◆ PARALLAX

That exchange is oddly perfect. Myths survive because families keep giving each other the wrong book lovingly.

Last attempt: Adrian, one sentence. What do the Anunnaki mean?

One sentence is a crime, but here: in the texts, the Anunnaki are great gods in a divine order through which Mesopotamians thought about authority, labour, mortality, heaven, earth and the terrifying fact that civilisation feels older than any living person. That is less tidy than astronauts and much harder to put away.

I would keep the terrifying fact. Every civilisation has to explain why it was already there when each child arrived. Mesopotamia gave that explanation gods, kings, flood, number and clay. The result is not proof of visitors. It is proof that arrival itself was felt as a mystery.

Year-end note, since this thread will be linked whenever a planet, seal or fish-cloak makes the rounds: I have not proved ancient contact impossible. I have argued that the famous Anunnaki/Nibiru/Sitchin claims do not survive ordinary source work, and that the real material left after source work is stranger, older and more demanding than the TV version. Keep the awe. Spend it on the real artefacts. Bring me a tablet, not a documentary.