This is why we have to be careful in "von Daniken like" misinterpretations, we need objective data, especially when dealing with ancients. These poeple did not use art the way we do now. As far as I know, the Assyrio-Babylonian types used this sort of work as a symbolic message, or as sort of an "ID" or trade mark. I do not think that they were trying to show something concrete, rather many of these seals were like logos or commercial certifications.......Taking one seal without context, and saying it is showing planets is a gratuitious assertion, which is easily refuted by an equally gratuitious assertion......It is Maynard G Krebs, smoking dope with Dobie Gillis, as seen on Assyrian Television---They were time travellers too!!!

Dale

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True Phantom, but the same bias holds for the opposite side of the coin (pardon the pun), where an apparent image of a ringed planet is instead viewed as coins being thrown onto someone's lap. The bias is that it cannot be a ringed planet because it would go against conventional ideas, no matter what. I don't have that bias. I see a definite rendition of Venus, the Sun and Moon, and then a ringed circle that should be a celestial object based on the context of the other 3 known images (Venus, Sun, Moon). What celestial object would ever be depicted with a ring? Only Saturn. To see it as anything else is just plain denial, and biased.

Again, we're assuming it's real when it may be fake, but it's becoming apparent to me that there were Assyrian myths of Saturn having rings. This could very well be a depiction of that myth. But where did they get that idea? BTW, I'm still looking...

Guy on the left is also clearly wearing his "Leaning Tower of Pisa" costume. Looks like a party to me.

[emphasis added]


Sorry, got the impression there you'd made up your mind, but in answer to your question above, it could be a lot of things.

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LOL Phantom! But... what else could it be? So far I've heard coins, and bubbles (which I was joking about). Triangle Man had the best alternative so far, but it still doesn't rate as high as Saturn.

Let's throw out all our preconceptions of what we know and what we think we know:
If we were to see this for the first time, with no idea of what technology the Assyrians may or may not have had, and it was established that Venus, the Sun, and the moon were shown, what would someone think the ringed circle would represent?

Depends. I don't know what these people thought the sun, moon, and venus were...

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But therein lies the problem about making interpretations without a through understanding of the culture from which the artwork derived. Without that context we will interpret it in a modern way (it's Saturn) but it could be a plate, another religious symbol, a crown, the Earth (maybe they thought the Earth was on a disk), a emphasis mark (much like how we underline things), a reference to a different artistic work/story/myth that we don't know about, a family symbol, it could be anything. Trying to fit it into our preconceived modern notions will hinder us more than help us.

Thought experiment: if someone with no knowledge or exposure of Christianity, but had knowledge of most modern concepts, were to see a painting of the Crucifiction on a church wall, what would he think? Christ was radioactive because he glows? Christians as part of worship sacrifice people on a cross? All sorts of incorrect interpretations could come forth because he doesn't know the story or context behind the painting.

In summary, context first, interpretations later. Let's start with finding out if this artwork is real, where it came from, and where it currently resides. Then, we see if there is an interpretation of the piece from scholars who have spent much of their life understanding the context of the culture. Then we can form interpretations and debate them.

Kidding aside.
My first thought was that it looked like some kind of game involving throwing balls through a hoop. Saturn? I don't know. Why would Saturn's rings be depicted as completely behind the globe if they had actually seen it through a telescope?

Getting closer... I found it again, and a lot clearer this time, though still no information on who, what, and where...

From Sitchin's book, Divine Encounters, he states that it is an "imprint from an Assyrian cylinder seal on a clay envelope encasing a tablet."

So it's hard to figure out what to look for... cylinder seals? Clay evelopes? Tablets? Still looking... The name behind this image link gives me a big clue. It's at the British Museum, under seals.

From here: http://www.xfacts.com/ancient/

Couldn't find it in the British Museum's online catalog, but this tablet was cool.

Rift -

I agree about Galileo not being the first to invent the telescope...but I thought it was Christian Huygens, no?

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Well, I'm still not convinced the eight-pointed thing is Venus. To me, it also looks an awful lot like:

http://www.bethsuryoyo.com/images/Ga...FlEmblem16.jpg

And that's the symbol for a generic star.

Part of my skepticism comes from the fact that we're working from an incomplete copy. I'd be curious to see what a high-resolution photo of the *original* looks like, espescially since from the link HankSolo has provided a *lot* of tablet was cropped. On the original, those figures are *clearly* surrounded by text. Without a good translation (and Stichin's translations are notoriously bad) we can at best say that the identity of the round things is uncertain. Heck, in addition to the coins and the bubbles, it looks to me like someone knocked over a plate of fruit! We can't be sure of that either, but without translating the accompanying text it's no better or worse of a guess than the circles being planets.

Anyway, I stand by my skepticism here. Until we get a good translation of that seal, there's no way to prove what those round things are. HankSolo, could you show me a link to the symbol for Venus for comparison's sake? How does the symbol in Stichin's copy compare to the symbol in the original? There's still a lot of unanswered questions here.

... in a word: "gods."

I'm continually amazed by how little people know about ancient astronomy and its relation to astrology and the "myths" that accompany them. From the Mesopotamians we got the "firsts," or fundamentals, of astronomy(among many others) where astronomer-priests foretold omens based on the positions of stars, planets, sun, moon and other events in the "heavens," where the "gods" dwell.
It should be clear that the majority of cyclinder seals are not only little more than 2 inches in size, but that they mostly deal with the "gods" affairs and more often than not have a "backdrop" of celestial symbols (sun, moon, venus, mars ... saturn?) accompanying them.

So, keeping "context" and such in mind, Occam's Razor would suggest that what looks like Saturn is Saturn. A "preconceived" notion?

I wonder if the accompanying cuneiform text speaks of Anshar (Jupiter), Kishar (Saturn), Sin (Moon), Shamash (Sun), or Inanna (Venus)?
Also, I see what appears to be a "belt" separating them.
Interesting; the "hammered bracelet" that was Tiamat's tail?

As Hank pointed out, saying otherwise is either biased or uninformed.

Astronomy Exercises are useful.

I'm rather certain that it represents venus.

Fair enough. I'll concede that it's probably Venus, although I'd still like to see a higher-resolution picture of the original - preferably compared to other Isthar glyphs - to be absolutely sure.

Even so, that still doesn't prove that the other round things are planets. I really think we'd need a translation of the text and a better look at the original to prove that one way or the other.

Going back to the concept of the "planets" possibly being something else, and along the same lines of them being coins, it also looks as if the smoker might have flipped the plate (containing what, I don't know - maybe something he was eating?) off his lap. Who knows, maybe rather than smoking, he was drinking something potent out of that vat (I think someone suggested this earlier), and knocked the plate off his lap in his drunken clumsiness. In which case the person to the left of the vat might be trying to catch whatever is flying off the plate, rather than throwing it.

Farfetched? Maybe. But I agree that we really can't even begin to know what is really going on without knowing a lot more about the time, culture and circumstances under which this picture was created.

I did see bubbles at first, coming out of the hole that you seem to see as a ring, actually. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Without preconceptions, like that those were planets shown, I'd think it was a hole with bubbles coming out of it. (I saw the hookah too.) Are you saying only your approved preconceptions are allowed in this game?

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I'm not sure if my link to the British Museum collection is working but I did find something else interesting.

Go to http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/
and search for "Clay tablet"

One of the items is a Clay tablet with a seal and the picture on the seal is similar to the one HankSolo presented. The website notes that it is numerous figures approaching a seated king. There's even some kind of star motif above and to the left of the king, just like the other one. So if the seal Hank showed us is a group of people approaching a seated king, there's no reason why it couldn't be coins landing on a plate/bowl.

Judging from what's said on this website, that was indeed a standard representation of the Sun and the Moon in mesopotamian texts.
The Moon and the Sun:
Yes, but "stars" in general were also sometimes represented as 8-pointed objects. See also Assyro-Babylonian Mythology: The Astronomy of Babylon.

It ain't that simple. See Understanding planets in ancient Mesopotamia (pdf). You'll find a table with the correspondence between planets and gods in mesopotamian mythology on page 9. You'll also find this:

At first sight, the composition of such a table does not seem to be very hard. Sumerian Nanna and Akkadian Sin are Moongod, Utu or Shamash is the Sungod without a hint of a doubt. With the rest, however, there are problems.

[...]we bring an excerpt of a list of witnesses from a pact between the same Assyrian king and Median king Ramataia (672 BC), signs denoting the planets are translated as modern planet names:

In the presence of the planets, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mercury, Mars, Sirius, and in the presence of Assur, Anu, Enlil, Ea, Sin, Shamash, Adad, Marduk, Nabu, Nusku, Urash, Nergal, Ninlil [---], Ishtar of Niniveh, Ishtar of Arbela Ishtar, by all the gods in [the cities of] Assur, Niniveh, Kalah, Arbela, Kakzu, Harran, by all the gods of Assyria, by all the gods in Babylon, Borsippa, Nippur, by the gods of Sumer, all of them, by the gods of the Lands, all of them; by the gods of Heaven and Earth. (Lindsay, 1971: 42)

Planets are named first to stress their importance. A closer look reveals also that the god of a planet and its corresponding god are named separately in the list. First of all, this is valid about Ishtar, but such splitting can be seen in the case of four other planets with the exception of the Moon and the Sun. Quite often, planet names tend to have the determinative of gods (Kugler 1907: 62). Thus we can suppose that except in the case of the Moon and the Sun we have to be much more careful about drawing strict connections between the planetary gods and the planets than we would have thought initially. The same is suggested by Brown: "Much is said about planets "representing" or "standing for" gods or constellations." [Sitchin, of course, sees it the other way around.] The relations of planets with gods are intricate, and deserve a separate study and much more accurate terminology than we are currently used to (Brown 2000: 54). The tangle is further increased by the fact that the planets with the strongest maleficent influence, like Mercury, Saturn, and Mars, do not have always a strong, one-to-one relation to one god. E.g. Saturn is connected to Ninurta, who tends to be identified with Nabu, who in turn is connected to Mercury. We can also, starting from Ninurta, reach the war god Nergal who is connected to Mars.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Without a context, it can mean a thousand different things, too.

(Edited.)

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Actually, that's another symbol for the sun. A four-pointed star, accompanied by waves. I just saw that symbol (or one like it) yesterday, and I can find the link if necessary.


You're absolutely right. We're only guessing. But the "planets" guess makes a lot more sense than coins. The last pic I showed above actually shows the tablet that the picture was copied from. You can see it at the bottom of the tablet on the left. But unfortunately it's not clear enough to verify the details of the ring. But with the catalog number that printed on the tablet, I hope to be able to find out more info.

Sure, I'll find one. Actually there will probably be many. Venus was drawn in many ways, but it almost always is shown with eight points of one type or another. I'll try to get a few different samples for comparison.

Hi A.DIM. While the straw could be a cute way of trying to show the asteroid belt, I still think it's just a straw. There are other seals I have seen in my travels (searching for the origin of this one) that show people drinking from a vase with a straw. (note to others: and I didn't see any "coins" or "planets" in them). If we can establish that they are planets, then it could be a "smart" or "cute" way of showing the barrier between Mars and Jupiter, but I lean towards it just being a straw.

This symbols.com site is turning out to be a pretty cool collection of info, in an easy to access format.

Here is a sample of symbols for Ishtar/Inanna/Venus:

http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/09/0915.html

No progress in tracking it down at the British Museum. Considering the last pic I showed that contained the actual tablet from the museum, and another clear drawing of the picture on that tablet also from the museum, I think it's fair to say that the tablet is real. We're not rewriting history books here anyway, so the amount of effort I've put into finding this out has been enough for me. Maybe I'll keep looking if any more info surfaces here. We need A7 here. Anyone see him lately?

I'm rereading some of these posts and I still find it funny that we can establish Venus, the Sun and the Moon as appearing on the picture, but the rest of the circles (which are right next to them) are coins and a plate!

That must have been some important event that they had to commemorate this "coin-giving ceremony" with its own cylinder seal, tablet, and envelope. Maybe it's a depiction of the first IRS! Or maybe a depiction of an early version of basketball!

The other clay seal I mentioned in an earlier post had a line of people approcahing a seated figure as well as the "Sun in cresent" symbol and yet the museum's interpretation was figures apporaching a king. If they're approaching a king the coin/plate interpretation is hardly unrealistic.

Also an implication of the seal depiticing Saturn (they had access to advanced knowledge of it), should also mean that most artwork from this period depiciting stellar objects should have one ringed item. Do they? It would seem like an important detail to the Assyrians after all.

A ringed planet would have been all over their illustrations, wouldn't it? If they'd seen it, they would have documented it a lot, and pictured it with the other celestial objects they knew about.

I think Triangleman just said that.

That's always been my opinion of HankSolo's posts. If it appears to confirm any part of the "Sitchin theory"...well, Hank has a bit of a blindspot when attempting to objectively evaluate the "evidence".

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That's where you and I differ RAF. I'm open to any idea that makes sense, and then seeing what the implications are, and forming new 'big pictures' if necessary. You know very well that I don't hold mainstream knowledge as sacred. I hold mathematics as sacred, but that's about it. If the new 'big picture' is possible in my estimation, then I will consider it and I will form an opinion on it. You, OTOH, (and others as well) will almost immediately throw out any idea that requires extra-terrestrial involvement. I don't, not without careful consideration.

And I'm sorry, John, my preconceived notions are not the only ones allowed, so I hope you don't really think that. If I thought everyone was going to agree with me, I wouldn't have bothered to post this because that would have been pretty boring... I want to hear other opinions. I may not agree with (or understand) them, but that's what a discussion is all about, right?

And I just want to add that even if it is a depiction of Saturn, it doesn't require extra-terrestrials. Just a rethinking of what technology actually existed at those times. The lens I showed earlier could be a perfectly natural explanation if there are others that were more refined.

The point about the rings not appearing elsewhere is a very good one, and I've thought about it. I don't know. There are also Assyrian tales of the Saturn God being entwined by serpents, which while not proving anything, is another interesting tidbit that makes me think "Hmmm... What if?".

I have been considering the "extraterrestrial visitation question", as a boy and as a man, for the past 35 years. I certainly would not characterize that as "almost immediately". In all that time, I have not seen any evidence of "visitation" that stands up under scrutiny. None from the present, none from the recent past, and none from the distant past. Sitchin is merely warmed over Velikovski, and Von Daniken. The exact same methodology applies to all three. They make "observations" that are not corroborated by any evidence. To believe any of the three requires a "leap of faith" that has no place in a scientific investigation.

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[quote="HankSolo"] We need A7 here. Anyone see him lately?
quote]

Coincidence. I have been to GLP and read about BAB so I thought to visit here, since more than a year. Been busy reading all the Mel Gibson fanposts. Can you repeat the question for me to understand?