THE CULTURAL EXCHANGES AND DIFFUSION

The First Civilization :

Four Objects that Highlight Sumerian Civilization’s Perceived Cosmospatial Space. Declaration of Interest: This assignment was partially supported from the earlier research grants received from: Nguyen Vian Fund (Vietnam) and Vegusto (UK). I have chosen four objects that highlight the different aspects of the perceived time-spatial space of the ancient Sumer. I then go on to indicate how such time spatial concepts were used to promote of the hierarchy of Sumer’s kingship. The choice of these particular exhibits arises from our growing need to understand in increasing details the ancient environmental recollections that often refer to the events that related to the climate change. I have also taken the view that the long distance cultural diffusion played a far greater role in the early societies than is often assumed although the material evidence of this is largely lacking (due to the fact that the nomadic peoples’ possessions had to be easily portable thus often leaving only linguistic and mythical traditions to study). In recent times DNA haplogroup studies have added a new tool to trace people movement. This gives a brief overview of cultural concepts that I think diffused from Sumer.

Object 1 : Weld-Blundell Prism (WB) :

The Weld-Blundell Prism (20cm x 9cm x 9cm) was found from the city of Larsa. The prism contains a complete record of the Sumerian Kings List. The object was made close to 1753 BCE as it ends with the 14th king of the Isin dynasty, Sîn-magir, who reigned c. 1763 – 1753 BCE (Sumerian short chronology) and it was most likely written during Sîn-magir's final year, or shortly after the reign of his son Damiq-ilišu commenced who was the ruler of Isin before the city of Larsa conquered it (Van De Mieroop, 2016: 47). According to Ashmolean Museum (Ashmolean Museum Accession Number AN1923.4440) the owner of the original object, the king lists aims to legitimize the inherited power of the rulers from their predecessors in a region of Sumer. Many, especially its pre-flood, kings reigns are expressed using extremely large numbers such as sars and nerah and therefore many scholars of Sumer have thought that this work to be more artistic than a real historical record.

Fig. 1. Weld-Blundell Prism (WB)

Sumer’s position coincides with the point in history where human communities changed from hunter-gatherer and pastoral-nomadic life to a settled agricultural life. During the earlier, more mobile setting of the nomadic and pastoral lifestyle the roaming human bandits slip easily past each other on little populated terrain. Once people became fixed to their land as they started cultivating it, the need to govern was almost inevitable while the population densities also grew. Sumerian Kings List names Sumer’s first hierarchic leader as Alulim in the town of Eridug followed then by 128 subsequent Sumerian kings in the Weld-Blundell Prism. The time-keeping system in Sumerian Kings List has been difficult to understand which has been limiting its usefulness in dating the history of the early kings (if compared to the early Egyptian kings whose reigns’ dates are widely accepted). Despite of the enormously varying numbers of recorded time units, they are often cited as ‘years’. A comparative analysis of the early time-keeping systems is necessary here. Since the ice-ages times the passage of time was first and foremost recorded by recording of day-tallies (i.e. Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. An example of Palaeolithic day-keeping rib bone used for recording days for a period about three years from the Grotte du Taï in France with a series of over thousand line marks. Photo: Alexander Marshack. (Bahn, 1997, p. 204.)

The Sumerian culture was not any exception when it came to recording time by marking down day-tallies of its early rulers. The following the early Sumerian quotation refers to recording of day-tallies onto the wall – likely by using a black charcoal to make them easily washable – assigned as Uruk I period tradition :

“ ‘All men are deceivers.. therefore bake loaves of bread, each day one loaf, and put it beside his head: and make a mark on the wall to number the days he has slept.’ So she baked loaves of bread, each day one loaf, and put it beside his head, and she marked on the wall the days that he slept” (Sandars, 1972, p. 114).

This would explain the very long reigning period numbers cited for the first eight ruling houses of Sumer while it also stipulates a possibility that Sumer’s time keeping and kingship ideology was transmitted to some surrounding regions.

The recording of day-tallies explains away the problem of huge time numbers allocated for the octet of the first eight kings of Sumer as shown in Table 1 :

Table 1. Day-tallies of the Eight Reigning Houses of Sumer’s Five Leading Cities

Note : Sumerian Kings Lists allocate the origin of Sumer’s kingship institution to “heaven” that is then used to justify Sumer’s city state leaders and elites power over the commoners; the tradition held that at the beginning people wandered under open skies which “ruled”.

The Sumerian Octet of the first eight ruling houses mandated by a god of heaven arrived to the Nile Valley where its city-states developed the Egyptian Enneads and Ogdoad where their local kings ruled supreme as the head those eight older “gods”. The importation of the revered octet of the first Mesopotamian kings into Egypt was used as a stepping-stone argument for the nascent Egyptian city states rulers to assume their powers much following earlier Mesopotamian examples.

This represents one example of cultural diffusion that originated from Sumerian kingship. Archaeological evidence suggests Egypt’s cultural fascination towards Sumer during the Nagada period that preceded the unification of Egypt to one large state. Therefore, two of the gods in the Egyptian Ogdoad are named not after the River Nile tributaries, but after the Mesopotamian tributary, Kerheh. Even for the Greeks the Sumer’s invention of the regal time-keeping is reflected in the myth of Chronus (aka “chronos” = time) whose world era is defeated in the cataclysmic event of the Titanomachy as the present world’s sky-god took over. The reign of Alalngar to Dumuzid represents a period of 144,000 days (400 years x 360 days). This precise number appears among the various cultural traditions.

The very large numbers that resulted from counting the reigns of Sumer’s ruling houses using days as time unit over many decades were difficult to handle. This led to a short-lived effort to count time from the first crescent after the new moon to the next one. It divided ecliptic to 13 sectors of 28 days each = 364 days.

This transient system had each lunar quarter represented by its 7 creative suns (days) to divide the solar year to 52 weeks, whereas the year itself was a part of a larger 52-year cycle modelled after Sumer’s last ruling house of Ubara-tutu in the previous world age. This 52-year megacycle was then extrapolated to even more gigantic total world age of all previous world ages as 13 cycles of 52 years to encapsulate the Sumer’s Octet as 13 cycles x 52 years = 676 years. Herodotus later cites to the time-spatial city plan of Babylon being designed after this time spatial concept of Sumer as the 676 city squares that alluded these 676 years :

“As there were 25 gates on each side of the outer wall [of Babylon], the great thoroughfares numbered 50 in all, and there were 676 squares, each over two miles in circumference.” (Mackenzie 1915, 220).

Fig. 3. Lunar-Crescent-Derived 13-Station Ecliptic with a Zodiacal Ophiuchus

"But even according to the Babylonians’ own ancient stories, there were 13 constellations in the zodiac. So they picked one, Ophiuchus, to leave out. Even then, some of the chosen 12 didn’t fit neatly into their assigned slice of the pie and crossed over into the next one [constellation]. .. The constellations are different sizes and shapes, so the Sun spends different lengths of time lined up with each one. The line from Earth through the sun points to Virgo for 45 days, but it points to Scorpius for only 7 days. To make a tidy match with their 12-month calendar, the Babylonians ignored the fact that the Sun actually moves through 13 constellations, not 12. Then they assigned each of those 12 constellations equal amounts of time." (NASA, 2020).

Following a brief experiment of counting time from the new lunar crescents (instead of counting time as days) resulted in the ecliptic being divided to 13 sectors of 28 days and further to 52 lunar quarters to give us our present week with its seven suns. It was soon discovered that 364-day years still kept drifting and the alignment between the cycles of the sun and moon was not perfect. Consequently, the difficult 13-station division of ecliptic was given up and a new Kish Temple Time was adopted to divide the ecliptic to 30 lunar stations to approximate the earlier 28-day system with mathematically easy circle divisions.

Table 2. Kish Kings on the Temple Time of 30 Stellar Stations of the Moon

In total there were 32 kings in Kish that reigned for 17,980 stations (599 years and 4 months) that equal to virtually six centuries. This may not have been just a coincidence but a move made by the next ruling city of Uruk but a calculated act of rebuttal for the claims of then-long-leading-city of Kish that had “its time up” and the 7th century and the future of Sumer now handed to the 7th city of Uruk. While the durations of the Kish’s kings’ reigns were measured against a time deferral to moon’s approximated 30 daily stations against stellar background on the sky, the kings names themselves were expressed as months’ stations against the year in a superior deference to the sun. Thus the twelve first kings of Kish bear stellar names to animals that preceded the twelve stations of the much later Mesopotamian zodiac. By the 13th king of Kish, Etana, such a naming convention was closed and could be no longer followed as the last vacant station on the ecliptic became filled by the king Arwium and the kingship was liberated from its stricture of being named after the stellar stations depicting cosmic animals.

Table 3. Uruk Kings on the Kish Temple Time of 30 Stellar Stations of the Moon

The city of Uruk was born under Kish and remained initially tied as suzerainty to the state and therefore cited the Kish Temple Time for its first three kings during 1,944 stellar stations, approximate 65 years. After that the leaders of Uruk re-asserted themselves and took over Kish establishing the Divine Time of Uruk where 1/3 of time was human while the remaining 2/3 was allocated as ‘divine time.’ This still inflated ‘years’ for the next two Uruk kings x 3 after which all the inflating sophistry was dropped for simple solar years and its cycles of seasons.

According to the Weld-Blundell Prism the 7th city of Uruk whose, “12 lugal mu-bi2,310 ib2-ak”, twelve kings ruled for 2,310 years: 324 + 420 + 1,200 + 100 + 126 + 30 + 15 + 9 + 8 + 36 + 6 + 36 = 2,310 years. These are made of (324 + 420 + 1,200) stellar stations, (100 + 126) divine years, with the rest being solar years.

The reigns of Uruk represent three Mesopotamian time recording units that are arbitrarily added together in the Weld-Blundell Prism as a sum to check for the copying errors (as their total “number” was known). These 2,310 years of the Weld-Blundell Prism are given an entirely different sum in the Su2 manuscript that is 3,588. This Su2 manuscript sum cannot be obtained by adding Su2 ‘years’ together, or indeed, with any possible variant combination that could be made from extant SKL copies (324 -> 325, 420 -> 900, 100 -> 110, 6 -> 900, and 36 -> 420).

Here a different theological school to the Weld-Blundell Prism is represented by Sumerian Kings List Manuscript Su2 where the lines 130-133 read: “12 lugal mu-bi 3,588 ib2-ak unugki jictukul ba-an-sig3 nam-lugal-bi urim2ki-ce3 ba-de6” This is translated as "12 kings [of the City of Uruk]; they ruled for 3588 years. Then Uruk was defeated and the kingship was taken to Ur." Here the reign of Uruk is represented as the completed thirteen cycles as 3,588 equals to 276 x 13 = 52 x 69. This period of 276 years of warming is similar to Codex Chimalpopoca :

Fig. 3. The pre-flood world age of 676 years had 400 cold years aside 276 warm years in Codex Chimalpopoca reflecting both 144,000-day cold period and 13 cycles of 52-year cycle akin to the last pre-flood king’s 52 year reign.

However, it seems that the Weld-Blundell Prism authors were well aware of the above numbers as the total addition of the kings omits the huge reigns of the first eight kings (or their ruling houses) by an apparent reference to 676 years when it adds up all 134 kings together as 28,876 (a sum of 28,200 + 400 + 200 + 76) : the numbers exactly identify as Codex Chimalpopoca’s climate eras. From here it can be shown that Sumerian Kings Lists include an ethnoclimatological overlay.

Table 4. Day-tallies of the First 10 Reigning Sumerian Houses by Berossus

The ten Sumerian pre-flood kings that are mentioned in Berossus’ lost three volume set “History of Babylonia”, The Babyloniaca, Book 2, were preserved by Christian apologists interested in how the long lifespans of the Sumerian kings were similar to the long lifespans of the antediluvian ancestors in Genesis. Most of the names in Berossus king-lists are lost or are perceived as completely mangled, see Table 4 comparisons to the best surviving Sumerian Kings Lists.

The Berossus’ History of Babylonia even in its mangled form is very informative and reveals new important aspects on the evolution of the Sumerian Kings Lists. The most significant feature of the kings list of The Babyloniaca is its differing tabulation of the first pre-flood kings of Sumer which appear as ten instead eight. Their reigns in The Babyloniaca amount to 432,000 ‘years’ which is the duration of the Indian Kali Yug period, that of our present world era. This is in turn the last, fourth sub-period of Maha Yug that lasts 4,320,000 ‘years’.

This immense number derives from the four ruling houses of Sumer from Alalgar to Dumuzid as expressed using the Kish Temple Time multiplied by its 30 stellar stations of the moon on the ecliptic 30 x 144,000 = 4,320,000 and indicates that the Temple Time of Kish diffused as far east as the Indian subcontinent. Thus, we are able to cross-check from the Indian chronologies ties to early Sumerian Kings List dates.

Three of the Indian chronologies appear suitable for establishing the firm dates for the Sumerian Kings List that can further be cross-linked among themselves.

Table 5. Indian Schools of Commencement of ‘Present World Era’ at the Flood

1st Maha Yug School :

The Pandav's lose their war before Kali Yug era.

The Last Pandav King : Yudhishthir must transfer first 3114-3102 his power for the Kali Yug King: Zodiac Transfer takes place before Kali Yug can start (12 years prior to Kali Yug.) Yudhishthir’s grand-nephew’s accession then takes place when Parikshit 3102 BCE finally starts the present age (Kali Yug).

2nd Maha Yug School :

Parikshit starts the Kali Yug of present world from 2449 BCE. (Fleet, 1911) Kish Temple Time: City of Kish 600 years + City of Uruk 65 years = 665 years 2449 + 665 + 12-year zodiac transfer from 13-crescent count = 3114 BCE.

3rd The Saptarshi Count :

The 7 Kings 3077 BCE – dispatched to Ursa Major. 3077-1 BCE + 1-600 CE = 37 centuries (1 year added to each passing century): 3077 + 37 = 3114 BCE.

The Indian chronologies cite Sumer’s 144,000 day-tallies period against the 30 stellar stations of the moon on the ecliptic resulting in above said 4,320,000 time period that is sub-divided into era’s four ruling houses that together made up the 144,000-day period agreeing with the total of the four periods of the Maha Yug. Importantly, our present age, or the Kali Yug, started 3102 BCE according to the 1st Maha Yug School, which at first sight contradicts the 2nd Maha Yug School that begins counting from 2449 BCE. Maha Yug cites a descent to climate chaos.

Fig. 4. Sumer’s Meluhha colonies on the Kish Island with trading colonies set by Susa, Kish, and pre-flood city of Larak diffused Kish Temple Time to India.

Their neighbour, Baghu links the colonies to Brahui: the Dravidian Indus. The 3rd Indian School is based on the Saptarshi Count, which gives the start date of our present world age as 3077 BCE according to a source 37 centuries after the event. As the Saptarshi Counting counts the last year of full centuries twice as an intercalary year to ensure there were no shortfalls in century counts, another 37 years needs to be added. Thus, 3077 BCE + 37 years = 3114 BCE. This is also the very year for the flood recorded as the Mesoamerican Long Count’s start.

The last king of Kish, Aga, and the first kings of independent Uruk like Gilgamesh, were contemporaries. Their dates are estimated at 26th century BCE as known from other sources. It appears from here that Sumerian Short Chronology ties well to the end of Kish’s rule c. 2515 BCE as in the three Indian sources. Thus, all the preceding series of six centuries of rulers can now be dated accurately using the 32nd century 3114 BCE ocean flood event as the base date. This gives for the accession of Alulim taking place around 3775/4 BCE on the early 38th century BCE, some 700 years before the city-states of Egypt began to form. It corresponds well to the commonly accepted idea that Sumer’s city-states began forming long before the idea of city-state and kingship took off in the Nile Valley. Hence, there were appeal to cite the Sumer’s then legendary king octet in Egypt.

The Japanese sun-god Amaterasu is said to have been hiding in the cave of the underworld for 799 autumns and springs until the sun re-emerged for the 800th semi-annual season (Fig. 5, right). China’s annals cite 180-day ‘autumns and springs’, instead of 360-day years–duplicating the number from 400 years to 800 seasons like Amaterasu. Japanese flags express the warrior-sun Amaterasu. All variants agree with 144,000-day period which also made it into the Christian Bible as the people of the Great Tribulation in the Book of Revelation where the victors from the cosmic cataclysm are described as accompanied with heavenly god and walking in a presence of god on a crystal (frozen) sea. This may be taken as yet another indication of 400 cold years of Codex Chimalopopoca or the Maha Yug’s cited “White Ages” of the previous world era that occurred before the flood event.

Buddha cites in the Seven Suns Sutta the ocean retreating over 100 metres or 7 palm trees height.

Fig. 5. Sun rises in Japan

The Mesoamerican count also seems to base on the older 13 stellar stations on the ecliptic of the 28-day lunar crescent based system by multiplying these to 144,000 which also equals as 400 years of 360 days as earlier cited in Codex Chimalpoca’s as the cold years of the previous world aside its 276 warm years.

Fig. 6. Centzon totochtin: 144,000 days of rabbit-eating or 400 rabbit-years refer to Aztecs cold age when plant growth was inadequate to feed the humans.

In Indian Jatak tales the ‘benevolent rabbit’ volunteered for human food to save mankind from starvation. Thus rabbit appears in the moon’s face in the folk tale’s Chinese version and its correspondents in North America as gods venerated ‘benevolence of rabbit’ by its apparition at moon’s face.

Object 2 : Dumuzid Tablet :

Fig. 7. Dumuzid Tablet

The Dumuzid Tablet is an ancient Mesopotamian clay tablet that dates to the Amorite Period (c. 2000-1600 BC), containing a lamentation over the death of Sumer’s king-god, Dumuzid. The original is held in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

The fifth king of the Weld-Blundell Prism appears as the main character in the Dumuzid Tablet that refers to the traditions about the pre-flood king of Sumer. In Sumerian traditions Dumuzid was the last king of the city-state of Bad-tibira when the city last reigned as the supreme city of Sumer. Dumuzid’s reign ends the 144,000 day-tallies long period (400 years x 360 days) that had begun from the Alalngar’s accession to kingship in the City of Eridug. Dumuzid was known as the god-king of the shepherds as a reference to the preceding ages that were agriculturally very difficult, and consequently people became more dependent on consumption of mutton as well as warmer clothing. Once the climate warmed and wetted, this led to the end of the era of reliance on shepherding to cease and hence the ‘death’ of Dumuzid as the god-king of shepherds, and the rise of the era of Inanna as the vegetative growth of the resumed in Sumer and also elsewhere.

Inanna and Dumuzid are represented in the lore of Sumer as a couple. Many commentators have failed to understand the exact relationship between the two as the two mutually exclusive opposite climatic poles. Hence, they wonder why Inanna allows in Sumer’s lore her spouse Dumuzid to be dragged by the galla demons - as her replacement - into the Underworld. This must be taken as a figurative recall of the end of the shepherding ages by the newly-resumed agricultural ages as Inanna herself is being liberated from behind the gates of the Underworld. Therefore, the juxtaposition of Dumuzid versus Inanna’s loyalty to him as seen questionable, is incorrect. Similar to Demeter–Persephone couplet of the Greeks, the explanation of the proper seasons occurring in our present climate age, The Return of Dumuzid sees him allowed to return to Heaven to be with her for just one half of the year.

This is given as the folkloristic explanation of the seasons came to be after the huge, long winter was over – like the East Asian ‘800 autumns and springs’. In the Indoeuropean traditions the long winter ages are called the Finbul Winter and the Greek Demeter-Persephone is its corresponding relic seasonality explanation. In a building inscription from the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112 – c. 2004 BC), the warrior god Shara is described as her son. In various mythistories, sun is described as warrior who overcomes the powers of the darkness, this often further linked to the ending of the dark and cold world era that took place before the present climate era of regular seasons.

Dumuzid is also known as god Tammuz who brings fertility back to the earth. As such he also appears as an agricultural deity that is associated with the growth of plants akin to the framework of passing the cold word ages discussed earlier. Much like the Chinese and Japanese people associate the resurrection of sun as Amaterasu after 800 autumns and springs, the ancient Near Eastern peoples associated Dumuzid with the springtime, when the land becomes fertile and abundant. On the other hand, during the peak heat of the summer months, when the land becomes dry and barren, Sumerians thought that Dumuzid "dies".

Thus during the month of Dumuzid in the mid summer, people all across Sumer would mourn over his death as the vegetative growth of land came to its end which was perhaps the main aspect of his cult. In Lagash, the sixth month of the year was Dumuzid and became a celebrated holiday that was later transmitted via the Sumerians to Babylonians and then to other East Semitic peoples as Tammuz.

In Jewish tradition this celebration month Tammus occurs when fruits like first figs and grapes ripen and were celebrated of the current agricultural year. Fig. 8.

Fig. 8. Sumer’s Dumuzid as vegetation god cited as Tammuz in Jewish Calendar

Much akin to the Myth of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered snake, referring to the idea of the Milky Way as a cosmic snake or dragon that dominates the darkness of the night sky and the darkness of the underworld and the subsequent feathering of land by its vegetation under sunlight, a ritual associated with the Ekur temple in Nippur links the vegetation-god Dumuzid with the snake-god Ištaran, who in that ritual, is described as having died. This could be seen again as synonymous to Inanna’s nakedness in the bossoms of the Underworld as well as her manifestation of the vegetative dying in the midsummer heat in Sumer.

The main point of interest here being the linking of the death of snake or dragon to Dumuzid who brought the end to the 144,000-day climatic pandemonium when vegetation failed and people became highly dependent on the sheep-keeping.

Object 3 : The Warka Vase :

Fig. 9. The Warka Vase

The Warka Vase that is made of alabaster was found in a deposit of cult objects from Uruk III period and has been dated to around 3200-3000 BCE. The original is located in the National Museum of Iraq. The artistic vase has three registers or rows. The middle register shows a row of naked men carrying bowls, vessels, and baskets of agricultural farm products etc. On the top register, the animal herders bring sheep and goats to a female figure facing the ruler. The two twisted doorpost reeds are Inanna’s symbol set in front of the standing female while the male holds a box and stack of bowls which symbol became later a cuneiform sign signifying the high priest, En, of the temple. By the archaeological Uruk period (c. 4000 – c. 3100 BC), the god Inanna was already associated with the city of Uruk symbolized by a ring-headed doorpost.

In Sumer’s mythistorical accounts Inanna was already associated with the much earlier pre-flood city of Bad-tibira, like in the Weld-Blundell Prism, through the association of its god-king of shepherds, Dumuzid, being her spouse. Bad-tibira was then followed by the subsequent leading cities of Larag, Zimbir, Šuruppag, and the post-flood city Kish until finally Uruk was established by the king Mesh-ki-ang-gasher that may have originally at its establishment been a subordinate vassal to the city of Kish as it respected the Kish Temple Time where passing of time was recorded as the passages of the 30 lunar stations on the ecliptic until the city’s secession and break up of ties with the Kish establishment by its kings setting up the Divine Time of Uruk.

In the above-given context, it is important to remember that in Sumerian Kings Lists like the Weld-Blundell Prism, as well as others, there are both Dumuzid I of Bad-tibira, as well as Dumuzid II of Uruk. These are occasionally thought as referring to one and the same king, but this interpretation is not consistent of Sumer’s own timekeeping as the two rulers were separated by the flood and many centuries in between. The fusion of the two kings is the recent handiwork of the 20th century scholars who consider the Jemdet Nasr 31st century flooding event as the cataclysmic flooding cited in the Sumerian Kings Lists.

The altercation of the courses of the Mesopotamian rivers was an ever-present threat both by deprival of water or by flooding as was in case of Jemdet Nasr findings and the Mesopotamian River Valley cities were well aware of these ever-present risks in particular if year was very rainy that the river might break its banks and suddenly re-route elsewhere. In case of localised salination of agricultural fields, a site like Jemdet Nasr could be abandoned rather than rebuilt immediately after river ran over the city and made it inhabitable. This allowed land to rest and desalinate while along a new river course better virgin agricultural land was created. Therefore, fitting all cities and kings from Bad-tibira to Uruk to same period to make Dumuzid I of Bad-tibira and Dumuzid II of Uruk same person is unviable considering all the kings listed in between them besides the flood event.

It is more likely that Dumuzid was adopted as a politically opportune ruler name due to the name’s positive connotations from the past as the first Dumuzid king represented the growth and opening of new opportunities along with the new climate age his fertile reign followed after the long aeons of unproductive and infertile pastoral ages when the sheep-keepers ruled over the farmer’s plough.

This configuration maintains intact the climatic era referred and the warming that led to flooding and is coherent with ethnoclimatologies in rest of world. The new commercial era introduced by the City of Uruk and perhaps the vision of the king Dumuzid II of Uruk would see the city to grow gigantic to anything seen yet in the scale of the Mesopotamian urbanization and concentration of city powers.

Consequently for the king Dumuzid, the choice of god would be the cult of Inanna as the goddess of growth for the ambitious king of Uruk to grow his city strong. Likewise, the construction of the walls of Uruk by the divine-king Gilgamesh, 1/3 human and 2/3 divine whose reign was inflated on the Uruk Divine Time to 120 ‘divine yeas’ was likewise following the megalomaniac ambitions to develop the City of Uruk in a huge scale to anything yet seen both in the Mesopotamia and elsewhere. Thus, the lowest register of the Warka Vase is subdivided to pastoral and agricultural sub-registers that reflect the complex relationship between the farmer and shepherd in commemoration of the Bad-tibira era climate transition.

Fig. 10. The Bad-tibira Transition from Pastoral to Agricultural Climate Age as Inanna, the vegetation and agriculture deity emerges from behind the seven gates of the Underworld, while the Dumuzid-age of the god-king of shepherds is taken to the Underworld as the agricultural life is normalised during the reign of Dumuzid I of Bad-tibira.

Object 4 : The Cylinder Seal of Ilum-bani :

The cylinder seal of Ilum-bani was used to authorise clay-tablet documents of the king Ibbi-Sin of the City of Ur by his servant Ilum-bani. It could alternatively have been used to create official seals for containers, storage doors, sacs, packages, etc. that should not be tampered by any unauthorised personnel. It was made during Ur III period. The seal combines the images of gods with the cuneiform signs to identify the authorities who made it Fig. 11.

Fig. 7. The quadripartioning of the cosmic plane into the four cardinal points are already cited by the Ur III period era’s cyclinder seals.

The idea of quadripartitioning of the time-spatial cosmos is clear in Ur III period. The cuneiform script in the seal of servant Ilum-bani that “praises King Ibbi-Sin as the king of Ur and the four quarters of the universe” (Mieroop. 2016: 86).

[The emphasis added.]

The quadripartitioning of the time-spatial space in ancient Sumer can be traced back to at least Ur III period although the Quadripartitioning of Time appears first by the time of the god-king Dumuzid I of Bad-tibira whose fourth dynastic house ends the 144,000 time-tallies or the four centuries long period that began sometime during the reign of Alalngar of Eridug, then ran through reigns of the two preceding ruling houses of Bad-tibira before the vegetative growth resumed during the third house of the king Dumuzid.

Table 6. Comparison of the Four Dynastic Houses Day-tallies to the Vedic Yugs

Note : The Puranic Yug Cycle of Maha Yug represents time-spatial cosmos of Sumer : 30 Moons × 144,000 Days = 360 Days × 12 Moons × 10 Width × 10 Depth × 10 Height = 4,320,000.

The four Sumerian kings may be seen as representing the four time quarters in a time-spatial cosmos; the four Puranic Maha Yug cycle is measured against the time-spatial space built on the Sumerian Kings List as the world enters a climatic chaos, which can also be represented by using the following two formulas :

12,000 Divine Years = 30 Moons × 400 Years, or

360 Days × 30 Moons × 400 Years = 4,320,000

The Book of Revelation lists the 12 tribes who survived the Great Tribulation Age by numbering each tribe as 12,000 (= 30 × 400) akin to the Puranic Maha Yug that refers to 12,000 as divine years or Maha Yug as 4,320,000 (= 30 × 144,000).

The eight god-kings may be arranged to four quadripartite pairs, see : Table 7.

Table 7. Mythologized Eight Dynastic Houses of Sumer as the Four Divine Pairs

Note : The mythologized octet of the first eight Sumerian dynastic houses can be seen as the basis for the later enneads with four god-pairs. The Mesopotamian Ennead is preserved in Assyria (with Ea recorded as Nudimmud to make it Assyrian).

Due to the low integer numbers in Table 7, coincidence cannot be ruled out. The quartets or octets (the numbers 4 or 8) alone cannot to prove a link to the first Sumerian kings. The unique high numbers are required such as 676, or 144,000 with its multipliers (i.e. 13 lunar crescents or 30 monthly lunar stations). The large unusual numbers 1,872,000 or 4,320,000 offer unlikely chance occurrences thus link to the four kings tallies 36,000 + 43,200 + 28,800 + 36,000 = 144,000.

The god of vegetative growth and agriculture, Inanna was worshipped as one of the Sumerian war deities. As an omnipotent god person one of her hymns claims :

"She stirs confusion and chaos against those who are disobedient to her, speeding carnage and inciting the devastating flood, clothed in terrifying radiance. It is her game to speed conflict and battle, untiring, strapping on her sandals."

The battle was sometimes referred to as the "Dance of Inanna" which raged like the Titanomachy of the Greeks in order to liberate the world from the claws of the demons of the chaotic Underworld. The quadripartite cone of pyramid can be seen as representation for 144,000 days before from her returned from Hades.

This imagery of Sun and Moon combating the lords of the Underworld is found in the Mesoamerican traditions including the Popol Vuh epic, where the two celestial bodies dance their war dances in the ball court of the sky to bring about the end of the previous world era and the resurrection of the Corn Man. They are seen Fig. 8. brighter light of the Sun (Hunahpu) and the darker light of the Moon (Xbalanque) dancing war dances with their celestial balls around the pyramid.

Fig. 8. The Battle of Hunahpu and Xbalanque against the Lords of Xi’balb’a: The farmers’ ploughs disturbed the soils and awakened the sleeping demons of the underworld to overcome the sun and the moon whose mischief then led the world into age of darkness and cold with little plant growth.

The Mesoamerican B’ak’tun of 144,000 kins, or day-tallies, corresponds with the age of the four kings in the Sumerian Kings Lists like the Weld-Blundell Prism.

The Four Kings Era

As 144,000 Days

Fig. 12. The Quadripartite Kings of Sumer as a Pyramid

Thus, Inanna’s war dances bear striking resemblance to the Mesoamerican Popol Vuh where Sun and Moon wage war to resurrect the agricultural life. Similarly, Enheduana’s poem on Inanna refers to her power to tilt the zenith and horizon much like Hunahpu and Xbalanque tip the earth’s axis to the Great Bear by their blowpipe (like the seven Indian Saptarshi) turned to the new axis after the flood.

Fig. 13. Hunahpu blowpipes 7 Macaw (Ursa Major) down from the world tree and so tips the Earth’s Axis to its new position as victorious sun wins.

Fig. 14. Present-day Collapsing Ice from Greenland Ice Sheet

The Iroquois ethnohistory recalls the events :

“The twins had hardly abandoned their stations when the world, with no one to control it, teetered off balance, spun around, crazily, then rolled over twice. Mountains plunged into seas with a great splash, seas and lakes sloshed over the land; and as the world spun through cold and lifeless space it froze into solid ice.”

“[Inanna, the] Beloved spouse of Dumuzid-ucumgal-ana, you are the great lady of the horizon and zenith of the heavens. The Anuna [stars] have submitted to you. From birth you were the junior queen: how supreme you are now over the Anuna [the stars], the great gods! The Anuna [the stars] kiss the ground with their lips before you.” Nin Me Šara “Exaltation of Inana” (Inana B) by the High Priestess of the temple of Ur, Enheduana, the daughter of the Sargon of Akkad.

Fig. 15. The 7 Rishis in India corresponds to Popol Vuh’s 7 Macaw (Ursa Major) in Mesoamerica like the reference of Inanna lifting to fix stars to the new celestial Pole above the newly-positioned Earth’s Geographic Pole as the flooding ends.

The Indian Saptarshi Reckoning begins its time counting from when the seven stars of Ursa Major rose to their current celestial position 3077 BCE. In the Saptarshi Reckoning an intercalary year was added as extra for each full century, “00”, before completed. A 6th Century AD Saptarshi source needs therefore to add 37 years to all preceding 37 centuries (3077-1 BCE + 1-600 CE = 37 centuries). 3077 BCE + 37 years = 3114 BCE is precise same year as in the other calendars.

Summary of the Exhibits :

It is proposed that Sumerian Kings Lists acted as a prototype for the several time-keeping systems that refer to its 144,000 day-tallies long event and the 676/670 year duration of its first eight royal houses before the Great Flood. In one case Sumer’s time-keeping is followed until the city of Uruk wrestles the power from the city of Kish and replacing its the Temple Time with the Uruk Divine Time to record its reigns of its kings before soon switching to ordinary solar years in keeping records of the reigns of Sumer’s kings.

The objects from Sumer are then compared to various traditions within Sumer itself and also to similar kind of traditions found elsewhere both in nearby lands as further a field. The king Dumuzid and god Inanna came to be understood as a divine couplet that was responsible for the ending of climatic pandemonium of 144,000 tallies.

The four kings of this era came to be seen as the four quarters of time while the notion of the four quarters of the universe appears in Ur III period seals. Inanna’s worship is seen in archaeological Uruk period deposits from 4th millennium BCE.

Ancient Akkadian cylinder seal depicting Inanna resting her foot on the back of a lion while Ninshubur stands in front of her paying obeisance, c. 2334 – 2154 BCE