Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?

tehnoslow

Interesting breakdown. The author clearly put in the work to test this theory. I like that he's not trying to force the data to fit the result but instead explains why even apparent matches could just be coincidental.

mjd

Short answer: no. Interesting nevertheless.

animan

This was fun to read! I wish there was a no tech version of hackers news for this type of content only

quickthrowman

I wonder why the Sumerians deviated on the last two lengths from the rule they had on the first six. The first six reign lengths (and the total sum of all eight reign lengths) are all n * 60 * 60 , where n is an integer. The last two are not, but they could’ve been. If instead you use 18000 years and 21600 years instead of 18600 and 21000, they fit the same formula as the other numbers and the sum remains the same. They used base 60, and apparently got a kick out of multiplying 60 by itself and another integer. I noticed the deviation because there are mechanical watch movements that run at 18000 and 21600 beats per hour.

quuxplusone

> One speculative interpretation treats these numbers as a distorted memory of prehistory. Under this hypothesis, the reign boundaries encode real climate shifts... "One theory" implies that someone somewhere has ever claimed this. But has anyone? TFA gives no source for the claim, AFAICT (although I skimmed a bit).

SurviveTheJive

You can’t discuss kings without discussing the rich history of Europe with thousands of years of oral and written history long predating the Sumerians and even the ancient Proto Indo-European peoples to which European language and culture is often erroneously attributed. The dark ages were anything but dark. Ancient Europe was anything but primitive. And yet it’s so rarely discussed in the mainstream.

poulpy123

The idea that a list of kings from 4000 years ago would encodé global climate events for over 240.000 years is completely ludicrous. Astrology has a better grounding on reality than this idea. And the fact that all lengths are multiple of 600, is even more telling knowing that they counted in base 60