This is a steal, folks - especially if you can work in Akkadian. But even if not, Andrew George's magisterial work on the Gilgamesh Epic is a must. It's the most current scholarship on the original cuneiform text. The file features tablet transcriptions,...
Mesopotamia
Sweet Assyriology Resources Online
The Ancient World Online (AWOL) blog recently posted about updates made to the CDLI (Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative) wiki site, now hosted at the University of Oxford. The CDLI wiki is a terrific website for Assyriology. By way of examples, you can find helpful...
Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses: Database and Bibliography Project
For all those interested in ancient Mesopotamian religion, I recommend the Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses Project website. It's being produced by one of my alma maters, the University of Pennsylvania. The project describes itself as a "website [that] offers...
Addendum to the Anunnaki Search on my Sitchin Is Wrong Website
I just wanted to give readers a heads-up on this. Some readers of my Zecharia Sitchin website have been unable to re-create the search for all occurrences of the Anunnaki in Sumerian texts via the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature. (For those to whom that...
Recent Online Dissertation on the Sumerian Deity Enki
Today I came across this published (2010) doctoral dissertation on the god Enki by Peeter Espak. it is entitled, "The God Enki in Sumerian Royal Ideology and Mythology." I decided to blog the link in the name of offering something useful to all those who want to read...
Ancient Astronaut Enthusiast Defends Sitchin
Some readers know about my website devoted to demonstrating the nonsense put forth by Zecharia Sitchin. Part of that site includes an open letter to Sitchin (now deceased of course) and his worshippers. It's been there over 10 years (Sitchin never responded) but at...
After 90 Years the CAD is "Finished" (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary)
Here's the link to the recent announcement. I say "finished" because, having been begun in 1921, many volumes are now outdated. But it's still a great achievement. The CAD is available for free in PDF (or you can buy all the volumes for $1400). I mention the CAD on...
PaleoBabble Exchange with John Halloran, Sumerian Specialist
John Halloran has had a presence on the internet since 1996. He's the scholar who maintains the Sumerian Language Page. On that page one can find his online lexicon (dictionary) of Sumerian. That material was recently printed in hard copy book form and has been...
More Fun with Zecharia Sitchin: Looking for Rocket Ships in Sumerian Texts
Squint real hard, you might see them. This video is longer (19:00) because I go through the major lexical resources for Akkadian and Sumerian -- all publicly accessible -- to show that (surprise!) Zecharia Sitchin's translations ("rocket ship"; "fiery rocket") for...
Fun with Zecharia Sitchin: Let’s Search for the Anunnaki
Okay, this probably isn't going to be fun (especially to followers of Zecharia Sitchin), but I'm trying. Those of you who know of Sitchin and his work know that one of his major claims is that the Sumerian deities, the Anunnaki, were actually extraterrestrials. That's...
The Bias of 19th Century German Biblical and Assyriological Scholarship
Turns out even real scholars can be guilty of paleobabble when motivated by biases. They simply filter the data through a preconceived grid. I've blogged before about how F. Delitzsch was influenced by racial theories of his day toward anti-Semitism, which in turn...
Zecharia Sitchin’s Astronomy Debunked
There are a number of good critiques on the web showing the flaws in Sitchin's discussion of astronomy from the Sumerian and Mesopotamian texts. Here are a few: Chris Siren's page Ian Lawton's analysis Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy website deals with "Planet X" My own...
Is Zecharia Sitchin Anti-Semitic?
I don't believe so (Sitchin is Jewish). That said, it seems Sitchin and his followers don't realize how his ideas open themselves to that charge. How? Aside from pure imagination, a lot of Sitchin's ideas presuppose a dependence of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) on...
Zecharia Sitchin and the Meaning of Sumerian and Akkadian Words
On my old website devoted to exposing the phony scholarship of Zecharia Sitchin's ancient astronaut nonsense, I had occasion to note how the meanings of certain Sumero-Akkadian words or glyphs supplied by by Sitchin were not only nonsense, but the Sumerians themselves...
Nibiru and Zecharia Sitchin
What do Mesopotamian texts say about "nibiru"? Does what Zecharia Sitchin say about it demonstrable from the tablets themselves? Is it a planet beyond Pluto? Does it cycle through our solar system every 3600 years? Is it a planet inhabited by the Anunnaki? Are the...