The Hidden Secret of the Sumerians: 1

By Juan Moisés De La Serna

    An exhibition of the ancient civilizations of humanity will begin one of the most intriguing and exciting adventures through the streets of New York, where persecutions will happen by the most mysterious encounters and intriguing characters.

         An incessant search for what may be the greatest discovery of Western civilization, to find where the knowledge originated that made it take a qualitative leap that turned a fishing village into what was considered the cradle of culture, and development of the known world only a few centuries ago.

        An intrigue that will keep you in suspense until the end, where the most advanced espionage techniques confronted with the most secret ancient knowledge, all set in today’s New York, always a cosmopolitan city that encloses between its neighborhoods and streets a great cultural diversity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jan 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781071584378

Book preview

The

Hidden

Secret

Of The

Sumerians

Juan Moises de la Serna

Translated and Edited by Vilma Hill 

Editorial Babelcube  2021

The Hidden Secret of the Sumerians

Written by Juan Moisés de la Serna

Translated by Vilma Hill   

Edited by Vilma Hill

1st edition: February 2019

English Translation: January 2021

© Juan Moisés de la Serna, 2019

© English Translation Vilma Hill 2021

All rights reserved

Distributed by Babelcube

Total or partial reproduction of this book, its incorporation into a computer system, its transmission in any form or by any means – be it electronic, mechanical, by photocopy, recording, or other means – is not allowed without prior written permission of the copyright holder. Violation of the above rights may constitute a crime against intellectual property title, { Article 17 U.S.  Penal Code, section § 102} If you would like a photocopy or scan any portion of this translation you can contact Vilma Hill at [e-mail]. Or by phone [phone] (US) This book is protected by the USA and International copyright law.

Portions of this book are works of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, or places, or persons, living or deceased is entirely coincidental. Portions of this book are works of non-fiction. Certain names and identifying characteristics have been changed.

Prologue

An exhibition of the ancient civilizations of humanity will begin one of the most intriguing and exciting adventures through the streets of New York, where persecutions will happen by the most mysterious encounters and intriguing characters.

An incessant search for what may be the greatest discovery of Western civilization, to find where the knowledge originated that made it take a qualitative leap that turned a fishing village into what was considered the cradle of culture, and development of the known world only a few centuries ago.

An intrigue that will keep you in suspense until the end, where the most advanced espionage techniques confronted with the most secret ancient knowledge, all set in today’s New York, always a cosmopolitan city that encloses between its neighborhoods and streets a great cultural diversity.

Dedicated to my parents

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Contents

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CHAPTER  1.       THE LIBRARY                                   6

CHAPTER  2.          THREE DAYS LATER                       37

CHAPTER  3.       HISTORY OF IRAN                              79

CHAPTER  4.        THE FIGURE                                      111

CHAPTER  5.        THE ORIGIN                                    141

CHAPTER  6.      THE LOST PEOPLE                            185

CHAPTER  7.          THE SECRETS OF HYPNOSIS             214

CHAPTER  8.        THE TRIP    246

CHAPTER  9.          THE ENCOUNTER   271

CHAPTER 10.   RETURN TO NEW YORK    301

CHAPTER 11.  ETHIOPIA     337

CHAPTER 1.

____________________

THE LIBRARY

____________________

I was  nervous  about  what  was  going  to  be  my

introduction in society, my debut. I invested so many years of studies carried out in different countries throughout the world. I had put in long hours of solo work in libraries in order to finish my career at this point.

To tell the truth, I was very lucky to be able to  count on so much collaboration, others despite their possibilities were delayed by that small but essential detail of financing. Thanks to the fact that my former thesis supervisor knew the right people, and that they were interested in my project, I have been able to realize my dream.

Apart from the economic cost, this has meant a  great investment of human resources, but above all in collaboration with other institutions, museums, and universities as well as

with private collectors who had generously donated their works to be appreciated by others.

I think it was the first time in history, and of course in my life, that so many archaeological remains of this civilization have been brought together under the same roof, although there have been other precedents, the number of exhibited pieces were much lower than what I had managed to hoard for this event.

I also consider myself fortunate to have the opportunity to use this event in such a privileged place as the New York Public Library.

A building surrounded by white marble skyscrapers and neoclassical style, known as the Lion Library due to two pink marble lions that guard the entrance called Patience and Fortitude; with two fountains on both sides of the staircase that symbolize Truth and Beauty. A sumptuous construction located on the famous Fifth Avenue, being considered one of the most important libraries in the world, and the largest in the United States.

A staircase that leads to a triple arched portico  that gives access to the building, starting the tour of the Astor Hall with its spectacular white marble vault and from there to the room where the exhibition is held, the Gottesman Hall.

Luckily, at this time it was being remodeled, because otherwise it could not have been done, due to the daily bustle of students, and curious people who consult its bibliographic databases with one of the most developed digital archives in the world.

I had had to travel to different countries, I still remember my discussions in Jordan to transfer those small but valuable jewels, that has been a recurring problem that I had not faced until that moment.

As curator of the exhibition, I knew everything  that was needed about the organization of spaces, the selection of pieces, the classification of themes, the time allotments, but I did not know anything about security.

It had to be the council itself that offered to advise me, or rather decide in each case what to do, since the exhibition was held in a public building in the city.

I have never seen so many cameras, sensors, or motion, smoke or heat detectors in one place. I heard about invisible  security, the  one  that is in  charge of surveillance, and detection of problems without the ordinary citizen noticing, but hundreds of cameras installed in that enclosure gave me an idea of what security can reach.

They needed to enable one of the rooms that they had already projected as part of the exhibition, only as a security room for the control of all the cameras, as well as the coordination of the security personnel.

For me, it was exaggerated to have so much vigilance, only having assigned a person at the door in charge of making sure that no one took any piece was enough, but from the mayor's office they warned that either their security conditions were met, or the exhibition was not held.

In the end I had to give in, although not willingly. Those of us who worked in the organization, the transporters, and security, and even the cleaning staff were scrupulously examined in an anteroom to prevent any type of suspicious substance from entering, thanks to that electronic nose.

The security arches were over now it was all based on air control, as I called it; I still didn't quite understand how it worked, even though it was explained to me on several occasions.

It was a process in four blocks, the first and most  complex for me of transduction, made up of chemical or gas sensors; of signal acquisition and conversion to digital format; the processing, and the fourth and last presentation of the result.

For my part, all I saw is I had to stand in front of a green background, wait a few seconds for a jet of air to blow on me and that was it. That one is supposed to be special, it expands the odor molecules in my body, if a potentially dangerous substance is detected the alarms sound.

This happened more than once with the shop window fitters. Some or other worked the afternoons in construction. When they wanted to enter the next day all the alarms went off for having been close to where they were welding with products such as acetylene, propane or butane.

All a sound and visual spectacle of alarms that gasped the person, and isolated them until they checked all their belongings, their eyes, and fingerprint identification.

A waste of ingenuity and conscientious work for something as innocent as an exhibition of old pots, as defined by the city's police chief when he saw the catalog of pieces to be presented at the exhibition.

Personally, I was very proud to present my first exhibition as a curator. Despite having some previous proposals in various museums in remote towns, I preferred to make my debut in a big way. For this I tried in my power to impress the public, literally transporting it to the ancient world.

The most difficult thing was to make a model in  the middle of the showroom. A replica of the ziggurat of Ur, near Nasiriyah (Iraq), the sanctuary of the Moon God, Nanna. An ancient Mesopotamian building, built with a rectangular base, with overlapping platforms that taper from the base to the top, which is flat and where a small temple was located. A structure in the form of a tower or stepped pyramid formed by several terraces connected to each other by ramps.

Although there were other more reliable examples of primitive construction, such as the Dur-Untash Ziggurat located in Susa (Iran). The abandonment, the erosion of the desert, and the passage of time has blurred the majesty of the building, leaving only a few samples of such a colossal construction. It was an attempt to show one of the pillars of Sumerian culture. The cult of their deities, and the relationship between religion and the people, since these monuments were erected as a vehicle to get closer to their Gods. Places that only priests could enter, but that being built on top of the esplanades they were visible from long distances.

But that brought me many problems, as some religious communities said that it was a provocation against their own history as a people, such was the uproar that in the end I had to give up.

I was content with recreating it, photographing it, and disassembling it. Leaving only a large photograph of the model recreated on one of the walls of the exhibition hall, with a small poster indicating the way of construction of antiquity without going into further details.

There were many pieces that I had managed to  gather in that exhibition on the Sumerian world. The cradle of humanity, which my favorite was the Estela of Hammurabi, as it reflects the current state of that culture.

A long review of pieces, what is for some, the most disturbing lost civilization. One step between reality and fiction, coming to be compared with the mythical Atlantis for its extraordinary advances in a relatively short time, and for having left an indelible mark on the history of mankind.  

For lovers of the extraordinary, of legends and conjectures, these were the remains of a civilization that had maintained direct contact with its Gods and thanks to these, they were able to establish themselves as a civilization by spreading their culture to neighboring populations.

A surprising fact that in this place, Mesopotamia, located between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, is where so much power and knowledge was concentrated, when the conditions for such advances were not yet in place.

Some scientific groups criticized me for my partial vision of world history, forgetting other places that are far away, no less important, such as China, India or pre-Columbian America. History should be rewritten to incorporate the forgotten Chinese civilization by the West. In my opinion it has been the only one that has had a certain continuity in time, being the Westerners for a few hundred scarce years, despite that there was a great succession of dominant peoples according to the time.

For many, it seemed strange that I chose these people and not the Egyptians, as was customary to do. Personally, even though I admired that culture, I understood that almost everything had already been said.

Although it kept countless secrets and questions to be answered, such as who was the one who built the pyramids?

Where did the sphinx come from? Or how apparently, scattered people in the desert got to form as a civilization?

Despite what little we know; new discoveries are made every day about this world that has captivated so many. Eclipsing other places of interest in the area. Such as the pyramids of Sudan, which despite being smaller still retain some similarity, and above all maintain the aura of mystery.

Others criticized me for not making the exhibition about Greece, the cradle of Western civilization. At least that is how it was proclaimed. They were the architects of current writing, but above all, the way of thinking. Thanks to scholars such as Socrates, Plato or Aristotle who left their thoughts shaped for later generations. That has been the subject of obliged study since then.

Without being completely disgusted by the idea, it seemed a bit pretentious to me. Wanting to assign to people like the Greeks the title of the cradle of culture, when they only had a partial influence.

It is true that it marked the course of the culture of the known world, at least in our Western eyes. On Earth there were other civilizations that were developing at the same time in other latitudes, so I consider that it had a partial impact.

Likewise, the least urged me to also honor the first settlers of Ibero-America. Whose civilization developed in parallel, even in obvious distance and physical separation.

When there was no contact between cultures from such distant places.

But my interest was more ambitious. I wanted to give an even more global vision. Reveal the nature of modern man since the origins of civilization. Sharing my concerns about an essence that is maintained over time, allowing the past to help us explain what we are, and therefore, what we will be.

Some have criticized me for trying to change the way of conceiving history with the exhibition, but that more than a criticism seems to me a rush to my work.

Showing findings of a millinery civilization with current discoveries has led to a few detractors calling me an illusionist, for wanting to create a fiction of reality instead of presenting only the data. They have said all that without even having seen the exhibition, it has not been inaugurated.

Apart from the exhibition to last for more than a month of the most representative works, there were also explanatory boards, photographs, reconstruction of moments of  their daily, political, commercial and religious life, of the auditory explanations, interactive panels and projections.  

In addition to what makes up the exhibition, a series of open days, was scheduled to listen to the most renowned speakers on the subject. To present their point of view on that civilization almost unknown to the general public.

What at first could be easy, it was a complicated task. The studies were mainly developed during the sixties and since then few researchers are alive. Coupled with the fact that there was great discontent in the scientific community about my approach to the exhibition, made it even more difficult for me to find experts willing to collaborate.

But after countless calls and negotiations, I got what I wanted. Despite the fact I had to accept some almost imposed guests, such as the director of the Museum of Pharaonic Art in Cairo (Cairo, Egypt) or the Chinese National Museum, in the mythical Tian'anmen Square, the largest in the world (Beijing, China).

They wanted to give their respective points of view, contextualizing according to them, the importance of the exhibition to the global idea of humanity.

A fair exchange to an imposition on the funds that were going to temporarily be assessed to us. Although, I feared that the day would come when they would come to speak, for it could be at least, demotivating, to hear such a renowned speaker rave about his own discoveries detailing the sample work.

But the risk was acceptable, managing to make a space for them, where I understood that too many people were not going to go. It coincided with a sporting event in the city, So, little did they know they were going to find a small audience, in which the effect of their complaints on my exposure was going to be ineffective.

For the exhibition I had to travel to the area several times. Going museum by museum asking for pieces to present in the exhibition. I have toured so many large and small museums that it is impossible for me to remember the number.

What surprised me the most was to find out that most of the pieces of this civilization are in private hands, only the largest are in museums. This led me to a quagmire, as no great collector wanted to leave his treasure even for a moment, and less to a stranger.

But that is where my thesis advisor again came into play. He is a renowned researcher in his field. Thanks to his popularity they listened to me and lent me pieces that had never seen the light of day.  So much so, that it was surprising to see some of the pieces, as we had neither the dating nor an idea of what it was about, or what it meant.

We had to call some of these speakers to help us in the task of organizing those apparently disconnected, and meaningless pieces. Little by little we form that puzzle that took me so long from the idea to its shape.

A large group of experts at the last minute wanted to collaborate to get their names to appear in the thank you credits. But in the end, they were not admitted. First for security reasons, because according to the police the fewer we were, the easier their task of control would be, and second for a matter of principle.

I knew I couldn't please everyone, but that was a personal matter. For this reason, the success or failure of the show, I wanted to attribute exclusively to myself, and to the few friends who believed in the project from the beginning.

Despite the many discussions that I had with all kinds of people who held public and private positions, that colossal work seemed to bear fruit. There were only three days left until the inauguration.

The posters announcing the event were carried throughout the city for weeks. An advertising campaign disseminating the event through the press and radio to stimulate the interest of the general public. Which was not very clear a priori what civilization it was. That was my biggest bewilderment when I learned the opinion of the street. A taxi driver told me that it would have attracted more people if it had carried the words Egypt or simply "Middle East. I was so excited to show the world their place of origins. A fundamental piece of information about their own history, and all they wanted was to see mummies, sarcophagi, and ancient jackal-headed God.   

That irritated me a lot, but it had not made me weak, on the contrary, it motivated me to be even more tenacious in my attempt to give a little light to a New York population, that at least they sound like the first parents of humanity.

Hanging banners had been waving for weeks from the three arches of the front door. The one in the middle in which the name of the exhibition and the date of the exhibition were announced. On both sides of this were the images of the most significant pieces of the sample, the Hammurabi codex and the stela that commemorates the victory of Naram-Sin.

Each of them has its own peculiarity and charm. The Hammurabi Codex, a block of black basalt about eight feet long, is one of the earliest discovered and best-preserved sets of laws inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform characters.

Immutable laws of divine origin, as indicated in its header, where it is shown how the God of justice delivers these laws to King Hammurabi. An archaeological piece that, despite being of Babylonian origin, a later civilization settled in the same geographical place, is a compilation of Sumerian laws.

In this codex, as in other similar ones, the rules of people's lives are established. Highlighting among other issues, the rights of women, minors, a fair salary, and days off per month for workers.  

As well as the punishment for each one of the rules violated, sentences that could go up to the death penalty. This constitutes a clear example of the Law of Talion, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or as it is modernly said,  Law of action  and  reaction.  The consequences being proportional to the facts, but with the particularity that the punishment was identified with the crime committed.

Some scholars argue that this is the origin of some of the laws contained in the Law of Moses by which the Jews are governed. These same researchers point out that they were adopted during the captivity of these people in the lands of Babylon, when they were confined outside their lands for almost fifty years in the sixth century BC.

An exodus of a good part of the Jewish people after the destruction of the first Beit Hamikdash (Temple of Jerusalem) located on Mount Moria or Moriah by Nebuchadnezzar II.

The stele on the victory of Naram-Sin realized in pink sandstone represented the success of the campaign of this king on his enemies. What has given so much to talk about has been that our solar system is represented on the head of this king. With the sun in the center and ten planets in its orbit, with the moon around the Earth.

According to some researchers, the ancient  Sumerians knew cosmology so well that they were able to identify the nine current planets, and to record a tenth planet in our solar system called Niburi.

It should be borne in mind, that what may seem obvious to us, any child from an early age is capable of correctly  identifying  when  knowing  that  our  solar system is made up of nine planets, has not been equally known throughout history.  Since Classical Greece it was believed that the Earth was the center of  the Universe. All the stars including the sun revolved around it. A position formulated by Aristotle and known as geocentric theory, which was in force until the 16th century.

Until a little more than seventy years ago, not all the planets that make up our solar system were known. The last three to be discovered were Uranus in 1,781, Neptune in 1,846 and Pluto in 1,930. Reaching the number of nine planets, that of course, before the scientific community in 2006 eliminated Pluto from the list of planets, creating a new specific category to call it plutoid or dwarf planet.

On the tenth planet, called Niburi, it would be  even further away than Pluto. An orbit around the sun of about 3,600 years. Some researchers have tried to identify it, although with little