weather, we can also speculate about a time when highly evolved EMH would have experienced a pastoral golden age, wandering the mountain foothills as wise and spiritual shepherds. These tribes became the protagonists of history’s great religious allegories.
From this scenario, we might conclude that whatever it is that we now call civilization, did not really begin in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley’s Fertile Crescent, as most academics would have us believe. It appears to have begun in the unbroken mountainous perimeter of Iraq (Figure 3), where these Aryan “shepherd-gods” came to inhabit the Taurus and Nur Mountains of Turkey, the southern Caucasus in the Armenian Highlands, the Elburz, Kurdistan, and Zagros Mountains of Iran, as well as Pakistan’s Central Makran Range, bordering the Indus Valley.
Melting glaciers overflowed the Black Sea and flooded the river valley between roughly 14,000 - 7,000 BCE. The Bible’s timeline for the Great Flood (ca. 2348 BCE) does not match the geological record, although there is said to have been some local flooding around that time. The Genesis allegories, especially the Biblical flood myth, shares many common elements with the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh and the Babylonian Epic of Atrahasis. If we were to closely compare these stories with one another, we could observe what is essentially the same flood myth being told from different cultural perspectives. Bible stories, in fact, may be one of our best modern guides to prehistoric times. From this perspective, we might consider the Biblical allegory of Noah and his family emerging from the Ark on Mount Ararat as metaphor for the EMH emerging from their mountain caves around Lake Van and Mount Ararat, circa 10,500 BCE.
When EMH came out of their caves, they would have avoided the flooding by herding sheep and goats in the foothills of the mountains. They eventually settled the land, growing wheat and barley, to begin the Neolithic Revolution circa 9000 BCE. The earliest farming settlements included: Jericho, Jarmo, Susa, Çatal Höyük, and Mehrgarh. The earliest EMH settlement appears to have been the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) site of Tell es-Sultan (Sultan’s Hill), a couple of kilometers from the current city of Jericho. It is a 40,000 square meter settlement surrounded by a stone wall, with a stone tower built into the wall. Jericho is considered the oldest continuously inhabited settlement, and its stone architecture was built by the Natufian civilization (circa 12,500 - 9500 BCE). EMH were probably accustomed to living within the protective shell of their caves, and their need to build a settlement surrounded by a stone wall at Tell es-Sultan was a practical solution to the problems of keeping out any flood waters or unwanted intruders. Over the next few thousand years, the EMH migrated across the seven mountain chains already mentioned, which framed the perimeter of the Fertile Crescent.
Figure 3 - The Mountain Ranges Framing Iraq
EMH survived the Ice Age in the shelter of Middle Eastern caves for anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 years. Meditation probably began as a natural coping mechanism for tribes and families who survived during that period. Meditation significantly strengthened the practitioner’s limbic system, and provided unprecedented access to the brain’s untapped potential. My hypothesis suggests that this “cave practice” was a widely established and cherished practice that came to define the sacred priestly tradition. I believe it to be the missing evolutionary link between caveman and the sophistication of pre-Sumerians “who were culturally far more advanced than were the Sumerians...”29 Samuel Noah Kramer, a renowned scholar on ancient Sumer, discovered a vastly superior pre-Sumerian culture that emerged from the Iranian mountains. This aligns well with my own theory about Aryan “shepherd-gods on the mountain.”
Chapter 2: The Founders of Civilization
The Founding of Sumer
The Aryans migrated to Eridu from Susa in the province of Elam at the dawn of Iranian history.30 Susa was named for Noah’s granddaughter Susan, while Elam was named for his grandson Elam. Both were children of Noah’s son Shem. In this earliest period of Iranian history, this region was first known as Arana (Āryānā), meaning “land of the Aryans.” The Sanskrit word Aryan (or Arya) means “noble” or “honorable,” and can be literally translated as “one who strives upward.” In the Persian language, this evolved to “Erān,” and finally to “Irān,” in modern Persian.
By 5400 BCE, any flood waters would have cleared. At this point, the Aryans/Iranians who founded the Zagros Mountain Neolithic settlement at Susa descended into the valley along the Karkheh River (which I believe is the Bible’s Pishon River) and founded the city of Eridu, the first city of ancient Sumer. “Henri Frankfort argued that the Sumerians were the first settlers in southern Mesopotamia and came from the Iranian highlands in the beginning of the Ubaid period. Next, the Semites arrived in the Uruk period...”31 Kramer echoes these thoughts: “Not long after the establishment of the first settlement by the Iranian immigrants [circa 5400 BCE], the Semites probably infiltrated into Southern Mesopotamia [circa 4000 BCE].”32 Kramer describes the pre-Sumerians as “culturally far more advanced than were the Sumerians.”33 This pre-Sumerian civilization was actually responsible for the “material and spiritual heritage” of ancient Sumer, which positioned Sumer to play such a predominant role in the Ancient Near East.34 Kramer also speaks of an important Irano-Semitic cross-fertilization in Southern Mesopotamia.
If we can accept the premise that a superior race existed, then we are in a position to consider the syncretistic perspective that these “shepherd gods” became legendary figures, known to each derivative culture by different names. The existence of a single “master-race”35 would therefore describe the origin of the Greek pantheon of gods on Mount Olympus, the shepherd-gods of Sumer, Egypt, and Babylon, and the “Sons of God” in the Bible. As a further example, Noah had many syncretistic names, including: the Sumerian Ziusudra, his Akkadian counterpart Atrahasis, and the Babylonian Noah, Utnapishtim.
Soon after the first city was founded, according to Genesis 11:4, a Tower of Babel was said to have been built by Noah’s great-grandson, Nimrod, in dedication to the glory of man, rather than to the glory of God. This “idolatry” caused God to confuse language, and each language would evolve its own distinct culture. Thus, the 70 nations were dispersed to the “four corners of the earth.” The Tower of Babel allegory implies that there was originally a proto-language and a proto-culture, once again suggesting a single set of shepherd-gods on the mountain. The word Aryan has often been used to categorize the gentile Caucasian descendants of Noah’s son Japheth, whereas the term Semitic generally refers to monotheism’s patriarchal descendants of Noah’s son Shem. This text uses “Aryan” interchangeably with the Biblical term “Nephilim” to describe the founders of civilization. The Book of Genesis, however, describes a father-son relationship between the “Sons of God” and their Nephilim offspring, which Jewish Biblical commentators mistakenly, I believe, characterize as the Good “sons of Seth” versus the Evil “sons of Cain.”36
In further support of a syncretistic approach to this subject matter, we note that the ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (circa 58 CE) writes about Adam’s belief that the earth would be destroyed by flood and flame. Based on that belief, the “sons of Seth” would record the sacred mysteries for posterity on two pillars, one of stone and the other, brick, believing that if the flood destroyed the brick, the stone might still survive.37 This early record of the ancient knowledge was therefore said to be written on the “Pillars of Seth.” The rabbis are clear that it was someone in the “line of Seth” that carved those pillars. If we were to follow the Biblical timeline, it would have been the 7th generation from Seth, Enoch, the first holy man and scribe, who is believed to have carved the ancient secrets into stone and brick.38 These writings would then constitute the actual “Book of Enoch,” authored during the time that the Biblical Enoch would have lived, as opposed to the non-canonical “Book of Enoch,” authored around 300 BCE, thousands of years after the Biblical timeline for Enoch.
Three hundred years before Josephus, the writings of Manetho state that
