VA 243 site

The Myth of a 12th Planet in
Sumero-Mesopotamian Astronomy:
A Study of Cylinder Seal VA 243
* please allow time for images to load!

Readers of Zecharia Sitchin’s books, particularly The 12^th Planet, will recognize the seal pictured below under the first point - VA 243 (so named because it is number 243 in the collection of the Vorderasiatische Museum in Berlin). This seal is the centerpiece of Sitchin’s theory that the Sumerians had advanced astronomical knowledge of the planetary bodies in our solar system. This knowledge was allegedly given to the Sumerians by extraterrestrials, whom Sitchin identifies as the Anunnaki gods of Sumero-Mesopotamian mythology. In the upper left-hand corner of the seal, Sitchin argues, one sees the sun surrounded by eleven globes. Since ancient peoples (including the Sumerians according to Sitchin) held the sun and moon to be “planets,” these eleven globes plus the sun add up to twelve planets. Of course, since we now know of nine planets plus our sun and moon, part of Sitchin’s argument is that the Sumerians knew of an extra planet beyond Pluto. This extra planet is considered by Sitchin to be Nibiru, an astronomical body mentioned in Mesopotamian texts. Sitchin’s works detail his contention that Nibiru passes through our solar system every 3600 years, and so some believers in Sitchin’s theory contend that Nibiru will return soon. Some followers of Sitchin’s ideas also refer to Nibiru as “Planet X”.

Is Sitchin correct – in whole or in part? Is Nibiru a 12^th planet that will soon return? Does VA243 prove his thesis? Unfortunately for Sitchin and his followers, the answer to each of these questions is no. What follows are the salient points of the problems with Sitchin's interpretation of the seal. A much more thorough (14 pp.) paper with more illustrations and images is available in PDF form. Nibiru is the subject of another page on my website and lengthier PDF file.

In the discussion that follows, I will demonstrate that VA243 in no way supports Sitchin’s ideas. My reasons / lines of argument for this are:

1) The inscription on the seal says nothing about astronomy, Nibiru, or planets.

2) The alleged "sun" symbol on the seal is not the sun. We know this for sure because it does not conform to the consistent depiction / symbology of the sun on hundreds of other cylinder seals, monuments, and pieces of Sumero-Mesopotamian art.

3) There is not a single text in any extant Sumero-Mesopotamian text that says the Sumerians or Mesopotamians knew of more than five planets. There are a number of cuneiform tablets that deal with astronomy, all of which have been compiled and published. These sources are accessible to the reader, but at varying levels of difficulty (for a brief overview of these materials on this website, go to the Nibiru page / paper.

The seal is transliterated (the Sumero-Akkadian signs in English letters) and translated in the principal publication of the Berlin Vorderasiatische Museum’s publication of its seal collection, Vorderasiatische Rollsiegel (“West Asian Cylinder Seals”; 1940) by Mesopotamian scholar Anton Moortgat on page 101. This book is in German, so I offer the German and an English translation:

Line 1 = dub-si-ga “Dubsiga” [a personal name of an apparently powerful person[1]]

Line 2 = ili-il-la-at “Ili-illat” [another personal name, this time of the seal’s owner]

So the full (rather boring) inscription of VA243 reads: “Dubsiga, Ili-illat, your/his servant.” Nothing in the inscription suggests anything remotely to do with astronomy or planets.

In simplest terms, the alleged "sun" in the upper left corner of the seal isn't a sun, and so the artwork doesn't depict the sun and our solar system. It's a STAR. We know this because of the consistent sun iconography of Sumero-Mesopotamian art. In case you're thinking, "well the sun is a star", the Sumerians and Mesopotamians distinguished these bodies in their artwork.

Note: The sun symbol always has either four arms plus wavy lines extending from a "ball" in the middle, or it is a ball with wavy lines. VA 243 has no wavy lines. It does not depict the sun.

Below are examples of star symbols. Stars could have 6, 7, or 8 pts.[4] in Sumero-Mesopotamian art (VA 243 has six):

One of the most common artistic motifs in Sumero-Mesopotamian art is the depiction of sun, crescent moon, and star TOGETHER, side by side. This shows they distinguished the symbols (and these bodies. Hence, to a Sumerian, the symbol on VA 243 was not the sun:

Note again in the above the wavy lines in the sun symbol (lower right) as opposed to the star at the top; a wholly different style than VA 243.

Is that all? Hardly. There are many more examples and images, along with more discussion, in the PDF file on this seal available on my other website. We also haven't even gotten to the matter of Sumero-Akkadian astronomical texts, the content of which is flatly opposed to Sitchin's teachings.

Sitchin’s entire cosmological-mythological system is based on three lines of argument:

(2) The claim that Nibiru lies beyond Pluto and is home to the Anunnaki, neither of which come from the actual texts (see the chart on my Nibiru page).[5]

(3) The “reconstruction” of the formation of our solar system, accomplished by matching the names of gods in Sumerian creation-cosmological texts with planets – and then describing a “cosmic billiards” scenario supposedly conveyed to us in these texts. Cuneiform astronomical texts never list any more than five planets (seven if one counts sun and moon), and actually tell us which planets are which gods in their mythology. It should be no surprise that the Sumero-Akkadian planet-god correlations disagree with Sitchin’s.

Addendum: Mike referenced the artistic depiction of the Pleiades on the show. Here are two examples (cf. upper right hand corner of second image - which demonstrates that stars could be depicted with BOTH pointed stars AND "balls" in the same seal):

Again, for more examples and images and in-depth discussion, see the PDF file.

3) Bibliography on Cuneiform astronomical tablets and Sumero-Mesopotamian astronomical knowledge and practice:

Francesca Rochberg, “Astronomy and Calendars in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. III, pp. 1925-1940 (ed., Jack Sasson, 2000)

Bartel L. van der Waerden, Science Awakening, vol. 2: The Birth of Astronomy (1974)

Erica Reiner and David Pingree, Enuma Elish Enlil Tablet 63, The Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa (1975)

Hermann Hunger and David Pingree, MUL.APIN: An Astronomical Compendium in Cuneiform (1989)

[1] Personal email communication on Dubsiga with Dr. Rudi Mayr, whose dissertation was on cylinder seals. Dr. Mayr is also the source of the comment on the second line, which conforms to typical cylinder seal patterns.

[2] Dr. Mayr noted to me in an email that the third line might also read “his servant”, which was his preference.

[3] See Jeremy Black, Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary (University of Texas Press, in conjunction with the British Museum, 1992): page 168. This is an excellent reference source. Dr. Black is a well known Sumerian scholar. He was formerly the Director of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and is now university lecturer in Akkadian and Sumerian at Wolfson College, Oxford.

[5] If one wants to disagree with the chart, I invite the reader to simply look up the references to Nibiru in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary and then go look up the English translations in the sources in the charts, as well as the bibliography at the end of this paper.