For the true belivers of Mr. Stichin...

The breakthrough came in 1976, when a new age-writer by the name of Zecharia Sitchin linked the Planet X-problem of the astronomers up with Sumerian and Babylonian mythology.

Enter Sumerian religion. Like most people, the Sumerians had a lot of pretty neat stories about how the Earth came about. In one of them, it all began with a family quarrel between two gods, Tiamat and Marduk. The two picked a fight, and Marduk won. Pissed off as he was, Marduk cut Tiamat to bits. From the body parts he created our world. This leg here is the sky; that arm there, that'll be the land.

But Sitchin turned the story upside-down. To his opinion, the Sumerians were actually describing an ancient cosmic disaster. A collision between our own planet (Tiamat), and Marduk -- which was, of course, the mystery planet from the clay tablet, a.k.a. Planet X. Adds up nice, right?

Well: it doesn't. For one thing, Sitchin's translations of the Sumerian texts were terrible - for example, he got the word for `planet' wrong. And the words Nibiru and Marduk? Marduk was, besides a god, a nickname for the planet Jupiter. `Nibiru' simply means `ferry boat' and was sometimes used to describe... Jupiter! So in fact, what Sitchin holds for Planet X is simply good old Jupiter.

The astronomical side of the story is no good, either. A planet with a highly elliptic orbit of 3,600 years would after a few rotations fly off, direction deep space - or just become part of the 'normal' solar system. It is simply impossible there is a Planet X around. Physics forbids it, just like it forbids apples from falling upwards.

But how about the ten planets on the Sumerian tablet? That's decoration, probably. Or it could be Venus, as seen from Earth, and surrounded by stars. There are many, many clay tablets exactly like this one, and they all display funny little drawings in the corners: crosses, moons, stars -- you name it. So there's no need to think anything special of the `planets'. We can be sure of one thing, though: it isn't a astronomical map. The Sumerians believed our planet was a flat disc, they didn't believe the planets rotated around the Sun, and they had no way of seeing the outer planets Neptune, Pluto and Quaovar.

Still, Sitchins book was a bestseller, and Planet X gained quite a following on Earth. It still has. Some believe Planet X is an inhabited planet, inhabited by Atlantians, or pyramid-builders, or little green men, or... well, you know, that sort of thing. Even today, there are people around who claim they are in `telepathic contact’ with the inhabitants of the planet. Sigh... Some people will simply believe anything!

Aw... Hold it now. Is that all? Well, there’s this other thing. For in fact, Planet X has been spotted by NASA! In 1983, two astronomers named Neugebauer and Houck made headlines with their announcement that they had discovered a `Jupiter-sized planet’, cruising the galaxy at a distance of two billion kilometers from the Sun.

But: the headlines were wrong. What Neugebauer and Houck really told the press was that they discovered an irregularity in the infrared spectrum. It could be almost anything, they stated, ranging from a new planet to a distant galaxy. The press obviously preferred the planet. But after a while it became clear that what the astronomers really saw was a distant galaxy.

Originally posted by xbranscombex
But how about the ten planets on the Sumerian tablet? That's decoration, probably.

I don't know what the "ten planets" on the tablet meant, but I doubt it was decoration. I believe whoever made these did so to try and store some type if information, instead of simply creating artwork.

reply to post by NuclearPaul


I don't know either so how about; "And the day came when King Fred and his first born Leroy, came to the house of King Ralph. And the house of King Ralph was wondrous. And King Ralph was sitting upon his throne in his house and upon the walls of the house of King Ralph were many wondrous things. More wondrous than than the five wanderers in our skies."

You see, there is no other "evidence" (other than Sitchin's interpretation) that the Sumerians recognized more than five planets.

Sorry, I'm going to be a bad debunker and not list all the interpretations that counter Sitchin. There are just too many and guess what? There is only one that agrees. His own.

Of course he could be right and all the others wrong. It's been known to happen. After all his story is so logical and it makes so much sense.

[edit on 17-8-2008 by Phage]