 The Sumerian epic abridged! Have your own experience! In 1874 an archaeologist named Indiana Jones, I mean, Austin Henry Layard, found 22,000 clay tablets hidden in the depths of an ancient city in modern day Iraq. These tablets contain tons of information about what is often considered the first civilization of humanity, the Sumerians, and the civilizations that followed, the Assyrians and the Babylonians. The tablets also described their religion and belief systems, which today we find to be the writings that predate many of the world's religions today, especially the Abrahamic ones, such as Judaism and Christianity. The Sumerian creation epic is hard to learn about because a lot of the tablets are broken, but there are some renditions available of one of their most prominent creation myths. The story begins with Apsu and Tiamat, the god of freshwater and salt water. However, they are often interpreted to be primordial forces in the elementary universe. Apsu also has a vizier whose name is Mumu. Together, Apsu and Tiamat give birth to a bunch of new gods and goddesses, usually in pairs of two. You've got Lamu and Lahamu, Anchar and Kishar, and Anu and Ia. The kid gods are super annoying, and so Apsu gets all angry with them, and he says he wants to kill them. The kids find out about this and go to Enki for help. Enki puts Apsu to sleep, chains up Mumu, and takes Apsu's throne. Then Enki and his wife, who shows up out of nowhere, have a baby together named Marduk, who is very manly, has four eyes, and breathes fire. Grandpappy Anu gives Marduk something called the Four Winds, which sends a wave of upset to Tiamat. Mama Tiamat gets really mad and creates a bunch of monsters and basically declares war on her children. The gods all get together and figure out a plan, and overbearing pastries they agree that Marduk shall be their Avenger. Marduk and Tiamat go to war! Marduk ends up killing Tiamat with his windy magic and an arrow, and cuts her in half. He binds up her monster army and directs Babylon in his own honor. Some time passes, and then he has Enki create humans because he's just got a really good feeling about it, and it turns out that humans make great slaves, so it works out. The story ends with Marduk getting 50 holy names, and everyone thinks he's just the best. Now this story has probably been met with a lot of blank stares for a long time, because WTF is this even talking about. But then enters Zechariah's Sitchin, the world's expert on what is often considered pseudo-history, who studied cuneiform growing up and came to the conclusion that the story went deeper than what most people believed. He came to the conclusion that the story was not about gods at all, but planets and some crazy stuff that went down in a distant past long before humans even existed at all. His interpretation goes something like this. In the birthplace of the solar system there were several primordial bodies. One was the Sun, that was King Opsu, a little orbiting body called Mercury, who was Opsu's vizier, and a watery planet called Tiamat, who orbited the Sun right around where the asteroid belt is today, and I bet you can see where this is going. In the formation of the solar system, many other planets were formed. Venus and Mars were Lamu and Lahamu, Jupiter and Saturn were Anshar and Kishar, and Anu and Ea were Uranus and Neptune. These planets had crazy orbits and put Tiamat in danger. This was the kids being super rowdy and just having way too much fun. Sitchin thought that Ea putting Opsu to sleep was somehow related to the Sun settling its own turbulent energy during this early formation period, and that new planets had to come from outside of the solar system, thus putting Ea in charge in a way. And so then a new planet comes into the solar system, Marduk. This planet might have come from another solar system whose star exploded, or something like that. But either way, it came into the solar system and tore some matter from Uranus's body. This was Anu giving Marduk the four winds, which were large satellites hurling around the planet. From there, Marduk approached the inner solar system. As it passes Saturn, Marduk pulls one of Saturn's moons away from it and into space, creating Pluto, which is a part of the story where Anshar, the god-planet presently known today as Saturn, sends its Vizier Gaga off to visit some other gods. Then Marduk keeps going and lines up really well to collide with Tiamat, goodie. Marduk's gravity causes Tiamat to release a number of monsters, I mean, uh, satellites of its own, which kind of acts like a really bad shield. One of these is really big, and later becomes the moon. It's a close call, but these whirling winds smash into Tiamat and tear her almost in two. Marduk sails off into space, but is now destined to return to the scene of this event, its orbit locked in around the sun. Then, thousands of years pass and eventually, Marduk once again smashes into Tiamat, tearing her in two again, and this time one large chunk makes its way into the position where it is today. A bunch more time passes, and boom shakalaka, this chunk eventually becomes the Earth. Supposedly, Marduk still remains in our solar system with a 3600-year cycle, and will one day return into our inner system and cause some gravitational anomalies to our planet and make everybody queasy. Okay, that's Zechariah's Sitchin's interpretation. But, like, that's pretty wild. Is there any truth to it? Well, the search for a more distant planet beyond Neptune has been going on for a really long time. It's often called Planet X, and there's actually a lot of evidence for a massive body in deep space orbiting our sun. We see this due to the fluctuations of comets and whatnot that seem to suggest they're affected by some massive gravity that we haven't found where it's coming from so far. Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin are two very prominent planetary scientists who have proved without a shadow of a doubt Planet X is out there. Granted, we can't say it's definitively this Nibiru. I mean, what if it's a Death Star? Anyways, if this story is true, it explains a lot of things. It explains the asteroid belt, which is said to have been caused from the planetary collision of Tiamat and Marduk. It also explains the moon, which is believed today to have been created in a massive collision billions of years ago. The story explains Pluto, which has a crazy orbit and nobody today knows definitively where it came from. And finally, it explains Uranus, which today there's a lot of studies about just how weird that planet is, with its sideways tilt, warped magnetics, and stuff like that. Scientists believe it too was involved in some big collision a long time ago. How about that? But then again, we got a call into question the accuracy of these translations. Are they legit? I mean, maybe. Maybe not. Ultimately, you have to decide for yourself on this one. Maybe it's all just like a really, really good coincidence. A lot of people have pointed out that Zechariah Sitchin embellished his stories, and others suggest that he actually couldn't ever read Sumerian cuneiform at all. How do you feel about that? Then, finally, there is another interpretation available today called the Electric Universe Theory, which takes a different spin on the whole thing. It basically says that the whole universe is electric. Dars are like giant gas clouds that light up like light bulb filaments when there's energy moving through it, which come from these massive electrical currents radiating from the center of the galaxy. And that the story of Marduk and Tiamat, and other similar dragon battle stories found in ancient history, are all telling the story of a shift in our solar system, when our planet moved from one sun to another. And that Venus and Mars basically collided with each other, and it was epic and terrifying and... Yeah, pretty much everything changed for us. But you wouldn't be interested in learning about something like that, would you? Oh, you would? Well, you can always watch the full thing in the Sumerian epic on YouTube to get the full story. And while you're at it, you might as well free yourself from the Matrix and go check out Patch Turot in the Spirit Shop.