Much controversy has been generated by chapter 16 of Zecharia Sitchin's last book, "There were Giants Upon the Earth".  He wrote about mummified humans remains, purportedly part of a museum collection in London.  The remains were of Queen Nin Puabi, identified by a cylinder seal found by her body.  Sitchin argues that the name 'Nin' suggests more than mere royalty - that she was actually a 'goddess', or in the direct Anunnaki lineage anyway, through her mother's side.  In other words, he suggests that one of the Anunnaki never left Earth, and that her remains were stored at the National History Museum in London as late as March 2010 (along with the rest of Leonard Woolley's excavations from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur).

So, Sitchin argues, all that is required to prove or disprove his theory of ancient astronauts from Nibiru is to do DNA testing on those remains. When Sitchin wrote to Dr Margaret Clegg, head of the the National History Museum's Human Remains Unit, she sent him a polite reply in 2009, setting out their position with great clarity:

"The Museum does not routinely conduct DNA analysis on remains in the collection, and there are no plans to do so in the near future." (1)

Regarding the issue of Sitchinite evidence at the British Museum, I've been given permission to publish correspondence between a curator at the British Museum and a Dutch fan of Sitchin, who wishes to remain anonymous.  Here is his initial enquiry :

And here is the response he received from the curator , which is polite but predictably dismissive.  (NB Correspondence is not subject to copyright laws). 

The curator says that the remaining skull fragments are not located at the British Museum, which J. had erroneously thought to be the case.  The remains are at the National History Museum in Kensington, London, not the British Museum in Bloomsbury, London.  Of course, the name 'British Museum' would seem all encompassing, so I can see why he made the mistake.  Sitchin also mentions the British Museum in his book, but only in the context of them referring him to the National History Museum in 2005. 

That notwithstanding, it's the attitude towards Sitchin's ideas that I'm particularly struck by.  I want to make something very clear.  Sitchin's work is an alternative interpretation of history.  It is not a story plucked out of thin air.  He based his admittedly quite far-out ideas on the same evidence as the Sumerologists:  Cylinder Seals, monuments, ancient texts in cunieform script, myths and language.  Their evidence is his evidence.  The difference is the interpretation he places upon the material he studied.  The paradigm used to study the past.

For example - take the Sumerian King List, on display in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum.  Ancient lists of Kings, like this one, boldly assert the dominion of demigods and gods going back some 432,000 years!  That's myth, say scholars.  That's actual history, says Sitchin.  The evidence described on the artefact is the same for both parties.  It's the interpretation that is different. 

I recently visited the British Museum (left), and spent a long time in the Mesopotamian Antiquities section (at the time, I was filming an interview for the second series of William Shatner's "Weird or What?" at University College, just over the road).  Of course, there was nothing in the museum relating directly to Queen Nin Puabi, at least on show to the general public. 

But I did find some other great artefacts to photograph, which I'd like to share with you.  There was plenty of Sitchinite evidence on display there, in plain view; you just need to have an appreciation for what Sitchin was getting it. 

Below are three boundary stones from Mesopotamia.  The Babylonian boundary stone on the left (ME 102485, ~1100BC), which I've seen many times in books and on the net, shows three celestial symbols - Sun, Moon and, well, other.   Academics say the symbols are the star Venus (the goddess Ishtar), the Moon (the god Sin) and the Sun (the god Shamash).  The same applies to the middle stone, about which the Museum adds:

"They are major Mesopotamian sky-gods who witness and guarantee the legality of the boundary stones. Additional symbols refer to the other gods and celestial powers, including precursors of the signs of the zodiac." (4)

Sitchin says the depiction of the radiating star is the planet Nibiru. 

He backs that up with chapters and chapters of scholarly discussion in his books, footnoted by burgeoning bibliographies of journals, academic studies and texts.  Maybe he's right, maybe he's not.  But it's wrong to moan that his work is not based upon diligent research, however misguided the academics might consider him to be.

The upper-most of these commemorative stone is from the Marduk Temple, Babylon ~900BC (ME 90834). 

Sitchin wrote that the Sumerian term Nibiru was one of the names given to the Babylonian god Marduk, and that in a cosmological sense they might be synonymous.  (I regard Marduk as the actual Dark Star, whereas 'Nibiru' describes  the visual celestial phenomenon of a returning red star in the heavens. They may be the same, or Nibiru may be a visible aspect of the Dark Star system at perihelion (5)).  So the Winged Disk on this boundary stone is particularly interesting to me because it may be depicting Marduk as a celestial body.

Here's a remarkable cylinder-seal depiction (ME 89128).  Dating from about 1400BC, it shows the seated Babylonian sun-god Shamash with a Cross and Rosette, "...both probably Sun symbols" according to the museum description.  So that's Two Suns in front of the sun-god?  Hmmm...  No facts, eh?  This is an example of where the mainstream interpretation gets unstuck.  Why would Shamash be sat in front of two suns, when there is only one Sun in the solar system?

Sitchin writes this about the universal emblem of the Cross:

"The Sumerians depicted it [Nibiru] as a radiating planet whose symbol was the cross.  The symbol was thereafter adopted by all the peoples of the ancient world and evolved to the ubiquitous emblem of the Winged Disk" (6)

It is this self-same radiating cross that appears on the boundary stones above. A Sitchinite interpretation is that the cross symbol is Nibiru,  and the rosette-like symbol is the Sun.  I suspect that we can go further.  During the Messianic Era, the Cross symbol then evolved into the most significant religious icon of the last 2000 years. 

If Nibiru had a perihelion passage during the Graeco-Roman era then that may be no coincidence.  Whether one can make that leap or not, the fact remains that Sitchin's theory explains the depiction on this cylinder seal better than mainstream academia can.

Here are three Winged Disk motifs to round things off.  The first (above) is a neo-Hittite stela of the goddess Kubaba (WA 127390). 

The second tablet is from a famous cylinder-seal showing the Persian King Darius riding in a chariot and firing an arrow at a lion (89132).  The Winged Disk above his head is thought to be depicting the Zoroastrian deity Ahura Mazda. 

I'm sorry to say that I didn't note down the information about the third tablet here, although it looks to me like a Persian-style cylinder-seal.  But I wanted to include it because the doubly winged disk is wonderfully ornate, and the central character is once again pointing up towards it.

Written by Andy Lloyd, 2nd June 2011

author of 'The Dark Star' (2005), 'Ezekiel One' (2009), 'The Followers of Horus' (2010) and 'Darker Stars' (2019)

All photos copyright Andy Lloyd 2011

1) Zecharia Sitchin "There were Giants Upon the Earth", Bear & Co 2009, p345

There were Giants Upon the Earth

2) Correspondence from J. to the British Museum sent 12 August 2010

3) Correspondence from Sarah Collins, Middle East Dept., The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG to J. sent 25 August 2010  www.britishmuseum.org