How Much Did the Sumerians Know About Our Solar System?

The ancient Sumerians. The world's oldest known urban society. Many ancient history YouTubers love to talk about them, and so do I. One of the most watched videos on the subject, with a tally of 3.6 million views at the time I'm writing this, is from the Bright Insight channel. The Sumerians, they didn't mention this in school. In it, Jimmy Bright proposes that the Sumerians knew about our solar system. Yeah, that the planets revolved around the sun, and that they knew what all the planets were without telescopes. He's not the only one who holds this view. The idea goes back to a book by a fellow named Zechariah Sitchin, and there are other YouTubers who talk about it. But since Bright's is the most widely watched, and he goes into a bit of detail about it, I've chosen to respond specifically to his video. Though I'm sure others who hold the same view as he does will also find my observations pertinent. Myths of ancient history is aimed at dispelling common misconceptions about the past. If you're interested in ancient history, lost civilizations, and secrets from antiquity, I encourage you to subscribe to the channel, because you will get lots of it. And if you find this particular video valuable, please hit the like button, and comment below with your favorite takeaway. And feel free to ask any clarification questions that you may have. What was the extent of the Sumerians' astronomical knowledge? I encourage you to go watch Bright's video so that you can check to make sure I'm not misrepresenting anything that he says. I want to acknowledge right off the bat that Bright is merely summarizing this unusual point of view, and his video is not meant to be the final word on the subject. But his video does contain inaccuracies that I think should be pointed out, so that misinformation about the Sumerians is not unintentionally spread around further. In this video, I'm gonna share with you many things that the Sumerians created. In fact, even stories that originate from the most common religions on Earth go right back to the Sumerians, and most people have no idea. But for some reason, they're not even required testing or even learning by the Department of Education. In fact, if you go to any history textbook through high school, you'll find only one to three sentences total about the Sumerians, which are usually included in other paragraphs on other topics, such as the fact that they were the creators of the wheel. I can't comment on what high school world history textbooks say about ancient Mesopotamia. Any teachers here who know? Please comment below. But I do know the subject gets coverage in college world history textbooks. But it's the things that they somehow knew about that we can't explain, that are total mysteries, that I'll also discuss in this video. So this is the gist of the video. I agree that there is so much about the Sumerians that are a mystery. Our written and material evidences are scanty. In a lot of cases, we have to infer what Sumerian society was like based on Mesopotamian writings and material remains from later on, and that is a speculative process. There was most certainly a continuity of culture from the Sumerians to the Akkadians, to the Assyrians and Babylonians, but we have to be cautious because these societies did develop and change and bring in new ideas over time. But if you're not familiar with the ancient Sumerians, they come from the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia, the Fertile Crescent itself. And we weren't even aware of the Sumerians altogether until more than 150 years ago upon the discovery of a massive cache of clay and stone tablets in modern-day Iraq. And real quick, you can see here they utilized cylinder seals to create these tablets. But at the ancient library of Ashurbanipal in modern-day Mosul, Iraq, they found more than 30,000 of these tablets, many of which were broken. Bright Insight seems to be confused here. Yes, there were some tablets found from ancient Sumer, but the library of Ashurbanipal isn't it. Sumerian tablets come from places like Drahem near ancient Nippur and Ebla. The tablets from Ashurbanipal's library are Assyrian, and they come from nearly 2,000 years after the Sumerian early dynastic period. There are some tablets in this collection that we surmise are copies of some older works, but none of these older works are likely to predate the old Babylonian period. Also, cylinder seals aren't used to create tablets. Cylinder seals are used to create ceilings. A stylus is used to write on a tablet. And this is also the same location where they found these infamous winged bulls. Some refer to them as the Anunnaki or the sky gods, and there's so much speculation and debate about these. Again, these winged bulls are Assyrian, not Sumerian. They were called Lamassu, not Anunnaki. Bright, in a later video, does acknowledge that they were called Lamassu. In this one, he says some refer to them as Anunnaki, but there isn't a single Assyriologist who would call them Anunnaki because there's no record of the Assyrians ever calling them Anunnaki. So I'm not sure what Bright is talking about. Now, these creatures, which were thought of as guardians and were associated with the Mesopotamian zodiac, may have had Sumerian origins. There's a Sumerian word for them, lamai. The features and characteristics of the ones you see here are distinctly Assyrian, though, so it is likely that the Sumerian version looked a bit different. We have some Sumerian images of winged bulls, but it's not clear whether they are lamai or some other related mythical creature. We've learned so many different things that they had created not just glass or the wheel, as I mentioned earlier, but even the sailboat. They even set the platform for modern agriculture through the invention of the plow and even the seed-sowing machine. In fact, the Sumerians created the first sewer systems, canals, and irrigation systems. And speaking of maps, they created those all together and they utilized them to create advanced trade routes. And they did this more than 3,000 years prior to the Silk Road. And they traveled more than 3,000 kilometers, or nearly 1,900 miles, all the way over to Pakistan. Indeed. I'm not sure what Bright means by, quote, advanced, unquote, trade routes. A trade route is a trade route. They use the technology available to them. Donkeys and wagons, boats and barges. Bright goes on to briefly mention other technologies of the Sumerians, including the calendar and timekeeping, mathematics, beer, musical instruments, and sports and jewelry. These things were not originated by them, but they did have them. Also writing, which they did invent, and contracts, et cetera. His reason for bringing all these things up is to prepare you for what he is about to say. He wants to establish the Sumerians as an advanced society so that it will be easier for you to accept his propositions about certain knowledge they had, which is not generally accepted by historians. I should point out that just because there are certain customs that we possess today that originated with the Sumerians, all that means is that they were the first to do it. It doesn't necessarily mean that they were, in some way, amazingly superior to other cultures. It just means that they were influential. Influential is not the same as scientifically advanced. The Sumerians were backward and ignorant in many respects, too. Anyway, Bright begins by suggesting that the knowledge they possessed was not acquired on their own, but was given to them. I think he's bringing this up so that he can nip in the bud the objection that the Sumerians didn't have telescopes. But where this gets really interesting is that in these stone and clay tablets, they give credit to all their knowledge, not to any king or inventor, but they say that all the knowledge was given to them by other beings, the Anunnaki, which means from heaven to earth came. While it is true that the Sumerians gave credit to the gods for much of the knowledge and technology that their own ancestors acquired, much of their so-called knowledge was simply wrong. Take a look at their scientific and medical texts and you'll see what I mean. The Sumerians said that their gods caused all natural phenomena as well. Does Bright believe them when they say that weather is caused by the gods? Also, giving credit to the gods is nothing unique or unusual. Most ancient cultures around the world gave credit to their gods for everything, even their morality and laws. That's standard. And as you would expect, these societies have different ideas, which often conflict with one another. So they can't all be right about where their ideas came from. In these stories, the Sumerians give credit to the gods, but by their individual names. There's no Sumerian document, to my knowledge, in which the Sumerians say that all knowledge was given to them by the, quote, Anunnaki, unquote. If Bright can produce such a document and show it to us, I will retract that statement. But I don't think he can, because the Anunnaki are known mostly from Akkadian rather than Sumerian texts. They were a specific group of gods, the old deities associated with fate, fertility, and the underworld, headed by the god Anu. In fact, they are said to reside in the lower earth. Another group of gods they often are paired with are the Igigi, who are the younger generation of gods headed by Enlil, who reside in the heavens. Nevertheless, I grant him that while the name Anunnaki is Akkadian, it probably has Sumerian origins. After all, this group of gods is more commonly called by its Sumerian name, the Anunna. By the way, the term Anunnaki does not mean from heaven to earth came. That's a folk etymology invented by someone who doesn't know the languages very well. The word probably means those of princely seed. To date, no images of the Anunna as a group have been found. So if you ever see anyone pointing to images and saying, these are the Anunna or these are the Anunnaki, they are either misinformed or are making it up. So let's discuss what the Sumerians said they knew about that was later determined to be correct. Here we get to the main part of Bright's presentation. He wants to show two examples of knowledge that the Sumerians possessed that we should be impressed with. But whereas his earlier examples are well known, these other ones are not accepted by Sumeriologists. So let's see if he makes a convincing case. Take the story of the great flood. You may be familiar with that from more than 500 different civilizations across five continents around the world. That science, the most recent data proves actually did happen. So in other words, the Sumerians were right. The flood did happen. And it's interesting that mainstream academics and scientists still refer to it as a myth. Now Bright believes that a global flood happened 12,000 years ago at the end of the Younger Dryas period. Do you remember what Bright said just a minute ago? He said this. So let's discuss what the Sumerians said they knew about that was later determined to be correct. Now, maybe when he said later determined to be correct, he means determined to be correct by him and his buddies. Certainly not by most people. I'm not gonna get into the scientific evidence for a global deluge right now. That would take a whole video. But this is a strange one to start with because remember, he's trying to demonstrate that the Sumerians knew things back then that we know now. So in order to do that, he should be picking examples that comport with modern common knowledge. Then he can show that the Sumerians had this knowledge too. Yet he admits that scientists don't believe there was a global flood 12,000 years ago. And there are millions of non-academics also that don't believe it happened. So at this point, he's only convincing people that already believe in a flood at the end of the Younger Dryas. That limits his audience quite a bit. Not the strongest example to start with. But what's even more interesting than the denial is the fact that the Sumerians knew about this 6,000 years after the fact is when they were writing this stuff down on the tablet. So it really makes you think. Yeah, it's really making me think. I mean, I don't know about you, but if someone came up to me and said, hey, guess what? I learned about this thing after it happened. Isn't that fantastic? I'd be like, what? I think he's suggesting that they could only have known about it if the gods told them about it. Also, I wish he would have explained where he got the 6,000 year figure from because counting from the date that Bright believes the flood took place to the earliest reference to the flood in Sumerian writings, I'm counting about nine or 10,000 years. Why doesn't Bright provide any of the details the Sumerians gave about the flood? When it happened, who was involved, how long it was, all of that. Show us a quotation, a passage from a Sumerian document. There are English translations available online. I expect that is because their details don't match up with Bright's beliefs about the flood or for that matter, most people's views of the flood because most people who believe in a flood believe in the Bible version, which is different from the Sumerian version, not only in the details, but also in the date. So he loses another large portion of his audience there. Now look at this tablet here. This is the one, this is very notable, the infamous solar system tablet. I mean, just look at this for yourself. What do you see there? Okay, so here's his second example. Not to be pedantic, but the object that Bright is calling a solar system tablet is not, in fact, a tablet. It's a cylinder ceiling, a piece of clay that the cylinder seal, VA-243 in this case, imprinted its image upon. Seals were used by officials, administrators, and businessmen to make their unique mark on something, usually documents or commodities that belong to them. The mark would be distinctive so that people could identify the owner. Some of them may have been used as talismans. This seal contains the name of its owner, Ili-elat. A lot of seals have religious imagery as this one does. That's a god you see seated on the throne. You can tell from the distinctive garb he wears. He's handing a plow to another person who appears to be a king. He's wearing a horned headdress, similar to what we see King Naram-Sin wearing in another image. Perhaps this is Ili-elat, the owner of the seal. Ili-elat calls himself your servant on this seal, as well as a basket worker, meaning an agricultural worker. But these are expressions of modesty and humility before the god, and not to be taken too literally, though he's clearly in the agricultural business. What we are witnessing is the very thing Bright was telling us about, a god giving technology to humans, in this case, the plow. Take a look at that plow. How advanced would you consider it? Looks rather primitive to me. The god is probably Nenurta, because in Sumerian myth, Nenurta is the one who is said to have given humankind the gifts of the pickaxe, the blade, the basket, and the plow. It could be that Ili-elat, the owner of the seal, was in the agriculture business. A man who is probably a servant is behind the king. The image Bright calls a solar system sits between the heads of the king and his servant. I mean, just look at this for yourself. What do you see there? I mean, how could they possibly have known about planets rotating around the sun 6,000 years ago? I think he means revolving around the sun. But yes, look at this for yourself. What about this image is showing revolution or rotation or motion of any kind? Now, I do realize that pictures don't move, but if Bright is going to assert that the picture is depicting motion, there has to be something in the picture to indicate that, lines or something. Otherwise, you can't make the assertion that it is depicting motion. But maybe he simply misspoke and means only that the image is depicting the solar system. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt on that point. In order to verify this conclusion, what would we need? Well, more images like it for comparison would help. That star in the middle is seen on other seals and works of art. Images of stars are fairly common in Sumerian art, though I think you could have figured out it was a star on your own. Bright, however, does not think it is a mere star, but is in fact the sun. Now, you might say, well, the sun is a star, but you see, the Sumerian's terminology does not correspond to ours. Their word, mul, kakabu in Akkadian, which is usually translated into English as star, applied to all shining objects in the sky except for the sun and the moon. It was a generic term even used for planets. They were bright, shiny objects up there too. It was also used for whole constellations. A different word, udu-idim, bibu in Akkadian, was used for the sun, moon, and known planets. The term usually gets translated into English as planet, but as you can see, since it was applied also to the sun, it's not a precise translation. My point is that they put the sun in a different category than stars. And in their art, they used a different symbol for the sun than they used for the stars. They differentiated between them. This is the symbol they used for the sun, and these are the symbols they used for stars. There are a variety of forms for the stars, but only one for the sun. So whenever you're looking at Mesopotamian images and you see this one, you now know you're looking at the sun. And when you see this image, you know that you're looking at a star. So the image on Ili'ilat's seal is easily identifiable as a star and not the sun. The fact that there is no sun in this image alone demonstrates that it is not depicting the solar system. But you see, Bright is using the it looks like it, therefore it is method of interpretation, and he continues to run with it. There's a problem with that approach. It leaves us susceptible to the very common tendency to associate images with things that we ourselves are familiar with rather than what the people who made it were familiar with. No image from any culture should be studied in isolation or from our own biased perspective. It should be compared to other images that culture has left us so that we can see it in context. Wouldn't you say that makes sense? Wouldn't you agree that trying to interpret an image all by itself without researching the beliefs of the people who created it, not to mention their artistic styles, techniques, and motifs, would lead to wrong conclusions? Isn't that more than 5,000 years before Copernicus identified the planets rotated around the sun? In just the same period of time before even the first telescope was invented, wouldn't you need a telescope to know that there was planets out there? Here's an image of the solar system from Copernicus. Honestly now, do you think the Sumerian one conveys the same information? Copernicus's image shows the orbits and names of each of the planets, and Copernicus explains his concept of the solar system in a full book about the solar system. The Sumerian image appears on an individual's seal that has nothing to do with science or astronomy. You should know, however, that the Mesopotamians did write about their view of the cosmos elsewhere. We don't have any astronomical texts before about 1800 BCE, but since the texts we have are systematized and contain Sumerian names for the heavenly bodies, it is reasonable to assume the views expressed in these texts have their origins in Sumerian times. If Bright really wanted to bolster his argument, he would go to these writings to demonstrate that the Sumerians truly did have knowledge of the solar system, but he doesn't do that because they would show that they didn't have such knowledge. One of the things we learn from Mesopotamian writings is that they believed in three levels of heaven, the upper heavens, the middle heavens, and the lower heavens. All three heavens were thought to be made of stone of different colors. The upper heavens is occupied by the god Anu and 300 of the Igigi gods. In the middle heavens reside the rest of the Igigi. Neither the upper nor middle heavens were visible to the human eye. Why? Because between the middle and lower heavens was the great cosmic ocean. Below that was the lower heavens, the visible sky. There reside the stars, planets, and constellations. The stars were said to be inscribed on the hard surface of the lower heavens. That's the Mesopotamian view. In their writings, they make it clear that they knew of only five total planets, and no more, the ones visible to the human eye without a telescope. Their seven-day week was based on the seven Udu-Idim. We have, for example, a Mesopotamian astronomical text called the Mul-Ap-Hin, which has its origins in the Middle Babylonian period, and it makes it quite clear that there are seven and only seven Udu-Idim, and they are named the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. So since the Sumerians only knew of five planets, then the dots on Ili-Ilat's seal, which amount to 11, cannot represent the planets. When the Mesopotamians speak of what is in the heavens, they always describe the objects from the point of view of someone standing on the earth, and not from a location within the heavens. We thus should be interpreting this image from that same earthly perspective. That means that none of the circles in the image could possibly be the earth, because they're standing on it. And not to mention, didn't everyone think that the earth was flat back then? How did they know this stuff? Yes, unfortunately, the Sumerians themselves also believed the earth was flat, if we're to believe their own writings. This is the earliest known map of the world. It comes from Babylon, and is from the 7th century BCE. This is some time after Sumerian times, but it is in harmony with what we read in earlier documents. This tablet shows a flat, round world, with Babylonia in the center, on the Euphrates River, surrounded by a circular land mass showing Assyria, Urartu, and several cities. It's oriented towards the northwest. The area within the inner circle represents the world, while the area between that circle and the outside circle is called Maratu, the ocean, which surrounds the world. Seven magical regions called Nagu, in the form of equal triangles, only one of which is entirely intact on the tablet, rise beyond the circle of the earthly ocean, so as to form a seven-pointed star, though it's possible that there were eight of them. The earth is displayed as a circular disk, a common view in those days. That the map is attempting to depict the entire world is proved by the adjacent text, which mentions these seven Nagu beyond the encircling ocean. The text on the reverse side is chiefly concerned with a description of the seven Nagu. The map is basically a diagram to show the relation of these places to the world of the Babylonians. According to Babylonian ideas, the Nagu said to lie between the earthly and the heavenly oceans connected the heavens and the earth. They formed bridges to the heavenly ocean, wherein are the various animal constellations, 18 of which are mentioned by name, the vanished gods, as it says. Obviously, this is not so much a topographical map as it is an attempt to illustrate ideas expressed in the accompanying text. But yes, the Babylonians viewed the earth as flat, in common with other ancient peoples. So just to clarify, mainstream, they will say that, no, none of these are planets. All of these are stars. And there's even a website devoted to debunking Zachariah Sitchin, which is called, get this, sitchiniswrong.com. And I took a look at this. And the point that this guy had was that Sitchin didn't even read the cuneiform on the tablet itself. And he describes that, he illustrates what it stated in his PDF. So I clicked on that. And 14 pages basically discussed the fact that since this tablet doesn't say anything about stars or planets, then yeah, it's just wrong altogether. I mean, just look at this and think for yourself. If you don't know who Zachariah Sitchin is, he was an executive of a shipping company who was also an ancient history buff. And he wrote several books from the 70s to the early 2000s in which he propagated the theory that human civilization was created by ancient astronauts. The other guy whom Bright refers to, who is the curator of sitchiniswrong.com is Michael Heiser. Michael is an ancient historian with a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But Heiser's specialty is ancient Israel, not Sumer. So let's not take his word for it without examination. Let's look at this document Heiser wrote that Bright dismisses rather nonchalantly. Bright summarizes Heiser's argument to be that since the seal doesn't say anything about stars or planets, then the image is not the solar system. Is that an accurate assessment of Heiser's paper? Well, at the beginning of his paper, Heiser summarizes his argument in four points. Bright only tells you what the first point is and he leaves out the other three. For what reason, I don't know, you'll have to ask Bright. Heiser's second point is what I've mentioned already, that the Sumerians did not draw the sun that way. We've seen that he's correct on that point. His third point is that the dots in the image are stars, not planets. And to be fair, Bright does mention that scholars believe the dots are stars, but Bright's refutation of this point of view is simply, I mean, God, just look at this and think for yourself. So again, he appeals to the, it looks like it, therefore it is argument, not considering the fact that it looks like a solar system only to us and it wouldn't have to anyone living back then. Take note, the Sumerians drew the stars as circles sometimes. They drew stars this way, this way, this way, and this way. So yes, it is a perfectly rational conclusion that these are stars. But you might reasonably ask, if in this image they are all stars, why did they draw one star different from all the rest? A reasonable answer is that they wished to give prominence to the one star over the others. You see, Mesopotamian astronomical texts divide the sky, the lower heavens, into three bands that stretch from east to west. Each band named for a god. The path of Enlil, the path of Anu, and the path of Ea. In each path are 12 month stars. Each month, one of those month stars takes prominence through a heliacal rising or star rise. This occurs once a year when the star briefly becomes visible above the eastern horizon at dawn just before sunrise. Note that there are exactly 12 stars in this image. So what we're probably seeing here are 12 month stars with one of them rising, taking prominence over the others. I mean, what is that? And this creates all kinds of other speculation because it's like, wait, are there 11 planets? And so, okay, is Pluto a planet? Like, give me a break. What a stupid discussion that is. Some scientists that want to redefine things. Who cares how far away it is or how small it is? Like, grow up. Well, now wait a minute. This is a strange attitude. Scientists are the ones who defined Pluto as a planet in the first place. You would never even have thought of Pluto as a planet if it weren't for the scientists. And the whole planet category is of their own creation. They are the ones who decide what a planet is because they came up with the concept of a planet. And if you're against scientists ever correcting themselves, well, there goes science. Still, all that is irrelevant. What would matter here is not what scientists think anyway. It would be what the Sumerians thought or what the gods of the Sumerians thought if we're to believe what Bright is telling us. But this raises other questions too about the asteroid belt. I've discussed this in other videos. It's clearly that was a planet or a massive moon or something, something collided. Scientists will say it happened millions of years ago, but they clearly don't have enough variables to make that conclusion. I mean, you would need to know the size of these objects. You'd need to know the direction as well as speed of the collision. So they can't say how long ago that was. Huh. So Bright is saying here that he believes scientists when they say that a planet used to be where the asteroid belt was, but that he doesn't believe scientists when they say that planet was destroyed millions of years ago. To be clear, scientists now say that there were several minor planets there which were destroyed millions of years ago. Apparently, Bright thinks one major planet was still in existence there when this cylinder seal was made some 4,500 years ago. He doesn't give us any scientific evidence for this. So why should we believe him? But when you look at these tablets, is it possible that this could be communicating the so-called ninth planet that they know exists? All the data proves that this ninth, this massive ninth planet, four or five times the mass of earth itself was creating a tilt in Neptune and Uranus. And that's how they discovered it. Well, they haven't discovered it. They're looking for it. It's obviously incredibly far away. And my guess is that it probably has a completely different orbit altogether, but they know it's out there. And yet here's this tablet from 6,000 years ago that shows these things. And by the way, Zachariah Sitchin is the one that was saying that there was another planet out there and here it was validated 40 years later. That's interesting. We have here a situation where the cylinder seal appears to depict 11 planets, and yet there are currently only eight planets with a possible ninth. So Bright has to go through all these contortions talking about how Pluto is a planet, but the other objects in the solar system are not. And then the asteroid belt, there was only one planet there. It's like he's trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. So again, we have an argument being made that the Sumerians had advanced knowledge, but that knowledge cannot be validated. If it doesn't match our current knowledge, then how, I ask you, can we know it's true? The only way we could demonstrate that the Sumerians knew about the solar system is if they depicted a solar system that we ourselves could verify. He's arguing that the Sumerians knew about something that we, to this day, still don't know to be true. This is an unfalsifiable claim. You can't prove it wrong, therefore it's right. Anyway, as I have already demonstrated, the image cannot possibly be the solar system because we have written documentation proving that the Sumerians knew of only five planets, did not have any conception of a heliocentric solar system, believed the Earth was flat, did not depict the sun this way, and believed the stars and planets were on this side of a heavenly ocean. Any one of these on its own would thoroughly disprove the solar system hypothesis. But these tablets contain other information as well. Take a look at these tablets and there are others that show seven stars, seven planets, seven something, seven dots. And many will say that this is just probably indicative of the Pleiades star system, seven stars. But I mean, why isn't it in the shape of it? And what's interesting is that people that identify with the ancient astronaut hypothesis is that, look, if you were coming from someplace else, beings from another planet visiting our solar system, you would need to pass by seven planets to get to Earth. It's an interesting theory. Okay, so here Bright implies that a grouping of seven stars, which scholars identify as the Pleiades, can't be the Pleiades because they're not in the proper shape. But that reasoning suggests that ancient artists cared about scientific accuracy and realism, which they obviously don't. And by the way, look at this tablet that shows one of those winged bulls. Relevance? Here's something else also worth thinking about, is that there's suggestive evidence that the Sumerians somehow knew about the great year cycle, the Earth's tilt and precession, 25,920 year cycle. And when you consider their awareness of the zodiac and a few other factors with their counting system, you can make an argument that they somehow knew about this cycle, and I mean, thousands of years before the Mayans figured that out, and that's a mystery in and of itself too, because we're talking one degree every 72 years. And back then, the lifespan was what, half the age of what it is today? So to figure that out is beyond impressive and it's a mystery. I know of no Sumerian writing that demonstrates they knew about axial precession. If Bright wants to present evidence showing it, I encourage him to do so, and I'll be happy to comment. So we have to start asking ourselves, why are these tablets being ignored? And just to paint you a picture, out of these tens of thousands of tablets, most of which are not on display, and they're literally gathering dust in the basements of various museums throughout the world. And to make it even worse, most of these tablets were only interpreted once by one person more than 100 years ago. So these things need to be revisited, people need to look at them. I agree that it's a shame that so many artifacts are not on display. Many of them have been photographed and published, and that makes it possible for us to study them. But yes, let's get them out of the basements. But I have to ask, why ask for new material when you haven't even studied the available material yet? And the discussion needs to open up that clearly they knew about things they weren't supposed to know about. Planets rotating around the sun without, I mean, 5,000 years before a telescope. Guys, look at this stuff, think for yourself. If any of you are interested in thinking for yourselves, and you love ancient history, I encourage you to go to school for it instead of stumbling around in the dark. Academia doesn't pay a whole lot, but it can be fulfilling, and it encourages you to keep your eyes open. You're not force-fed anything. That's why scholars are continually debating ideas, and you'll be able to gain access to many of these artifacts, and to learn the ancient languages involved so that you can read the documents. And perhaps more importantly, you will find out why historians have arrived at the conclusions they have. Anyway, thank you for listening all the way to the end, and we'll see you next time.