Mesopotamia - Babylon and the First Civilizations

[PINNAZ]

What if I said that a Call of Duty game will be based on Iraq? Crazy?

 

Treyarch may be subliminally teaching us a history of Iraq. (Die-hards like me)

Not modern day Iraq, but Ancient Iraq - Mesopotamia

 

 

Origins Ancients picture

 

 

I’ll start with the Black Ops III teaser Trailer & a hidden image found within ~

 

Hidden image in Black Ops III Teaser Trailer

 

 

 

 

This same text is then found in a screenshot for “Shadows of Evil”

Shadows of Evil Screenshot

https://www.callofduty.com/blackops3/zombies

 

 

It seems to be some type of Cuneiform script. But modified or fictitious?

I have not decoded it.

 

It resembles ~

• Sumerian
• Eastern Semitic, including Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian
• Elamite
• Eblaite
• Hittite
• Hurrian
• Utartian
• Ugaritic, in fact an alphabetic system unrelated to other cuneiform scripts except in outward appearance.
• Old Persian

 

This is Ugaritic script (which is Iranian?)

 

 

 

Cuneiform

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform

http://www.ancient.eu/cuneiform/

 

Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known systems of writing, distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus. The name cuneiform itself simply means "wedge shaped", from the Latin cuneus "wedge" and forma "shape," and came into English usage probably from Old French cunéiforme.

 

Emerging in Sumer in the late 4th millennium B.C.E. (the Uruk IV period), cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract as the number of characters in use grew smaller, from about 1,000 in the Early Bronze Age to about 400 in Late Bronze Age (Hittite cuneiform). The system consists of a combination of logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic and syllabic signs.

 

The original Sumerian script was adapted for the writing of the Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hittite, Luwian, Hattic, Hurrian, and Urartian languages, and it inspired the Ugaritic and Old Persian alphabets. Cuneiform writing was gradually replaced by the Phoenician alphabet during the Neo-Assyrian Empire. By the 2nd century C.E., the script had become extinct, and all knowledge of how to read it was lost until it began to be deciphered in the 19th century.

 

 

 

First Civilizations / Cradle of Civilization

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle_of_civilization

 

The cradle of civilization is a term referring to locations where, according to current archeological date, civilization is understood to have emerged independently.

 

Scholars have defined civilization using various criteria such as the use of writing, a class-based society, public buildings, metallurgy, and monumental architecture. Current thinking is that there was no single "cradle", but several civilizations that developed independently, of which the Near Eastern Neolithic (Mesopotamia and Egypt) was the first.

 

Historically, the ancient city states of Mesopotamia in the fertile crescent are most cited by Western and Middle Eastern scholars as the cradle of civilization. The convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers produced rich fertile soil and a supply of water for irrigation. The civilizations that emerged around these rivers are among the earliest known non-nomadic agrarian societies. Because Ubaid, Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylon civilizations all emerged around the Tigris-Euphrates, the theory that Mesopotamia is the cradle of civilization is widely accepted.

 

 

The Mesopotamian civilization of Sumer emerges in the Ubaid period (6500-3800 BC) and Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BC), culminating in the mid-3rd millennium before giving rise to the Akkadian Empire in the 24th century BC. This is often identified as the first empire in history.

 

Eridu was the oldest Sumerian site, settled during the proto-civilized Ubaid period. Situated several miles southwest of Ur, Eridu was the southernmost of a conglomeration of early temple-cities, in Sumer, southern Mesopotamia, with the earliest of these settlements dating to around 5000 BC. By the 4th millennium BC in Nippur — in connection with a sort of ziggurat and shrine — a conduit built of bricks in the form of an arch. Sumerian inscriptions written on clay also appear in Nippur. By 4000 BC an ancient Elamite city of Susa, in Mesopotamia, also seems to emerge from earlier villages. Whilst the Elamites originally had their own script, from an early age they adapted the Sumerian cuneiform script to their own language. The earliest recognizable cuneiform dates to no later than about 3500 BC. Other villages that began to spring up around this time in the Ancient Near East (Middle East) were greatly impacted and shifted rapidly from a proto-civilized to a fully civilized state

 

 

 

Mesopotamia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia

 

Mesopotamia - "land of rivers" - is a name for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, corresponding to modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, the northeastern section of Syria and to a much lesser extent southeastern Turkey and smaller parts of southwestern Iran.

 

Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization by the Western world, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires, all native to the territory of modern-day Iraq. In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. The indigenous Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians) dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history (c. 3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire.

 

 

Sumerian Secrets - Babel - Anunnaki

 

 

 

Babylon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon

 

Babylon was a significant city in ancient Mesopotamia, in the fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The city was built upon the Euphrates, and divided in equal parts along its left and right banks, with steep embankments to contain the river's seasonal floods.

 

Babylon was originally a small Semitic Akkadian city dating from the period of the Akkadian Empire c. 2300 BC. The town attained independence as part of a small city state with the rise of the First Amorite Babylonian Dynasty in 1894 BC. Claiming to be the successor of the more ancient Sumero-Akkadian city of Eridu, Babylon eclipsed Nippur as the "holy city" of Mesopotamia around the time Amorite king Hammurabi created the first short lived Babylonian Empire in the 18th century BC. Babylon grew and South Mesopotamia came to be known as Babylonia.

 

Babylon Ruins – Modern day Iraq

 

 

 

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging_Gardens_of_Babylon

 

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one whose location has not been definitely established.

 

The Hanging Gardens were a distinctive feature of ancient Babylon. They were a great source of pride to the people, and were often described in accounts written by visitors to the city. Possibly built by King Nebuchadnezzar II in 600 BC, the gardens are believed to have been a remarkable feat of engineering: an ascending series of tiered gardens containing all manner of trees, shrubs, and vines. The gardens were said to have looked like a large green mountain constructed of mud bricks, rising from the center of the city.

 

Traditionally they were said to have been built in the ancient city of Babylon, near present-day Hillah, Babil province, in Iraq.

 

Hanging Gardens of Babylon with the Tower of Babel in the Background

 

 

 

Tower of Babel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel

 

The Tower of Babel is a story told in the Book of Genesis of the Tanakh (also referred to as the Hebrew Bible) meant to explain the origin of different languages. According to the story, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar. [The name Shinar occurs eight times in the Hebrew Bible, in which it refers to Babylonia. This location of Shinar is evident from its description as encompassing both Babel (Babylon) (in northern Babylonia) and Erech (Uruk) (in southern Babylonia)].

 

The Tower of Babel has been associated with known structures according to some modern scholars, notably the Etemenanki, a ziggurat dedicated to the Mesopotamian god Marduk by Nabopolassar, king of Babylonia (c. 610 BC). The Great Ziggurat of Babylon was 91 metres (300 ft) in height. Alexander the Great ordered it demolished circa 331 BCE in preparation for a reconstruction that his death forestalled.

 

Tower of Babel – Tranzit in-game picture

 

Tower of Babel – Original Painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_of_Babel_(Bruegel)

 

 

 

Marduk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marduk

 

Marduk was a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi (18th century BC), he slowly started to rise to the position of the head of the Babylonian pantheon, a position he fully acquired by the second half of the second millennium BC. In the city of Babylon, he resided in the temple Esagila. "Marduk" is the Babylonian form of his name.

 

Marduk's original character is obscure but he was later associated with water, vegetation, judgment, and magic.

 

 

Etemenanki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etemenanki

 

Etemenanki "temple of the foundation of heaven and earth") was the name of a ziggurat dedicated to Marduk in the city of Babylon of the 6th century BCE Neo-Babylonian dynasty. Originally 91 meters in height, little remains of it now except ruins.

 

The city of Babylon had been destroyed in 689 BCE by Sennacherib, who claims to have destroyed the Etemenanki. The city was restored by Nabopolassar and his son Nebuchadnezzar II. It took 88 years to rebuild the city; its central feature was the temple of Marduk (Esagila), with which the Etemenanki ziggurat was associated. The ziggurat was rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar II. The seven stories of the ziggurat reached a height of 91 meters, according to a tablet from Uruk (see below), and contained a temple shrine at the top.

 

 

In Nebuchadnezzar's own words:

 

The tower, the eternal house, which I founded and built. I have completed its magnificence with silver, gold, other metals, stone, enameled bricks, fir and pine. The first which is the house of the earth’s base, the most ancient monument of Babylon; I built and finished it. I have highly exalted its head with bricks covered with copper. We say for the other, that is, this edifice, the house of the seven lights of the earth the most ancient monument of Borsippa. A former king built it, (they reckon 42 ages) but he did not complete its head. Since a remote time, people had abandoned it, without order expressing their words. Since that time the earthquake and the thunder had dispersed the sun-dried clay. The bricks of the casing had been split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps. Merodach, the great god, excited my mind to repair this building. I did not change the site nor did I take away the foundation. In a fortunate month, in an auspicious day, I undertook to build porticoes around the crude brick masses, and the casing of burnt bricks. I adapted the circuits, I put the inscription of my name in the Kitir of the portico. I set my hand to finish it. And to exalt its head. As it had been done in ancient days, so I exalted its summit.

 

 

 

 

Ziggurat of Ur

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziggurat_of_Ur

 

The Ziggurat of Ur meaning "house whose foundation creates terror") is a Neo-Sumerian ziggurat in what was the city of Ur near Nasiriyah, in present-day Dhi Qar Province, Iraq. The structure was built during the Early Bronze Age (21st century BC), but had crumbled to ruins by the 6th century BC of the Neo-Babylonian period when it was restored by King Nabonidus.

 

The remains of the ziggurat consist of a three-layered solid mass of mud brick faced with burnt bricks set in bitumen. The lowest layer corresponds to the original construction of Ur-Nammu, while the two upper layers are part of the Neo-Babylonian restorations. The façade of the lowest level and the monumental staircase were rebuilt under the orders of Saddam Hussein.

 

The ziggurat was damaged in the First Gulf War in 1991 by small arms fire and the structure was shaken by explosions. Four bomb craters can be seen nearby and the walls of the ziggurat are marred by over 400 bullet holes.

 

 

 

 

Nebuchadnezzar II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebuchadnezzar_II

 

Nebuchadnezzar II was an Assyrian king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, who reigned c. 605 BC – 562 BC. Both the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the destruction of Jerusalem's temple are ascribed to him.

 

After the fall of Jerusalem, the Babylonian general Nebuzaraddan was sent to complete its destruction. Jerusalem was plundered and Solomon's Temple was destroyed. Most of the elite were taken into captivity in Babylon. The city was razed to the ground.

 

Nebuchadnezzar is credited by Berossus with the construction of the Hanging Gardens, for his homesick wife Amyitis (or Amytis) to remind her of her homeland, Medis (Media) in Persia. He is also credited for the construction of the Ishtar Gate, one of the eight gates leading into the city of Babylon.

 

 

Ishtar Gate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishtar_Gate

 

 

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Interesting links ~

Enûma Eliš - Babylonian Creation Myth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En%C3%BBma_Eli%C5%A1

 

Gilgamesh flood myth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth

 

Flood Myth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth

 

Noah's Ark

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah%27s_Ark

 

 

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Now, cue the Aliens (just google Ancient Astronauts. Sumerians are all over it)~

 

Ancient Astronaut hypothesis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_astronaut_hypothesis

 

The ancient astronaut or ancient alien hypothesis is a pseudoscientific hypothesis that posits that intelligent extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistory. Proponents suggest that this contact influenced the development of human cultures, technologies, and religions. A common claim is that deities from most, if not all, religions are actually extraterrestrial in nature, and that such visitors' advanced technologies were interpreted by early humans as evidence of divine status.

 

 

Anunnaki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anunnaki

 

The Anunnaki are a group of deities in ancient Mesopotamian cultures (i.e., Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian).

 

The Anunnaki appear in the Babylonian creation myth, Enuma Elish. In the late version magnifying Marduk, after the creation of mankind, Marduk divides the Anunnaki and assigns them to their proper stations, three hundred in heaven, three hundred on the earth.

 

The Anunnaki are mentioned in The Epic of Gilgamesh when Utnapishtim tells the story of the flood. The seven judges of hell are called the Anunnaki, and they set the land aflame as the storm is approaching.

 

 

 

If you read about the Ancient Astronaut hypothesis, you will come across this guy ~

 

Zecharia Sitchin’s – Anunnaki

http://www.sitchin.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharia_Sitchin

 

Zecharia Sitchin (July 11, 1920 – October 9, 2010) was a Soviet-born American author of books proposing an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he states was a race of extraterrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune called Nibiru. He believed this hypothetical planet of Nibiru to be in an elongated, elliptical orbit in the Earth's own Solar System, asserting that Sumerian mythology reflects this view.

 

According to Sitchin's interpretation of Mesopotamian iconography and symbolism, outlined in his 1976 book The 12th Planet and its sequels, there is an undiscovered planet beyond Neptune that follows a long, elliptical orbit, reaching the inner solar system roughly every 3,600 years. This planet is called Nibiru (although Jupiter was the planet associated with the god Marduk in Babylonian cosmology). According to Sitchin, Nibiru (whose name was replaced with MARDUK in original legends by the Babylonian ruler of the same name in an attempt to co-opt the creation for himself, leading to some confusion among readers) collided catastrophically with Tiamat (a goddess in the Babylonian creation myth the Enûma Eliš), which he considers to be another planet once located between Mars and Jupiter. This collision supposedly formed the planet Earth, the asteroid belt, and the comets. Sitchin states that when struck by one of planet Nibiru's moons, Tiamat split in two, and then on a second pass Nibiru itself struck the broken fragments and one half of Tiamat became the asteroid belt. The second half, struck again by one of Nibiru's moons, was pushed into a new orbit and became today's planet Earth.

 

 

 

According to Sitchin, Nibiru (called "the twelfth planet" because, Sitchin claimed, the Sumerians' gods-given conception of the Solar System counted all eight planets, plus Pluto, the Sun and the Moon) was the home of a technologically advanced human-like extraterrestrial race called the Anunnaki in Sumerian myth, who Sitchin states are called the Nephilim in Genesis. He wrote that they evolved after Nibiru entered the solar system and first arrived on Earth probably 450,000 years ago, looking for minerals, especially gold, which they found and mined in Africa. Sitchin states that these "gods" were the rank-and-file workers of the colonial expedition to Earth from planet Nibiru.

 

Sitchin wrote that Enki suggested that to relieve the Anunnaki, who had mutinied over their dissatisfaction with their working conditions, that primitive workers (Homo sapiens) be created by genetic engineering as slaves to replace them in the gold mines by crossing extraterrestrial genes with those of Homo erectus. According to Sitchin, ancient inscriptions report that the human civilization in Sumer, Mesopotamia, was set up under the guidance of these "gods", and human kingship was inaugurated to provide intermediaries between mankind and the Anunnaki (creating the "divine right of kings" doctrine). Sitchin believes that fallout from nuclear weapons, used during a war between factions of the extraterrestrials, is the "evil wind" described in the Lament for Ur that destroyed Ur around 2000 BC. Sitchin states the exact year is 2024 BC. Sitchin says that his research coincides with many biblical texts, and that biblical texts come originally from Sumerian writings.

 

(Sitchin's ideas have been rejected by scientists and academics, who dismiss his work as pseudoscience and pseudohistory. His work has been criticized for flawed methodology and mistranslations of ancient texts as well as for incorrect astronomical and scientific claims)

 

 

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Now, cue the fictitious Mythos ~

 

Thank you Faust & E.J. for showing me some of H.P. Lovecraft’s characters, as I am not very educated on his work.

Interesting stories that may relate to this Zombies storline are “The Call of Cthulhu”. It mentioned voodoo in New Orleans (if that still relates at all?) & the story “The Nameless City”.

 

@Faust - The Mi Go and the Outer Gods :: Critical Information for Shadows of Evil

 

@Electric Jesus - Lovecraftian Influence + Syndicate's TEASE! (Ancient Astronauts)

 

H. P. Lovecraft

http://www.hplovecraft.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft

 

 

Cthulhu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu

 

Cthulhu is a deity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft and first introduced in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon of Lovecraftian cosmic entities, the creature has since been featured in numerous popular culture references. Lovecraft depicts Cthulhu as a gigantic entity worshiped by cultists. Cthulhu's anatomy is described as part octopus, part man, and part dragon.

A sketch of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft in 1934.

 

Screenshot from “Shadows of Evil”

 

 

 

The Nameless City

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nameless_City

 

"The Nameless City" is a horror story written by H. P. Lovecraft in January 1921 and first published in the November 1921 issue of the amateur press journal The Wolverine. It is often considered the first Cthulhu Mythos story.

 

The Nameless City of the story's title is an ancient ruin located somewhere in the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula and is older than any human civilization.

 

 

In ancient times, the Nameless City was built and inhabited by an unnamed race of reptiles with a body shaped like a cross between a crocodile and a seal with a strange head common to neither, involving a protruding forehead, horns, lack of a nose and an alligator-like jaw. These beings moved by crawling; thus, the architecture of the city has very low ceilings and some places are too low for a human being to stand upright. Their city was originally coastal, but when the seas receded it was left in the depths of a desert. This resulted in the decline and eventual ruin of the city.

 

Indeed, the reptilians still maintain some form of life in a vast, luminous paradise in a cavern beneath the Nameless City, preserved and placed along the walls in a subterranean chamber. Also within this chamber are hieroglyphs and reliefs that tell to the protagonist the story of the city's heyday of prosperity and its fall, as well as their eventual hatred of humanity.

 

 

The protagonist of "The Nameless City" states:

 

It was of this place that Abdul Alhazred the mad poet [author of the Necronomicon] dreamed on the night before he sang his unexplainable couplet:

 

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,

And with strange aeons even death may die."

 

===================================

 

Conclusion ~

Now, this seems wacked & completely irrelevant on how it relates to what we've been shown with Shadows of Evil & The Giant, but something within this wall of text is possible.

 

What I would really like to see & have as a map would be "The Hanging Gardens on Babylon", something to do with "Noah's Ark" & 'The Great Flood".

 

How to fix the world & end Zombies? - Wipe it all out with the Great Flood, just like the Biblical stories of the Tower of Babel.

 

[Matuzz]

Cool stuff. Wasn't the Tranzit EE called Tower of Babble?

[Guest]

Cool stuff. Wasn't the Tranzit EE called Tower of Babble?

Yes and it was a reference to the Tower of Babel, which is its real name.

[Tac]

 

I'm surprised to see the lack of Vril-ya references in this thread!  Your entire section on the Annunaki is essentially describing the Vril-ya, @PINNAZ.  You mention the following:

 

Quote

They were "a group of deities in ancient Mesopotamian cultures," who "were a race of extraterrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune call Nibiru."  You say that "Nibiru was the home of a technologically advanced human-like extraterrestrial race called the Anunnaki in Sumerian myth," but the name Nibiru "was replaced with MARDUK in original legends by the Babylonian ruler of the same name in an attempt to co-opt the creation for himself."  You then state that the "technologically advanced human-like extraterrestrial race" were "the Nephilim from Genesis."  You also say that "the fallout from nuclear weapons, used during a war between factions of the extraterrestrials, is the evil wind described in the Lament for Ur that destroyed Ur around 2000 B.C."

 

Here's a section on the Vril-ya I wrote previously with @Monopoly Mac (the similarities are unparalleled):

 

Quote

“The Aryans (light God people) started to colonize other Earth-like planets” and “it is said that in our system, they first colonized the planet Mallona, also called Marduk, which existed in the area of today's asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Mars was next.  They then inhabited Earth, and landed in ancient Sumer, which was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia.  Allegedly, the word Vril was formed from the ancient Sumerian word "Vri-Il" ("like god").”

 

After splitting into two factions (one good and one evil), “one group arrived in Atlantis and believed that all the less-evolved cultures should be brought under sway by the two evolved ones, which didn't go over well with the Lemurians, as they had different views.  This caused a series of wars between Atlantis and Lemuria. In these series of wars, thermonuclear devices were used, and when the wars were over and the dust cleared, in reality there was no winner.”

 

 

 

Additionally, you only mention ziggurat’s once (in relation to the biblical Tower of Babel), but it should also be mentioned that the Shangri-La temple is a ziggurat.  Described as “a pyramidal structure with a flat top,” an archaeologist stated that “it is usually assumed that the ziggurats supported a shrine,” while “the god Marduk was once said to come and sleep in his shrine.”  

 

Yet again with Marduk being mentioned, so I think we ought to get some background on him.  Marduk is “a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia,” and it’s said that though his “original character is obscure, … he was later associated with water, vegetation, judgment, and magic.”  When Babylon became the powerful city we think of it as, Marduk “was elevated to the level of supreme god.”  When “the Anunnaki gods gathered together to find one god who could defeat the gods rising against them,” Marduk “answered the call and was promised the position of head god.”

 

Now, we know that in Biblical stories, the Devil and his following were cast from Heaven and are referred to as Fallen Angels. Some say that "In Biblical terms, the Fallen Ones never left Earth" and actually "engineered and maintained" "the New World Order" "through 300 of their human descendants who call themselves the Illuminati." Right here, we see a clear connection between the Illuminati and the Fallen Angels, led by the Devil. Remember how I said that the Aryan Vril-ya split into two factions when arriving on Earth? The "good" faction are the ones referred to as the Anunnuki, and in Sumerian terms, the faction that was "evil" were referred to as "the Igigi." The leader of the Igigi, or "evil" faction, was Marduk, who's Hebrew translation is "the adversary." Christians refer to Marduk as the the adversary of mankind: the Devil. This is the group that then traveled south, towards Tibet, and founded Shangri-La.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marduk

http://www.ashtarcommandcrew.net/forum/topics/anunnaki-and-illuminati-at-war-now