NARRATOR: It is the world's first known civilization
and also its most mysterious.
WILLIAM HENRY: What's remarkable about the Sumerians
is they invent the wheel,
they invent mathematics,
they invent writing,
but we don't know where they came from or who they were.
NARRATOR: The Sumerians are credited with dozens of innovations
that are essential to modern society.
We live with the legacy pioneered by
the Sumerian civilization.
NARRATOR: And they claimed that it was all made possible
by beings who came down from the sky.
DAVID CHILDRESS: These gods coming to Earth,
they gave them gifts.
They gave them knowledge.
NARRATOR: Could it be that the ancient Sumerian tablets
contain the secrets of our alien past?
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: The first civilization
began right there,
due to a direct intervention
by extraterrestrials visiting from another planet.
NARRATOR: There is a doorway in the universe.
Beyond it is the promise of truth.
It demands we question everything
we have ever been taught.
The evidence is all around us.
The future is right before our eyes.
We are not alone.
We have never been alone.
NARRATOR: In the heart of the Middle East,
there is a region known as the Fertile Crescent.
It is believed to be the very first place
with organized farming, in which humans cleared
and modified vegetation to grow crops.
Within this region was Mesopotamia,
where several of the world's first-known civilizations
emerged thousands of years ago.
In ancient Mesopotamia,
you had gardens, you had control of water.
Now it's completely different. Now it's arid.
You look at that place and think, well, wait,
what was this?
The climate was different.
The vegetation was completely different then.
NARRATOR: Often called the Cradle of Civilization,
Mesopotamia was the home of the Akkadian Empire
that arose in 2334 BC,
the Assyrian Empire that began in 2025 BC,
and the Babylonian Empire,
established in 1894 BC.
For centuries, archaeologists thought
these were the earliest peoples to inhabit the area.
But in the 1800s, ancient clay tablets
were discovered that would dramatically alter
the established timeline for human civilization.
In the 19th century, it was a time of great exploration
in Mesopotamia.
And they're finding these cuneiform tablets.
And there were various languages involved
with these tablets.
You had Akkadian, you had Assyrian, you had Babylonian.
But in the mid-1800s, the Reverend Edward Hincks,
an Irish scholar with Trinity College, Dublin,
began to notice there was evidence of a much older script.
And this was very important.
It meant that there must be some other earlier civilization.
NARRATOR: In 1869, more than two decades after Edward Hincks discovered
this unique cuneiform language,
archaeologists gave it the name "Sumerian."
This was based on Akkadian writings
that referenced the land of Sumer,
which scholars believed to be the place
where the mysterious language originated.
Then, in 1877, at the ancient site of Girsu,
in present-day Iraq,
nine massive stone statues were found,
all depicting a king named Gudea,
who ruled over 4,100 years ago.
Engraved on each of the statues was Sumerian writing,
indicating to scholars that these were
the first depictions ever found of a Sumerian.
HUGH NEWMAN: The discovery of the Gudea statues at Girsu
was definitive proof that Sumerian cuneiform text
came from a lost civilization.
And the fact is, people have been discovering
Sumerian structures and artifacts,
and crediting them to other civilizations.
So now they knew there was a civilization called
the Sumerian,
but it wasn't until the 1920s,
when thousands of artifacts and cuneiform texts
had been discovered, that they realized
how far this civilization went back.
NARRATOR: In 1928,
an article appeared in the Scientific American Magazine
with the subtitle,
"Who Were the Ancient Sumerians?
No One Knows."
But after nearly a century of collecting clues,
archaeologists had determined at least one indisputable fact:
the Sumerians were the earliest civilization ever discovered,
emerging around 5000 BC
and pre-dating all other known civilizations
by at least 2,500 years.
IRVING FINKEL: The Sumerians disappeared from sight entirely.
They were extinct, like the dinosaurs.
And the only reason that we know about them today
is with the advent of archeology,
when people excavated in the Middle East,
and they found evidence of the Sumerians
and their archeology and their writing.
NARRATOR: Once archaeologists became aware of the Sumerian civilization,
they launched major excavations in Iraq,
and began to discover that the Sumerians were responsible
for many world-changing innovations,
like the wheel.
The first stone potter's wheel with an axle
was found in the Sumerian city of Ur,
and dated to 3129 BC.
This eventually led to the first wheeled vehicles.
Most of the things that we take for granted,
the Sumerians invented.
That's why they're so crucially important.
The Sumerians are key in writing.
The Sumerians are key in mathematics.
The Sumerians are the ones that invent the plow.
They're the ones that first start to work copper.
They're the ones that first understand how to smelt metals.
NARRATOR: The Sumerians also built some of the first known
pyramidal structures.
NEWMAN: When it comes to the Sumerian ziggurats,
and the temples they constructed,
most of the construction was made of mud brick.
So, much of this is either washed away
or been buried over time.
But there are elements of the temples,
such as the giant statues, which have survived.
They are made of stone.
And some of them are in amazing condition.
NARRATOR: According to mainstream historians,
the first ziggurats were built around 4000 BC,
predating the earliest step pyramids in Egypt
by 1,300 years.
But perhaps even more impressive is that the Sumerians designed
these structures by using an advanced counting system.
TRAVIS TAYLOR: One of the first civilizations
to really implement mathematics was the ancient Sumerians.
And the interesting thing is they used mathematics
on a base 60 system-- that's called sexagesimal--
as opposed to the decimal system, with ten,
that we use today.
FINKEL: It gives you much more flexibility
in the use of numbers
than if you just use a decimal system.
And it led to all sorts of extraordinary discoveries
in mathematics, in astronomy and other things as well.
For example, they could make
accurate plans of a major building to scale,
and they could calculate how many bricks they needed.
In fact, they had a very modern approach
to the practical problems of, for example,
architecture and calculation.
NARRATOR: While much has been discovered over the past 100 years
about the Sumerians and their accomplishments,
the origin of this highly developed culture
remains a mystery.
What's remarkable about the Sumerians
is nobody knows where they came from.
We don't know who they were.
RABBI ARIEL BAR TZADOK: The ancient Sumerians had technology,
they had science.
And this is even thousands of years before
the great rise of the civilizations in Egypt.
Where did this knowledge come from?
How did they acquire such profound information?
NARRATOR: What could explain how this mysterious group of people
so rapidly advanced from hunter-gatherers
to form the world's first civilization?
According to ancient astronaut theorists,
the answer can be found
by examining the recently translated Sumerian tablets
that describe otherworldly beings
who descended from the sky.
NARRATOR: When archaeologists began uncovering Sumerian relics
in the 19th century, they knew nothing
about this long-lost civilization.
Artifacts offered few clues about the Sumerian culture,
and many of their structures,
which were made from mud bricks,
had almost completely eroded.
But fortunately, what did manage to survive the ravages of time
were thousands of clay tablets containing Sumerian writing.
LYNN: The Sumerians had a fully developed phonetic language
that they had written on clay tablets
in what's called cuneiform.
"Cuneiform" comes from the Latin cuneus,
meaning, literally, "wedge."
And what they did is they had reed styluses
that had a wedge shape, and they would use wet clay
and imprint those into such a way
that it would be writing.
HUSSAIN: One of the great things that the Sumerians did was
precisely writing with a stylus in clay,
and then firing the clay so it becomes a brick.
And over the centuries,
that brick becomes essentially stone.
And so, unlike papyrus,
that gets damaged, you know,
we find out all the time
about papyri that get discovered,
and we can't open them. They're too fragile.
That's not the case with these tablets.
NARRATOR: The first tablets were discovered
before archaeologists were even aware
that there was a Sumerian civilization,
but linguists received an important tool
to help decipher them in 1850.
British archeologist Austen Henry Layard
was leading excavation efforts
at an ancient Assyrian palace
when he came upon a library
of more than 30,000 cuneiform tablets.
Some of the tablets contained not only the mysterious writing
that would later be identified as Sumerian
but also Babylonian cuneiform next to it,
which linguists had deciphered a few years earlier.
Finally, scholars had what they needed
to translate the unknown language,
but it would be several more decades
before they could effectively read the texts.
HENRY: It wasn't until the early 20th century
that we could actually translate these cuneiform tablets.
And so we went for a period of many thousands of years
not knowing about these people.
Then, suddenly, there's an explosion
of knowledge about them in the 20th century.
FINKEL: The ancient Mesopotamians,
they used those clay tablets
for all sorts of documents--
private and permanent, and long term and short term.
And we can read them today as if they've just been written.
NARRATOR: Researchers discovered detailed business ledgers,
official government correspondence,
and even medical texts.
But most interesting to ancient astronaut theorists
is a set of seven tablets known as the Enuma Elish,
that describe powerful beings who came down from the sky.
The Enuma Elish consists
of two different books,
and in both books,
it speaks that long ago,
the gods created humans in order to spread knowledge
here on planet Earth.
LYNN: The Enuma Elish is a very important creation myth.
And it indicated that these gods--
what they call the Anunnaki, which quite literally means
from the sky to the earth--
came to create man in their image.
NEWMAN: The Anunnaki are the founder gods
of their civilization.
And they were masters
of the arts and sciences,
bringing civilizing qualities
to this part of the world.
HUSSAIN: So for the Sumerians,
their knowledge wasn't self-derived.
Their inventions, their great things
were not of their own design.
They were taught by the gods.
CHILDRESS: The Anunnaki nurtured the Sumerians
to create this great civilization.
But who were the Anunnaki?
Were they extraterrestrials?
That's what the Sumerians are saying.
NARRATOR: Could it be that the Anunnaki were not gods
but otherworldly visitors?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest further evidence can be found
in a recently translated Sumerian tablet
that sheds new light on a famous story of the Bible.
Dr. Irving Finkel,
one of the world's foremost experts on cuneiform writing
and a curator at the British Museum,
publishes a translation of a Sumerian tablet
that dates back 3,700 years.
The text contains a passage that is nearly identical
to the biblical story of Noah and the Great Flood.
Now, anybody who's ever read the Book of Genesis
and knows about the flood there with an ark and Noah
and the animals of both genders and so forth...
...is astonished when they read
the Sumerian text for the first time.
Because it's a funny thing. They are the same story.
When this tablet came across the desk to me,
it was one of those heart-stopping moments.
The tablet is at least a thousand years older
than the story in the Bible.
So, of course, this means
that the Sumerian story and the biblical story
are inseparably bound together.
There's no doubt about it.
NARRATOR: The tablet deciphered by Dr. Finkel
is part of a Sumerian story known as the Epic of Gilgamesh,
whose protagonist is believed to be based
on a historical king who ruled in the third millennium BC.
HUSSAIN: The oldest story in the Western world is
the Epic of Gilgamesh.
This is a story that's at least 4,000 years old.
FINKEL: It covers a lot of things, but among other things,
the restless search for immortality
and the fact that man was deprived of immortality.
NARRATOR: In addition to descriptions of a Great Flood,
the Epic of Gilgamesh also includes
the story of the Anunnaki
and their relationship with humankind.
According to the text, Enlil, who is the Anunnaki king,
is in conflict with his brother Enki,
who is the creator of the first humans.
HENRY: Enki is seen as benevolent and an advocate
for the advancement of humankind.
But Enlil is seen as sort of militaristic and anti-human.
And so throughout the Sumerian epics,
there's this continuing battle
between these two opposing forces, these brothers.
The two brothers have very different thoughts
about this new human race that is rapidly multiplying.
King Enlil wants to send
a great deluge to Earth to destroy humankind,
which he sees as getting out of control,
but Enki fights to save the civilization
he had helped to create.
HENRY: In the story we're told that the god Enki takes aside
one of the human beings
and tells him to build an ark and to take them to safety.
CHILDRESS: According to the Sumerians themselves,
there's this other civilization that's pre-flood,
and it had all of this knowledge as well.
They had writing, they had the wheel,
they had mathematics, they had...
all these agricultural sciences, too.
But the flood wiped out these people.
What was left were the Sumerians.
NEWMAN: After the flood, it was said
that the gods imparted specific knowledge
and wisdom and teachings
to certain Sumerians to go and restart civilization.
And this is where the whole Sumerian culture
is said to have emerged from.
NARRATOR: Could the fact that the same account of a Great Flood
appears in both the Hebrew Bible and a Sumerian story
written at least a thousand years earlier
support the notion
that this was a real event?
One caused by otherworldly visitors?
And if so, who were these beings?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining an alternate translation
of the Sumerian tablets
that reveals incredible and highly controversial details
about the Anunnaki.
NARRATOR: A controversial book is published
called The 12th Planet which contains
a new translation of ancient Sumerian tablets.
Its author, 56-year-old Zecharia Sitchin,
is a Sumerian researcher
who has spent more than a decade
studying the cuneiform writing.
Sitchin's translation suggests
that the origins of the Sumerian civilization
and their gods, the Anunnaki,
are far more profound
than mainstream scholars suggest.
Zechariah Sitchin was in a unique position,
being raised on the Hebrew Bible...
...being able to speak ancient languages,
and, specifically, being able to translate cuneiform script.
He was able to deduce the story
and tell us what's the meaning behind a lot of these tablets.
VON DÄNIKEN: My friend Zecharia Sitchin was a brilliant man,
and the idea of the Anunnaki, in his meaning,
were the teachers from outer space.
The Anunnakis were extraterrestrial visitors.
They were here.
And they created humans according to their own image.
HENRY: In Sitchin's interpretation of the Sumerian stories,
after the flood, the Anunnaki returned to the Earth.
But they start to take a... sort of a step away from humanity.
In fact, they start to vanish from the story,
but they leave behind teachers who instruct humanity
in the various arts and sciences
and rudimentary knowledge about civilization
and how to conduct themselves.
And this, according to Sitchin,
is the origin of the Sumerians.
This is where they got their knowledge.
This is why they're the first with all of their
discoveries and inventions, and it comes from the Anunnaki.
NARRATOR: While the Sumerians themselves identified the Anunnaki
as beings who came down from the sky,
most scholars interpreted them as fictional characters.
But Sitchin claimed that the texts are clearly
historical accounts of extraterrestrials
that the Sumerians encountered,
and he says they even specify
what planet these visitors came from.
Zecharia Sitchin postulates
that the Anunnaki were actually ancient astronauts
coming from a planet he called Nibiru.
A planet that was out of our vision,
and that it was on an elliptical trajectory,
and that it only came by Earth every 3,000 or so years.
NARRATOR: As Sitchin anticipated,
when he introduced the world to his controversial translation
of the Sumerian creation story in the 1970s,
the academic community was quick to dismiss it.
His critics claimed that a planet
with an elliptical orbit like Nibiru
could never exist in Earth's solar system.
But 40 years later, in 2016,
astronomers at Caltech announced that they had found evidence
of a new celestial object just beyond Pluto.
KAKU: The recent discovery
by two astronomers at Caltech
is incredible.
They find evidence
that in our solar system,
there could be a Planet X
that goes around the solar system,
perhaps once every few thousand years,
in a highly elliptical orbit.
NARRATOR: While astronomers have yet to confirm
the existence of Planet X,
some researchers believe
its theoretical location and orbit
align exactly with what Zechariah Sitchin
claimed to find 40 years earlier
in the ancient Sumerian tablets.
And another discovery in the 1980s
echoed one of his even more profound theories.
HENRY: A pillar of Zacharia Sitchin's hypothesis
was his belief that the Anunnaki
had genetically altered the human genome
around 250,000 years ago.
Now, we have discovered something quite remarkable.
Scientists looking into the human genome
discovered a genetic alteration
that fused two of our chromosomes
into one very important chromosome
around 250,000 years ago
that suddenly unlocked human potential,
gave us our human abilities,
including the ability to do mathematics,
to produce art, to do science.
NARRATOR: Might the discovery that the human genome
underwent a major change 250,000 years ago
help to validate Sitchin's translation
of the cuneiform tablets?
Could the Anunnaki have played a role in creating humans,
as described in the Sumerian texts?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes,
and suggest this also lends support to the notion
that human DNA was manipulated
by extraterrestrials.
TSOUKALOS: It's amazing to see
that somewhere this new genetic makeup began,
and there is nobody before that that had this.
So, how did this all happen?
VON DÄNIKEN: A group of extraterrestrials arrived on our planet.
And one of our ancestors,
call it an ape or whatever, it doesn't matter.
They took a few cells.
They changed the DNA code in the cell.
Because of this artificial mutation,
we are breaking out of the family tree.
This is handed down in Sumerian cuneiform.
It is always a question of translation:
How do you look at these things?
NARRATOR: Could Zechariah Sitchin's translation be correct?
Were the Anunnaki real extraterrestrial beings
who helped the Sumerians develop their civilization
and also taught them about the creation of humankind?
And if so, is there any physical evidence
to support their stories of alien visitation?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes
and point to a site that contains
the largest megalithic stone blocks
ever discovered.
NARRATOR: Archaeologists from the British Museum
are excavating the ancient site of Girsu
when they uncover ancient walls made of mud bricks.
It would soon be determined
that these walls were part of two temples
built roughly 4,500 years ago
to venerate the Sumerian god Ningirsu.
NEWMAN: They announced the discovery of the Lord Palace of the Kings
and the White Thunderbird Temple.
Now, these are mythical sites
that have been looked for for generations.
These were only recorded in tablets and text previously,
and the whole Thunderbird mythos
is related to Ningirsu.
Ningirsu was a thunderbird
that was like the avatar of this kind of great god.
The reason why this temple was constructed
is that a king of the local city-state
had had a series of dreams
about the god Ningirsu.
NARRATOR: The story of the thunderbird god Ningirsu
comes from the account of King Gudea,
the same king whose statues were found
at this very site in 1877.
Discovered alongside those statues
were the largest cuneiform cylinders yet discovered,
inscribed by King Gudea himself.
Gudea wrote that the giant winged god Ningirsu
instructed him to build these two temples
to honor him.
TSOUKALOS: The archeologists themselves say
that this temple was built
due to a vision that a man had,
uh, where a gigantic thunderbird
descended from the sky.
And personally, I think that this
has to do with extraterrestrials
because if you know nothing
about high technology
and somebody descends from the sky in a vehicle,
well, of course you're going to signify a person with wings
because they came from the sky.
NARRATOR: Could it be that King Gudea's account of a giant winged deity
was in fact an encounter with some type of aerial vehicle
carrying an extraterrestrial visitor?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes
and suggest further evidence
that the Sumerians witnessed alien craft
coming down from the sky
can be found in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
LYNN: In the Epic of Gilgamesh,
Gilgamesh encounters the Anunnaki
at what's called the Landing Place.
The Landing Place is where the gods
came to meet with Gilgamesh.
HUSSAIN: In the text, it talks about sort of a ship
that goes from here to the heavens.
In the ancient world, that's the gods
who are transporting in chariots, you know?
In the modern world, is that a spacecraft?
Is that a rocket ship?
MARTELL: Gilgamesh was watching the gods
descending and ascending from the planet.
He actually talks about hearing loud sounds
and seeing fire and smoke
as the gods took off into the heavens.
To me, this sounds exactly like a rocket ship.
NARRATOR: In his book The 12th Planet,
Sumerian researcher Zacharia Sitchin
proposed that the Landing Place described in the epic poem
is a megalithic site that can be visited to this day.
HENRY: According to Sitchin,
the actual location is Baalbek in Lebanon,
where we find this massive platform
that resembles what we would think of as a landing port.
NARRATOR: Today, most people know Baalbek
as being the site of the Roman Temple of Jupiter,
built in the first century BC.
But beneath the temple is a massive stone platform
that is believed to have been built
thousands of years earlier.
It is constructed from megalithic blocks
that weigh as much as 800 metric tons,
or 1.6 million pounds.
That platform is incredible because it features
some of the largest stones
ever carved and created by humans long ago.
These blocks are on the fourth level up.
So, somehow, they had to be lifted up.
And in my opinion, they had a technology
imparted to the local population
by the extraterrestrials.
NARRATOR: As far as ancient astronaut theorists are concerned,
the story of the Landing Pad
in the Epic of Gilgamesh,
along with King Gudea's encounter
with a giant winged being,
strongly suggest that the Sumerian people
witnessed flying craft coming down from the sky.
And they say the most compelling detail of all
is the Sumerian description
of the god Ningirsu as a thunderbird.
When I hear that a giant thunderbird person
descended from the sky, I'm like, wait a second.
We've heard these stories before.
In North America, many First Nation myths
begin with thunderbirds,
that thunderbirds existed
out of which the so-called kachinas came,
and the kachinas were the first bringers of knowledge.
You have other stories like that also in ancient India.
Imagine you know nothing about technology
and then you see a big plane fly over your head.
Well, first of all, it looks like a bird.
And second of all, it makes a lot of noise,
thundering noise.
So, of course you would call that a thunderbird.
And that to me illustrates
an example of misunderstood technology.
NARRATOR: Within the thousands of Sumerian tablets
that have been translated
are countless stories about the Anunnaki
and their interactions with humans.
Could they be the first written accounts
of extraterrestrial encounters?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining what some researchers believe
are the remains of an Anunnaki.
NARRATOR: British archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Woolley
undertakes an extensive excavation
of the Sumerian city of Ur.
The excavations began to reveal
an extraordinary necropolis.
And as more and more rich funerary goods,
pieces of art and jewelry started to come up,
it became clear that this was a very important center
and had been since Sumerian times.
NARRATOR: Woolley soon realized that what they had found
in the center of Ur was a massive cemetery
containing more than 1,800 graves
filled with incredible artifacts and riches,
including 16 royal tombs.
It was a very spectacular find and astonished the world.
And Woolley wrote about it in the press
as these things became clear and people rushed
to get the newspaper to find out the next episode.
Because it was very dramatic and very exciting.
NARRATOR: Woolley's team unearthed
one extraordinary relic after another,
including a gold cosmetic container
in the shape of a cockleshell,
a gold vessel in the shape of an ostrich egg,
and the head of a lion made of silver,
lapis lazuli and shell.
FINKEL: Woolley's team of archeologists excavated more than one grave
with musical instruments and gold and jewelry.
They found this classical Sumerian civilization
a very affluent one.
NARRATOR: Ur was first discovered nearly 70 years
before Woolley's excavations when, in 1853,
archaeologists unearthed a ziggurat
and found it inscribed with the name of the ancient city.
It was considered an extraordinary find,
because biblical scholars believed it was
the same city of Ur
that is mentioned in the Book of Genesis
and was the home of Abraham.
The Bible tells us the story of Abraham.
Abraham was raised
in this city of Ur.
And this is important,
because Abraham is considered to be
the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam alike,
because the message of Abraham
was that there is only one true God.
During Woolley's excavations in 1926,
an even more compelling find was made
relating to an event described in both the Bible
and the Sumerian text the Epic of Gilgamesh.
NEWMAN: As Woolley and his team dug beneath the burials,
they got to a depth of about 64 feet,
where they found a layer of what appeared to be silt
about 13 feet thick,
suggesting that flooding had taken place at this time.
And the team dug in other spots, 14 in all,
and found the exact same thing in all 14 locations.
And Leonard Woolley believed this was evidence
of the Great Flood found in both the Bible and Sumerian texts.
And that this was a real event.
NARRATOR: But of all the discoveries made at Ur,
perhaps none are more extraordinary
or controversial than a large stone tomb
containing the body of a Sumerian queen.
HENRY: Leonard Woolley unearthed this fabulous,
incredible tomb of Queen Puabi,
which was an astonishing discovery at the time.
They found her body intact,
covered with gold ornaments and wearing
this incredible golden headdress
with cylinder seals attached to her body
that identified her as this queen.
NARRATOR: Numerous artifacts found within the tomb
identified it as belonging to Queen Paubi.
And researchers believe she was a very important figure
based on the staggering number of jewels
that were buried with her.
When researcher Zecharia Sitchin
examined Puabi's skull decades later,
he determined that, while severely damaged,
it displayed some remarkable anomalies.
HENRY: As Zecharia Sitchin investigated
the discovery of Queen Puabi, he found
that her skull appeared to be elongated.
This led him on a line of speculation
that she must have been a Anunnaki-human hybrid.
Her characteristics look almost alien.
Was she possibly some type of extraterrestrial?
NARRATOR: Queen Puabi's remains are now housed
at the London Museum of Natural History.
For years, Zecharia Sitchin implored
the museum to test her DNA, but they refused.
Unfortunately, mainstream science said,
"No, this isn't worthy of our time."
To me, this seems like, you know, a-an eye-opener
that we have actual remains that could be tested
and possibly confirm an extraterrestrial origin.
NARRATOR: Could the remains of Queen Puabi provide
incontrovertible evidence that the Sumerian civilization
was the product of alien intervention?
Ancient astronaut theorists believe another,
perhaps even more important question
lies in whether this mysterious civilization
is much older than archaeologists
have ever imagined.
NARRATOR: Most mainstream historians agree
that, according to the archaeological evidence,
the Sumerians appeared in Mesopotamia
around 5000 BC.
But in the cuneiform texts that have been translated,
the Sumerians themselves say that civilization
actually began with their ancestors,
who lived thousands of years earlier...
...in a time before what the Epic of Gilgamesh
and the Hebrew Bible describe
as the Great Flood.
NEWMAN: The origins of the Sumerians is still under scrutiny.
Some people have speculated
that they may have come from a lost sunken land.
Now, this is an intriguing possibility
with all the flood myths and so forth.
What is quite interesting, related to this, is the fact
that off the coast of Israel,
we have the submerged town of Atlit Yam,
which dates back to over 7000 BC.
This is a series of stone circle structures,
avenues, and communal and domestic buildings.
And so if there was a submerged area,
which the Sumerians were said to come from,
perhaps we need to look out into the Mediterranean.
NARRATOR: Do the underwater ruins of Atlit Yam,
which date back more than 9,000 years,
serve as evidence that the Sumerian stories
of a pre-flood civilization are true?
Remarkably, even older stone structures
have been discovered at the archeological site
of Göbekli Tepe,
which is located just 400 miles northwest
of ancient Sumer.
Göbekli Tepe was discovered in 1994
by Professor Klaus Schmidt
of the German Archaeological Institute.
He started finding huge standing stones.
And many of these were carved
into human form.
They would have arms on the side of them,
hands that come around to the front.
NARRATOR: Radiocarbon dating of artifacts unearthed at Göbekli Tepe
suggest the ancient site is over 12,000 years old--
more than 5,000 years older than the Sumerians.
But some researchers have noticed
a curious connection between the two cultures.
Göbekli Tepe is a massive complex.
And it features a carving of these three handbags
that appear above this bird-like creature.
And what's fascinating about this is that you can find
carvings of similar handbags about 400 miles to the south
where the ancient Sumerians lived.
And there, the handbags are held
by these winged figures called Anunnaki.
This suggests that there is
some previously unknown connection
between the Sumerians and Göbekli Tepe.
Maybe this is the answer
for where the Sumerians actually came from.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the builders of Göbekli Tepe
are the ancient ancestors of the Sumerians?
Ancient astronaut theorists believe
the answer might be found in the thousands
of Sumerian texts that have yet to be translated.
HENRY: Experts estimate that up to 90%
of the original texts have been lost.
But there must be a treasure trove
still out there waiting to be translated.
And they could contain information
that will force us to rethink
everything we thought we knew about our past.
TSOUKALOS: The fact that the Sumerians were the first to come up
with mathematics...
agriculture...
astronomy...
engineering.
Our entire human civilization
is built on exactly that.
And they received this knowledge
from the so-called gods.
And to me, these people that came from the sky weren't,
you know, ethereal beings...
but extraterrestrials visiting from another planet.
NARRATOR: Does the discovery of the Sumerians
and the recent translations of their ancient clay tablets
reveal that humankind
and human civilization
are the result of alien intervention?
And might there be even more astounding revelations
about our past contained within the hundreds of tablets
that have yet to be deciphered?
And the thousands more that may still lie hidden
beneath the desert sand?
Perhaps it will be the oldest known civilization
on Earth that provides the truth
about humanity's evolution on this planet...
...and our close encounters
with extraterrestrial beings.
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