The Anunnaki and the Corporeal Staff of the Prince
The Urantia Book · 66:2.5
The Planetary Prince of Urantia
The corporeal staff of the Planetary Prince consisted of one hundred personalities. They were not creatures of sex, but they were of the order of beings who could partake of the food of the realm. With their Prince they constituted the visible government of Urantia. These one hundred were divided equally as to sex and according to their previous planetary status.Read the full UB paper →
Ancient Source · Sumerian / Akkadian
Sumerian Anunnaki tradition (3rd to 1st millennium BCE)
The Anunnaki, the great gods, the offspring of An, came down from heaven to the earth. They allotted the lots, they decreed the destinies. They taught humanity the arts of civilization: agriculture and the cutting of grain, the working of metal, the building of cities, the writing of words, the keeping of records, the laws of justice. The Anunnaki were the council of the senior gods, the staff of the supreme one.
Atrahasis Epic Tablet I, lines 1 to 40; Enki and the World Order (ETCSL 1.1.3); Enuma Elish VI.27 to 44
The Sumerian "da nun na" is etymologically analyzed as "princely offspring" or "staff of the prince." See Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary and ORACC.
The Parallel
The Sumerian Anunnaki are described as a council of divine beings, offspring of An, who descend from heaven to teach civilization to humanity: agriculture, metallurgy, writing, law. The UB Corporeal Staff are 100 supermortals who descend with Caligastia (the Planetary Prince, mapped to An) to teach exactly these same arts. The literal etymology "staff of the prince" matches the UB description with unusual precision.
Why It Matters
The Sumerian myths are not random fantasy. They are distorted memory of a real civilizing visitation that the UB describes in Papers 66 to 67. When Mesopotamian texts list the Anunnaki teaching humanity grain cutting, metal working, and city building, they are remembering the ten councils of the corporeal staff in their actual functions.
Scholarship
- Kramer, Samuel Noah. Sumerian Mythology (University of Pennsylvania, rev. ed. 1961).
- Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Treasures of Darkness (Yale, 1976).
- Black, Jeremy and Anthony Green. Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia (British Museum, 1992).
- Katz, Dina. The Image of the Netherworld in the Sumerian Sources (CDL, 2003).