Open Veils · Answer
What was before the Sumerians?
The Ubaid and Samarra cultures are the official 'before' — but multiple independent researchers argue the record conceals a far older, globally connected civilisation destroyed in a catastrophic event around 10,800–9,600 BC. Göbekli Tepe alone proves organised, symbolically sophisticated humans preceded anything Mesopotamia's conventional timeline admits. The Sumerian texts themselves describe antediluvian kings reigning for tens of thousands of years — a detail orthodox history classifies as myth without seriously interrogating why the Sumerians believed it.
Evidence
- Zecharia Sitchin's reading of the Sumerian King List places eight pre-flood rulers across 241,200 years, with kingship descending 'from heaven' before a deluge reset civilisation — dismissed by Assyriology but corroborated in structure, if not interpretation, by the Eridu Genesis tablet.
- Graham Hancock's 'Fingerprints of the Gods' and 'Magicians of the Gods' build the case that a maritime civilisation seeded Sumer, Egypt, and Mesoamerica after surviving the Younger Dryas Impact event (c.
- 10,800 BC), the physical evidence for which is documented by the Comet Research Group and elaborated by Randall Carlson.
- Robert Schoch's geological re-dating of the Sphinx enclosure to pre-10,000 BC rainfall erosion patterns supports a pre-Sumerian high civilisation in the same broader region.
- Andrew Collins places the origin point at Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Anatolia — carved and deliberately buried c.