Enmenduranki Cosmology

A very long time ago before the Flood inundated the earth there lived a wise king named En-men-dur-an-ki ^a) who ruled the city of Sippar, Mesopotamia ¹⁾.  He was believed to have ascended into heaven and given the secrets of gods. He was shown how to observe oil on water, the secret of Anu, Enlil, and Ea. He learned all the secrets of divination and thereby became the source of all human knowledge ²⁾.

Nobody knows was what the secret behind that observation of oil and water. Why it was so important that somebody should ascend to heaven and receive the lesson before the assembly of gods? It was certainly nothing to do with the secret of medical receipt as some scholars have claimed, but about the disclosing of the secret of heaven which otherwise would 
be buried for many generations.

In order to comprehend the ancient knowledge, we should bear in our mind that the cosmos we are talking about is not only limited to the ordinary world but includes the reality beyond it. Whereas our modern sciences consider that our four-dimensional world as the only reality, the ancient believed on multiverse in which our world is embedded in many other higher dimensional worlds, one within the other in a successive way.

The meaning of “heaven and earth”, for example, doesn’t solely stand for the planet earth and its surrounding sky but also stand for wider meaning such as a pairing of something higher, active, being the provider coupled with something lower, passive, being the receiver. These include the pairing of higher and lower dimensional worlds.  It is exactly in this context that Enmenduranki’s teaching should be interpreted.

The nature of Genesis’ waters

Enmenduranki had given us a clue on how we should learn cosmology by taking the oil and water system as an explanatory mean.  I wish hereby to give you a hint on how we may decode the teaching. In the oil-water system, we can observe a very thin interface separating the water that is under and the oil that is above the interface.  It will ring the bell if we put it side by side with Genesis 1.7: “And God made the space (firmament), and it separated between the water that was under the space and the water that was above the space”.

We can see the one-to-one correspondence between (a) the oil-water interface and Genesis’ space, (b) the oil and Genesis’ water above and (c) the water and Genesis’ water below. As the interface is correlated to space which is one dimension higher then we can deduce that the three-dimensional oil/water should be correlated similarly to something which is four-dimensional. And that something is Genesis water ^b).

Genesis uses the term firmament to represent the space which is the translation of the Hebrew word of “raqia”, the root of which means gold leaf tampered very thin.  Genesis uses it on purpose to show its preference to employ the surface geometry for the representation of the space, mainly to have a proper visualization of its tripartite structure. The firmament which separates the waters should be imagined as a surface instead of space or in scientific term [three-dimensional] hypersurface or brane.

For a mathematician, the notation of firmament is equivalent to hypersurface which may have any number of dimensions corresponding to space’s dimensions it represents. Later on, modern physics introduces a similar representation called brane. With such models, we can easily visualize the system including the surroundings in which it is embedded.

Now, what is really the nature of Genesis water[s] which is four-dimensional? To get the answer, we may correlate this four-dimensional water to what modern physics called spacetime, standing for a four-dimensional world (cosmos). Physically, such spacetime may be interpreted as the geometrical structure of Genesis' four-dimensional water. We can imagine this as just like a gigantic drop of [four-dimensional] water of which the substance is Genesis water and the “spherical” structure is the spacetime.

In many of my articles, I have shown that the spacetime is not an independent reality but merely the geometrical structure of the four-dimensional energy (action) ^c). It is the most fundamental [immaterial] substance in nature that can neither be created or destroyed out of or into nothing. The Genesis water is exactly that kind of substance. In fact, we may say that Genesis' water and the four-dimensional energy are two different names of the same 
[immaterial] substance.

The Cosmos Tripartite Structure

The relativity theory implicitly shows that energy has two opposite parts, the positive and negative energies, which tend to segregate. As it eventually happened the spacetime split in two creating a tripartite structure of positive energy-interface-negative energy (Fig.1A). The interface in that cosmic structure stands for the dear three-dimensional space we live in.

This [modern] tripartite structure is similar to that of Enmenduranki’s oil-interface-water, Genesis’ water above-firmament-water below, or more personalized such as Babylonian's Anu-Enlil-Ea and Ancient Egyptian’s Nut-Shu-Geb, just to take a few (Fig.1B-E).

Alas, the mainstream physics denied the existence of such three-dimensional space which supposed to be embedded in the spacetime, as they consider it violating the simultaneous principle. The exclusion of this three-dimensional hypersurface, which is the loci of the universal Nows, causes troubles we currently have with physics.

Einstein was worried about the difference of the past, now and the future which does not and cannot occur within physics.  He concluded that there is something essential about the Now which is just outside the realm of science ³⁾. Had he listened attentively to the voice of the ancients, he would not waste his time for the rest of his life to finalize his unification theory.

Notes:

a)     According to the King Lists compiled by Sumerian and Babylonian scribes about 2000 B.C. which were found at Nippur, Larsa and other ancient cities eight kings successively reigned in five different cities for an impossibly long time period which the King Lists put at 241,200 years [?]. The following is the list of Kings who reigned before the flood and their respective capital city:

•    A-lu-lim (Eridu),
•    A-lal-gar (Eridu),
•    En-me-en-lu-an-na (Badtibira),
•    En-me-en-gal-an-na (Badtibira),
•    Dumuzi, the shepherd (Badtibira),
•    En-sipa-zi-an-na (Larak),
•    En-me-en-dur-an-na or En-men-dur-an-ki (Sippar)
•    U-bar-tu-tu (Shuruppak).

After the reign of those kings, the Flood inundated the whole world.

b)     The relativity theory proves that our world, termed as spacetime, is four-dimensional. Hence the Genesis water and the spacetime have the same number of dimensions.

c)       The ancient often called it eon.

References:

1. Basmachi, F.:” Treasures of the Iraq Museum,” Ministry of Information, Al Jumhuriya Press, Baghdad, 1976, p. 71
2. Wright J.E.: “The Early History of Heaven,” Oxford University Press, New York, 2000, p. 43.
3. Barbour, J.: “The End of Time,” Phoenix, London, 2001, p. 143.

Ancient Heavens and Earth

In the ancient creation myths, the cosmos was commonly described as having a tripartite structure expressed in various ways as the separation of heaven-earth-netherworld, heaven-earth-heaven, water above-firmament-water below, water-dry land-water or metaphorically as the separation of an oil-water system:  oil-interface-water.

The latter was the only bold physical explanation ever provided in all time on how the creation may take place ^a). This teaching can be traced back far remote in time to a respectable Babylonian king under the name of Enmenduranki as the seventh ruler in the Mesopotamian dynasties reigning before the Flood ¹⁾.

Some scholars claimed that En-mendur-anki was the historical character of Enoch. He was believed to become the source of all human knowledge after having learned all the secrets of divination in heaven. The legend tells that while he ascended to heaven he was shown in the middle of divine assembly how to observe oil on water ²⁾.

The show had nothing to do with the secret medicine receipt revelation as many scholars and anthropologists thought and so these ancient teaching remain buried in secret for thousands of years. What Enmenduranki wanted to show us was the daily phenomenon about the natural creation of the interface in the separation process of two immiscible liquids such as oil and water (Figure-1A). This tripartite structure i.e. oil-interface-water resulted from the separation process was the general model adopted by the ancients.

Following that pattern, the narration of Genesis 1.1 about the creation of heavens ^b) and earth may be interpreted as implicitly narrates about the separation of something i.e. preexisting-heaven ^c) to generate a tripartite structure of heaven-earth-heaven (Figure-1B). Genesis 1.6 describes the separation of primordial water to generate a cosmic structure of water above-firmament-water below (Figure-1C). Genesis 1.9 describes the separation to create the final universe structure of water-dry land-water (Figure-1D).

Nobody was aware that Genesis implicitly describes a series of separations generating multi-heavens. It may be correlated to the creation of Seven Heavens that Genesis-1 may not explicitly narrate. The existence of these heavens are quoted in some ancient stories and stated explicitly in several verses in the Koran. The Genesis' seven days of creations may also be correlated to the different time dimensions that those Seven Heavens individually possesses.

It is interesting to note that Genesis implicitly shows various phases of the creations' substances ^d). The first creation (Genesis 1.1) doesn't point out to the specific substance phase separation but it can be interpreted as generating tripartite of air-water-air, the second (Genesis 1.6) water-watery interface-water and the third (Genesis 1.9) water-solid-water, of which the solid (dry land) is the final objective of the creation, the material world where our physical body lives in (Figure 2). This lowest heaven also implicitly expressed in the root of the Genesis' word raqia ³⁾  as a thin solid golf leaf or tin leaf in Sumerian cosmology which indicates the solidity of this lowest material heaven.

The Koran extensively employs the expression "heaven and earth" and "heavens and earth" over 200 times. The pairing of the two terms and their conceptual interrelationship make it practically impossible to mention one without the other. The Koran states explicitly that the heavens and earth existed together in an undifferentiated state before creation.

The basic meaning of the word sama' (heaven) in Arabic is the higher, upper, highest or uppermost in addition to the sky, clouds, and rain. The word ard (earth) is the ground, anything that is low.

When mentioning heaven [or heavens] and earth, the Koran often adds the expression "everything between the two" thus giving the tripartite structure "heaven-everything in between-earth, which is a little bit different from the other tripartite structures.  The pair of heaven and earth denotes a specific type of relationship that of giving and receiving, and  "everything between the two" refers to the result of the relationship ⁴⁾.

Notes:

a)      Naturally, the dimensions of the cosmos model should be projected to higher dimensional reality. We should think that such a two-dimensional interface represents the space (technically may be called 3-hypersurface or 3-brane) whilst [three-dimensional] oil and water represent parts of the four-dimensional [split] world (technically called 4-spacetime).

b)      Some versions use the singular form to this notion as people wrongly think this as the creation of the sky surrounding the planet earth. The heavens and earth here are discussed in the context of the multiverse and used in correlative terms in which heaven is identified with everything high and earth with everything low.

c)      The beginning in Genesis 1.1 is not absolute. It is the translation of the Hebrew word “beresith” which is interpreted as a relative beginning. As such there could be pre-existing bodies (heavens) before Genesis beginning. The Genesis creations of heavens and earth could be thought as the continuation of a long series of separations prior to Genesis beginning.

d)     The ancients referred to four fundamental substances (pillars) from which grand cosmos was built. We may interpret this as the outcome of successive grand separations of cosmos' elements in descending degree of its dimensions and energy from the hottest substance, fire,  into the air, water down to the cold solid (material universe) as depicted in Fig-3A.

The lowest heaven of the Seven heavens resides within the sphere of solid which itself embedded in the water sphere where the higher heavens reside. These two spheres together with the seven heavens inside often called the World of the Kingdom. Beyond is the embedding larger (higher dimensional) sphere of air which itself embedded in the even higher dimensional sphere of fire. These outer spheres are often called The World of the Dominion (Fig. 3B)

References:

1.       Barmachi, Faraj: Treasures of the Iraq Museum, Iraq Ministry of Information, Baghdad, 1976.

2.       Wright, J.E.: The Early History of Heaven, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000.

3.       Friedman, R.E.: Commentary on the Torah, Harper San Francisco, New York, 2001

4.       Murata S.: "The Tao of Islam," State University of New York Press," 1992, p. 119

Genesis’ Firmament and the Babylon Oil-Water Interface

Most people who have tried to get a deeper insight on the basic concept of the ancient cosmology either from a general scientific or philosophical point of view are doubtful about the truthfulness of such knowledge and regard them as simply superstitious or fairy tales. This general attitude is amplified as modern physics posits its own version which differs significantly from those of the ancient.

The mainstream physicists regard the universe as a four-dimensional continuum instead of classically three. They give, however, no rationalization on why the nature of dimensions are so different from one (time) to the other (space). This may happen if and only if the symmetry of such continuum was broken.  The ignorance of this very basic conception brings modern physics into trouble as we see today.

The ancient people were fully aware of the important role of this symmetry breaking and put it as the central theme of their cosmogony. It might be expressed in various ways, but the theme was always the same i.e. the split of a primordial (preexisting) body into a tripartite cosmic structure.

The Bible, or Torah to be more precise, provided a means to demonstrate the trustworthiness of its contents. It made use of the world creation story, Genesis 1, placed on its preamble as a test for anybody to challenge the Book’s credibility.  As Genesis technically describes a universal conception about the origin of the world, it can be challenged anytime as science progresses. Once this part of Genesis was scientifically refuted, the whole content of the Book would be at stake of being turned down as rubbish.

Genesis depictions of the cosmic creation are parallel to that of the mainstream ancient cosmologies on the creation of tripartite cosmic structures as the outcome of the separation or series of separations of the preexisting body. The successive creation of the tripartite structures are expressed as heaven-earth-heaven ^a) (Genesis 1.1), water above-firmament-water below (Genesis 1.6), and water-dry land-water (Genesis 1.9).

This tripartite concept can be traced back remote in time to a respectable Babylonian king under the name of Enmenduranki as the seventh ruler in the Mesopotamian dynasties reigning before the Flood ¹⁾. He was believed to become the source of all human knowledge after having learned all the secrets of divination in heaven. The legend tells that while he ascended to heaven he was shown in the middle of divine assembly how to observe oil on water.

Nobody is able to comprehend the teaching properly and many anthropologists have misinterpreted that as a secret receipt of oil-containing medicine. And so this fundamental heaven knowledge remains buried in secret for thousands of years. What he handed down was more technical i.e. the tripartite structure of an oil-water mixture, where a boundary (interface) in the midst of the oil and water divides the water which is under the interface from the oil which is above the interface.

If we refer to Genesis 1.6-1.7, there is a complete parallel between these verses with the Enmenduranki's separation of oil and water:

“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament”.

The notions of Enmenduranki’s oil and water interface and Genesis’ firmament are so closely related which in this context representing the space. As the interface and the firmament are 3-dimensional, Enmenduranki’s oil and water and Genesis’ waters are a four-dimensional continuum.

In modern physics, we may correlate those interface and firmament to a mathematical entity called hypersurface or a “flat” manifold called brane in physics which may have a higher number of dimensions.

The word firmament or firmamentum in Latin is the translation of the Hebrew word of “raqia” which root means gold leaf which goldsmith hammers it very thin analogous to the thinness of the oil and water interface ²⁾.

In the other ancient cosmologies ³⁾ the tripartite cosmic structure was personified such as Ancient Egypt’s Nut-Shu-Geb or  Summerian’s An-Enlil-Ki, comparable to Enmenduranki’s physical oil-interface-water or the Genesis’ water above-firmament-water below. The cosmos tripartite structure resulted from the separation of the pre-existing heaven seemed to be the mainstream of the ancient cosmology school of thoughts.

The Sumerians used the word tin to describe the earth (firmament). The ancients whether they were Sumerians, Babylon or Hebrews used a similar representation of the space i.e. something very thin such as thin interface,  gold leaf (raqia) or a tin leaf.

The use of thin heaven metals instead of the interface of waters to represent the firmament indicates that the earth (lowest heaven) was in the solid phase different from the higher heavens which may be in either the phase of water, air or fire.

As stated previously the “solid” firmament in the ancient cosmology can be correlated to the idea of a brane in modern physics.  The brane, which mathematically equivalent to the hyper-surface may have two, three or much higher dimensions depending on the dimensions of the bulk it is embedded.

Sooner or later, the Big Bang theory, the current mainstream cosmology which is based on the creation out of nothing ^b) will be replaced by a creation theory based on separation or series of separations as our ancients adopted thousands of years ago.

Notes:

a) The expression of heaven and earth should be interpreted as correlative terms.  Heaven should be identified with everything high and earth with everything low. In the context of the multiverse, a specific universe could stand for the earth if it is correlated to a higher universe but stand for heaven if correlated to another universe which is lower.

b). The nothingness exists only in the human mind; it has no physical reality.  The spacetime (cosmos) is not an independent reality, it is a geometrical structure of energy or action (eon). There could be no empty spacetime (no matter and no energy) exists in nature as some physicists assumed in their theory, otherwise, there would be no spacetime at all.

References:

1. Barmachi, Faraj: Treasures of the Iraq Museum, Iraq Ministry of Information, Baghdad, 1976.

2. Friedman, R.E.: Commentary on the Torah, Harper San Francisco, New York, 2001

3.  Wright, J.E.: The Early History of Heaven, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000.

The Ancient Concept of Time

“I know what time is until someone asks me about it,” said St. Augustine (400 AD). Many philosophers and scientists have tried to explore the nature of time in terms of solar, biological or atomic time ¹⁾ but hardly anybody has touched the fundamental aspect of time.

One way to comprehend the ancient cosmology is to know about the nature of time.  However, this may deter anybody to proceed further as no scientific theory has yet revealed what time really is.  I, therefore, wish to give you a simple hint on how to get through to this subtle subject.

Everybody knows that time has a tripartite structure i.e. the past, the future and the present (“Now”), where the “Now” is situated in the middle separating the past and the future. Curiously, most of the ancients imagined the universe as a three-tiered structure namely heaven, earth, netherworld, where the earth is located in between the heaven and the netherworld. We will see shortly the close relationship between these two structures.

The four-dimensional time

Conceptually, the “Now” is like a mathematical point put arbitrarily on the straight ^a) time-line separating the past on one side and the future on the other side of the line (Fig. 1B). As the end of the past is just about linked to the beginning of the future, the point separating them barely exists, it is almost imaginary ^b).

Philosophically, the “Now” exists in between the probability of the future existence and the necessary existence of the past it had.  As such the Now, and everything within, exists in the possibility ²⁾. This is the underlying reality of quantum mechanics, as opposed to the deterministic conception of the classical physics that physicists fail to comprehend.

Without separation, time would remain in its eternity (Fig. 1A). The dynamical time is created out of eternity (eon) through the act of separation ^c). 

Moving to the physical reality, we need to transform the conceptual time into the real-time by expanding the former’s dimensions into that of the real one. How do we do that? The Now which we are in is certainly not zero-dimensional as we have conceptualized so far. It should allow us to move forward and backward, left and right or up and down. The “Now” in which we are present should be three-dimensional.

Accordingly, as this three-dimensional “Now” is embedded between the past and the future, the latter two should be four-dimensional. The time as a whole is, therefore, four-dimensional wherein the Now is just a mere slice of it (Fig. 1E). The timeline that we use as the basic structure of the conceptualized time is corresponding to the four-dimensional [space]time which the relativity theory has discovered.

Alas, the modern physicists overlook this tripartite structure in their cosmic model. They take for granted the spacetime as a unity and deny the existence of such universal “Now” no matter whether it is flat or wavy. As such, they took a proto-universe as the actual world model which is timeless and spaceless where neither matter nor even light could exist (Fig. 1D).

The Great Mystery

And how the ancients thought about it? The reader may judge for himself about the ancient knowledge which was written on several papyri (4300-3700 B.C) which later becomes the Chapter 64, the oldest and one of the most important chapters of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The knowledge was taught by Thoth at Sais at the commencement of Egyptian history about 14,000 B.C.

This chapter was written on a block of iron which had been inlaid with letters of Lapis Lazuli found in a shrine under the feet of the god Thoth in Khemennu (Hermopolis) in the reign of the king Men-Kan-Ra by royal son Heru-Ta-Ta-f when he was traveling to inspect the shrine. Under the guidance of his adviser, he brought to the king with his royal chariot the block containing a great mystery he had never looked upon drawn on the cube (Fig. 2). The first sentence of the hymn read “I am yesterday, today and tomorrow” ³⁾.

Now if we look to the cube carefully, we find as if it were divided in two by a section drawn in the middle of it as depicted in Fig. 2A. We can easily decode this that one side of the section represents the past, the other side the future, and the section itself represents the “Now”. This matches exactly with the structure depicted in Fig. 1E, referring to the tripartite structure of the past, now and the future.

At the top of the cube, we see a symbol drawn consisting of a triangle located in a circle bounded by the square of the cube’s section (Fig. 2B) coding the dimensions of the system. What the ancients wanted to show us was that the cube is 4-dimensional (symbolized by the square) embedding a 3-dimensional section (represented by the triangle) which represents “Now”. The ancient Egyptian cube is, therefore, corresponding to the modern 4-dimensional spacetime.

Now we have decoded the great mystery locked for thousands of years since immemorial time. We can even draw the lesson from the ancient that the current mainstream physics has wrongly adopted the 4-dimensional [undivided] spacetime to represent the real world.

Had the physicists recognized the tripartite structure of the spacetime they would go straighter through the road of reality.

Notes:

a).   In a grander scale, the notion of the past and the future is relative as the timeline is not straight but forms a grand circle (Fig. 1C). They are analogous to the notion of the above and below when it is looked from the global perspective.

b)    The ancient [Hindu] called such imaginary existence  (illusion) Maya

c)     Most creation stories and myths spread out across different ages and places throughout the globe are based on a basic theme:  “creation through separation”, which modern physicists also adopted under the notation of spontaneous symmetry breaking.

References:

1.      Ridley, B.K. : “Time, Space and Things,” Canto, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 57-68.

2.      Isutsu, T. : “Unicite de l’existence et Creation Perpetuelle en Mystique Islamique,” Les Deux Oceans, Paris, 1980, p. 131

3.      Churchward, J.: “Le Monde Occulte de Mu,” Editions J'ai Lu, Paris, 1972, p. 138-141.