Many readers will have heard of the Anunnaki — hopefully listening to me debunk nonsense about them and not from Ancient Aliens. One of the problems with getting quality information about the Anunnaki is that the best material was published decades ago in German...
Mesopotamia
Apkallu in the News
I couldn’t resist posting this — hat tip to Matthew for it! “Record-Setting Sale Of An Ancient Assyrian Stone Relief Sparks Looting Fears In Iraq” $28 million for a seven-foot carved relief of an apkallu. Readers will recall that apkallu are...
Naked Bible Conference Speaker and Topic Profile #1
I’ll be blogging a few thoughts on each speaker and topic for our upcoming (August 18) Naked Bible Conference. You can read the full abstract of each speaker and topic at the website. My thoughts here are just to give you all a heads up as to why I invited the...
I Guess I Have to See The Shape of Water
The recent movie The Shape of Water won the Academy Award for best picture this past weekend. Like most of the country, I wasn’t watching. However, it appears I’m going to have to see it. Its plotline sounds a little too familiar. In case you’re not...
Free PDF Books on Ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Etc.
Courtesy of the University of Chicago. Here are some titles (but follow that link): Gelb, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character Gelb, A Study of Writing Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of...
PanBabylonianism: The Wellspring of Middle Earth PaleoBabble
I came across this essay recently. It’s from the out of print book, Mesopotamian and the Bible, edited by Mark Chavalas and Lawson Younger. The essay is by Chavalas, a scholar of biblical studies and ancient Mesopotamia: Chavalas Assyriology and Biblical Studies...
Book on Artistic Depiction of Mesopotamian Deities Available Online in PDF
Tallay Ornan’s important book, The triumph of the symbol: Pictorial representation of deities in Mesopotamia and the biblical image ban, is now available as a PDF for free download. Here’s the abstract: This book analyzes the history of Mesopotamian...
Iraqi Transportation Minister Says Iraq the HQ of Ancient Aliens — Sounds Dumber than Tariq Assiz
Here’s a link to a Breitbart story, part of which reads: “Iraqi transportation minister Kadhem Finjan al-Hamami asserted that Sumerians, the members of an ancient Iraqi civilization, built ‘the first airports’ and ‘Sumerian spaceships...
Cuneiform Lexical Lists: Another Reason Sitchin Was Wrong
The Ancient History website just published this short essay on cuneiform lexical lists — basically, the ancient equivalent of bilingual (and otherwise) dictionaries for Sumerian and Akkadian produced by the ancient scribes. From the opening paragraph: Lexical...
New Research on Nibiru Shows Sitchin is Still Wrong
I recently received this short note in email about some work done in the cuneiform sources regarding Nibiru: Dear Dr. Heiser, I have analyzed the extant cuneiform evidence in the peer-reviewed publication “The Marduk Star Nebiru” (CDLI Bulletin 2015:3). I...
An Assyrian Origin for the Trinity?
Some readers may be aware of claims in this regard popularized on the internet. The idea is actually fairly old, but in recent years has gained steam via the work of a credentialed Assyriologist, Simo Parpola. A few years ago I had the role of soliciting papers for an...
Hand Drawing Cuneiform
I found this blog this morning via Twitter. It’s a new one, and begins with how to use Adobe Illustrator to trace out cuneiform tablets. I don’t have Illustrator, but if anyone in the graphic arts community knows of a similar (free) online tool for tracing...
Colavito, Hanks, and Giants: Some Interaction by Heiser
See how I cleverly included all three last names for better searching? You’ll understand that if you read Jason Colavito’s latest post on “gigantology”: Micah Hanks: The Hubris of Jason Colavito and Skeptics Over Giants Is “Worthy of...
Understanding Pan-Babylonianism
I’ve blogged about the 19th century academic trend (one is tempted to call it a craze) referred to as Pan-Babylonianism before. In simplest terms, this was the era following the heels of the decipherment of cuneiform, which made the literature of the ancient...
Camels in the Bible on Hump Day
It’s Wednesday and, wouldn’t you know it, someone sent me a link to the following article: “Will Camel Discovery Break the Bible’s Back?” In case you’re not up on the problem of camels for the Bible (shame on you), here’s an...