Finding Atlantis Part 6: Mesopotamian Link

Similiarities of earlier Sumerian/Babylonian/Assyrian history with Plato's Atlantis


Structure and Purpose of the Temple of Poseidon

At a very early period - prior to 3000 BC - Nippur had become the centre of a political district of considerable extent. Inscriptions found at Nippur, where extensive excavations were carried on during 1888-1900 by Messrs Peters and Haynes, under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, show that Enlil was the head of an extensive pantheon. Among the titles accorded to him are "king of lands," "king of heaven and earth" and "father of the gods".

His chief temple at Nippur was known as E-kur, signifying 'House of the mountain', and such was the sanctity acquired by this edifice that Babylonian and Assyrian rulers, down to the latest days, vied with one another in embellishing and restoring Enlil's seat of worship, and the name Ekur became the designation of a temple in general.

Grouped around the main sanctuary, there arose temples and chapels to the gods and goddesses who formed his court, so that E-kur became the name for an entire sacred precinct in the city of Nippur. The name "mountain house" suggests a lofty structure and was perhaps the designation originally of the staged tower at Nippur, built in imitation of a mountain, with the sacred shrine of the god on the top.

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Flooding (Judgement by Zeus on Bronze Age People)

(From Sumerian tablet called Eridu Genesis, dated around 2300 BC, Babylonian/Assyrian Atra-Hasis tablets dated 18th century BC)

According to the Sumerians, Enlil helped create the humans, but then got tired of their noise and tried to kill them by sending a flood.

"Enlil grew restless at their racket, he had to listen to their noise.
Enlil opened his mouth to speak and addressed the assembly of all the gods: 'The noise of mankind has become too much, I am losing sleep over their racket. Come now, let us all take an oath to bring a flood.'" (The Epic of Atra-Hasis)

Atrahasis (his name translates as `exceedingly wise') was warned of the impending deluge by the god Ea/Enki who instructed him to build an ark to save himself. Atrahasis heeded the words of the god, loaded two of every kind of animal into the ark, and so preserved human and animal life on earth.