm approaches. Later, when
14986-459: The war between the Anunnaki and the gods of Eshumesha. In the mythologies of the Hurrians and Hittites (which flourished in the mid to late second millennium BC), the oldest generation of gods was believed to have been banished by the younger gods to the Underworld, where they were ruled by the goddess Lelwani . Hittite scribes identified these deities with the Anunnaki. In ancient Hurrian ,
15113-434: The word stem. As in all Semitic languages, some masculine nouns take the prototypically feminine plural ending ( -āt ). The nouns šarrum (king) and šarratum (queen) and the adjective dannum (strong) will serve to illustrate the case system of Akkadian. As is clear from the above table, the adjective and noun endings differ only in the masculine plural. Certain nouns, primarily those referring to geography, can also form
15240-476: Was Aramaic , which itself lacks case distinctions, it is possible that Akkadian's loss of cases was an areal as well as phonological phenomenon. As is also the case in other Semitic languages, Akkadian nouns may appear in a variety of "states" depending on their grammatical function in a sentence. The basic form of the noun is the status rectus (the governed state), which is the form as described above, complete with case endings. In addition to this, Akkadian has
15367-432: Was a continuous, symmetrical circle around the north celestial pole , but those of An and Enki were believed to intersect at various points. Reverence begets favour, sacrifice prolongs life, and prayer atones for guilt. He who fears the gods is not slighted by [...] He who fears the Anunnaki extends [his days]. Akkadian texts of the second millennium BC follow similar portrayals of the Anunnaki from Inanna's Descent into
15494-456: Was a purely popular language — kings wrote in Babylonian — few long texts are preserved. It was, however, notably used in the correspondence of Assyrian traders in Anatolia in the 20th-18th centuries BC and that even led to its temporary adoption as a diplomatic language by various local Anatolian polities during that time. The Middle Babylonian period started in the 16th century BC. The division
15621-532: Was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia. The last known Akkadian cuneiform document dates from the 1st century AD. Mandaic spoken by Mandean Gnostics and the dialects spoken by the extant Assyrians ( Suret ) are three extant Neo-Aramaic languages that retain Akkadian vocabulary and grammatical features, as well as personal and family names. These are spoken by Assyrians and Mandeans mainly in northern Iraq , southeast Turkey , northeast Syria , northwest Iran ,
15748-423: Was the benevolent, wise leader of all the gods, did'nt want a battle with the risk of serious injuries and deaths, and to avoid this he came up with the idea of starting to produce humans from a sacrifice to do the hard labour instead of the rebellious gods. He asked Mami – leader of the 7 goddess wombs – to do this. Mami declared that she could only fulfil this request with Enki's assistance. Enki, agreeing, advised
15875-441: Was used as a determinative for divine names. Another peculiarity of Akkadian cuneiform is that many signs do not have a well defined phonetic value. Certain signs, such as AḪ , do not distinguish between the different vowel qualities. Nor is there any coordination in the other direction; the syllable -ša- , for example, is rendered by the sign ŠA , but also by the sign NĪĜ . Both of these are often used for
16002-505: Was used mostly in letters and administrative documents. During the first millennium BC, Akkadian progressively lost its status as a lingua franca . In the beginning, from around 1000 BC, Akkadian and Aramaic were of equal status, as can be seen in the number of copied texts: clay tablets were written in Akkadian, while scribes writing on papyrus and leather used Aramaic. From this period on, one speaks of Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian . Neo-Assyrian received an upswing in popularity in
16129-547: Was used to separate the heavens from the earth. They find it and use it to cut off Ullikummi's feet. Although the names of the Anunnaki in Hurrian and Hittite texts frequently vary, they are always eight in number. In one Hittite ritual, the names of the old gods are listed as: "Aduntarri the diviner, Zulki the dream interpretess, Irpitia Lord of the Earth, Narā, Namšarā, Minki, Amunki, and Āpi." The old gods had no identifiable cult in
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