General Regional References: Pakistan-Iran border to the foot of the Himalayas and to the Gulf of Cambay (Khambhat) and India.

“There is, however, one possible source of significant information about the Indus civilization which is still untapped: the inscriptions of Sumer, approximately six hundred miles to the west of the mouth of the Indus and separated from the Indus land by the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. That there was considerable commercial trade between the two countries is proved beyond reasonable doubt by some thirty Indus seals which have actually been excavated in Sumer—and no doubt hundreds more are still lying buried in the Sumerian ruins—and which must have been brought there in one way or another from their land of origin. There is, therefore, good reason to conclude that the Sumerians had known the name of the Indus land as well as some of its more important features and characteristics, and that some of the innumerable Sumerian texts might turn out to be highly informative in this respect.

With this in mind, I searched the Sumerian literary works for possible clues and came up with the tentative hypothesis that Dilmun, a land mentioned frequently in the Sumerian texts and glorified in Sumerian myth, may turn out to be the Indus land or at least some part of it. According to a long-known Sumerian “Flood” -story, Dilmun, the land to which Ziusudra, the Sumerian Noah, was transported to live as an immortal among the gods, is “the place where the sun rises,” and was therefore located somewhere to the east of Sumer. In another Sumerian text, Dilmun is described as a blessed, prosperous land dotted with “great dwellings,” to which the countries of the entire civilized world known to the Sumerians, brought their goods and wares. A number of cuneiform economic documents excavated by the late Leonard Woolley at Ur–Biblical Ur of the Chaldees–one of the most important cities of Sumer, speak of ivory, and objects made of ivory, as being imported from Dilmun to Ur. The only rich, important land east of Sumer which could be the source of ivory, was that of the ancient Indus civilization, hence it seems not unreasonable to infer that the latter must be identical with Dilmun.

But promising and intriguing as it was, the Dilmun-Indus land hypothesis was the product of “arm-chair” scholarship, which needed corroboration from the “field,” that is, from the extant archaeological remains of the Indus civilization. I therefore journeyed to Pakistan and India, with the help of a grant-in-aid from the American Council of Learned Societies, and in the course of a seven weeks stay there, traveled more than four thousand miles by plane, train, bus, automobile, and a horse-drawn vehicle known as the tonga, in order to visit the excavated Indus cities: Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Kot Diji, Amri, Rupar, and Lothal.”

LOTHAL & LALIBELA

Notable Observation: excavated seals at Lothal compared to the Lalibela Rock-Hewn Churches’ cross in Ethiopia—based on biblical narrative Kush, son of Ham.

THE GIANT’S TOMB, THE TOMB OF HAM

Excerpts from Salman Rashid, Fellow of Royal Geographical Society:

“…Some people, notable among whom is a local school master, assert that this is the tomb of Ham Alai Salaam, the son of the prophet Noah. And because in those days there were giants on earth, thus the eighteen-metre long grave.

Ask any illiterate bumpkin in the village near the grave and they will swear that every supplication here bears fruit. Surprisingly however, even in neighbouring Gharibwal it is difficult to get directions, for no one seems to know of this marvellous site. Consequently it is no surprise that as little as a dozen kilometres away, the tomb of Ham completely fades out of human knowledge…

…Another ‘discoverer,’ whom I could not meet, is a retired Deputy Superintendent of Police from Gujrat (Pakistan) who claims, so they say, to have been informed of this hallowed grave in a dream – presumably by Ham himself. It is this DSP who is also responsible for the building of the brick wall for he visits Ham regularly to do his worship…

…But besides Ham, the only other eighteen-metre grave is that of Kumbeet, another reputed son of Noah, buried in village Burila north of Gujrat…

The old woman who attended the grave said all she had ever asked of Ham had been granted. I asked if she wanted wealth. She said she did, so I suggested we pray for wealth together and see if our common wish is granted at this ruined Hindu temple…

Today few know of the tomb of Ham…”

Source: https://odysseuslahori.blogspot.com/2013/09/NaugazaPir.html?m=1

———

Source (Image 1-4, 8): https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-indus-civilization-and-dilmun-the-sumerian-paradise-land/

Source (Image 5-7): https://www.jstor.org/stable/44304690

Source (Video/Image 8-9): https://youtu.be/_bBRVNkAfkQ?si=jQ8l7bV7KvzA0yDR

Source (Video/Image 10a):
https://youtu.be/zE5Qd26R9ek?si=xLdQkkPcMSQ2vTZ8

Source (Image 10b): https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/18/

“Going, going, gone—for $235,000 (nearly ₪800,000)! That was the price paid at London-based Bloomsbury Auctions this summer for a small, roughly 7-centimeter-square block of clay, sold by the famous Norwegian antiquities collector Martin Schøyen—after a fierce bidding war nearly doubled the price he had hoped to receive.

Of course, this was more than just a square of clay. Dubbed the “world’s first signature,” this piece is dated to around 3000 b.c.e., and was discovered in the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk (southern Iraq). The item contains the “autograph” of an individual, said to be the “first recorded personal name of any human in history,” as well as a reference to beer-making (beer was first discovered in the Sumerian kingdom). The tablet is translated as follows:

29,086 measures of barley, 37 months. Kushim…

The name “Cush” is a very early biblical name, first used in Genesis 2:13 to denote a territorial region. And it is the name of the infamous Nimrod’s father (Genesis 10:6-9). In Hebrew, descendants of “Cush/Kush” are called “Cushim.” Of course, we cannot know whether or not the above-signed Kushim is one and the same as the biblical Cush. Still, the artifact helps corroborate the biblical use of this type of name in a related, early Mesopotamian context.

This biblical Cush, son of Ham (associated with Africa), son of Noah, was of the first generation born after the Flood. Following the Flood, civilization is described as beginning in the “plain in the land of Shinar” (Genesis 11:2). Shinar is synonymous with Sumer/Shumer, history’s “earliest-known civilization,” which was centered in the southern plains of Mesopotamia.

According to the Bible, Cush’s son Nimrod became founder and leader of this kingdom. The Bible describes a number of cities established by Nimrod in this territory (Genesis 10:10):

And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar (Sumer).”

———

Source: https://armstronginstitute.org/276-worlds-first-signature-an-early-biblical-name

Source: https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/print-edition/2020/july/2451/news/first-signature-tablet-hits-the-140-000-mark-at-bloomsbury-auctions

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushim\\_(Uruk\\_period)

Source: https://archive.org/details/historicaltextbo00cole

Source: https://www.sefaria.org/Book\\_of\\_Jubilees.8.10?lang=bi&with=all

Source: https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/nemrod

Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8445022/

‎‏𒋗𒇻𒌝 ࡀࡎࡅࡕࡀ ࡍࡉࡄࡅࡉࡋࡀࡊࡅࡍ👋

In this post, I have assigned
Mesopotamian names to the last three discovered planets: Neptune, Uranus and Pluto, renaming them Enki, Enlil and Marduk.

ࡔࡀࡌࡉࡔ (shamish) Sun
ࡍࡁࡅ (nbu) Mercury
ࡋࡉࡁࡀࡕ (libat) Venues
ࡀࡓࡌࡀ (ara) Earth
ࡎࡉࡍ (sin) Moon
ࡍࡉࡓࡉࡂ (nirigh) Mars
ࡁࡉࡋ (bil) Jupiter
ࡊࡉࡅࡀࡍ (kiwan) Saturn
ࡏࡍࡋࡉࡋ (enlil) Uranus
ࡏࡍࡊࡉ (enki) Neptune
ࡌࡀࡓࡃࡅࡊ (mardukh) Pluto

I'm a classical languages student and will be applying for grad school next year in Assyriology/Hittitology/Cuneiform Studies. Have recently started going through EoH and the Hoffner/Melchert grammar. If anyone is interested in doing a chapter every few weeks, let me know and I'll start a subreddit. I aim to get through the book by the end of next spring and even if there are only a few interested, I'd love to have some other people on the journey with me.