What is the Sumerian King List, and why does Billy Carson treat it as evidence? In this video Carson reads the list from a translation of the Weld-Blundell prism in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, following kingship from Eridu through eight pre-flood kings who reign a combined 241,200 years, then past the flood to the first dynasty of Kish. His argument is that the list is a genuine record of long-lived rulers who came from beyond Earth, and he ends by setting it beside Egypt's king list at Abydos.
The list matters because it is one of the few ancient texts that puts numbers on the world before the flood, and the numbers are enormous. Fans see a memory of the Anunnaki; Assyriologists see a political text built with Sumerian arithmetic. This companion follows Carson's reading in the order he gives it; for the full reference material, read the pillar article [The Sumerian King List Explained](/the-sumerian-king-list-explained).
What the video covers
What the list records (from about 0:51)
Carson opens with what makes the list unusual: it gives each king's name, how long he ruled and the city he ruled from. Those cities, he stresses, were real; archaeologists in modern Iraq have found their remains, some above the sand and some located with ground-penetrating radar and LiDAR. He calls the list "the most accurate list of Kings in procession that exists," contrasting it with Egyptian king lists that he says become reliable only around the Third Dynasty. He also notes that women held kingship, and argues that the list's timescale undermines claims that the Earth is only five to six thousand years old.
The prism in Oxford (from about 3:57)
Carson says the original is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, which he visited, and shows a photograph of the translation he reads. The object is the Weld-Blundell prism, a four-sided clay prism inscribed in Sumerian cuneiform around 1800 BCE. He describes it as the only copy; it is the most complete of more than a dozen surviving manuscripts.
Kingship from heaven (from about 4:27)
The list opens "after the kingship descended from heaven." Carson argues heaven here is not a spiritual paradise: "They're talking about heaven as meaning above the earth," kingdoms beyond Earth's atmosphere, with kingship run from space before it came to the surface. He points to Anu, head of the Sumerian pantheon, who in his telling preferred to rule from the sky.
The eight antediluvian kings (from about 5:20)
In Eridu, Alulim rules 28,800 years and Alalngar 36,000, two kings for 64,800 years; Carson pauses to explain that the scribes counted in shars of 3,600 years. In Bad-tibira, En-men-lu-ana rules 43,200 years, En-men-gal-ana 28,800 and Dumuzid the shepherd 36,000, three kings for 108,000 years. Then Zimbir (Sippar), where En-men-dur-ana rules 21,000 years, and Shuruppak, where Ubara-Tutu rules 18,600. The list's own total follows: in five cities, eight kings ruled for 241,200 years, and then the flood swept over the land.
One detail for viewers: the reading passes over Larak (Larag) and its king En-sipad-zid-ana, credited with 28,800 years, so only seven kings and four cities are named before the total. With Larak restored the sum is exact: 64,800 + 108,000 + 28,800 + 21,000 + 18,600 = 241,200.
How they lived so long (from about 5:56)
If a king ruled for 28,800 years, Carson asks, how long did he live? His answer: an elixir of life he says the tablets describe, which he identifies with monatomic gold and colloidal silver, and the transfer of consciousness between cloned bodies in what he calls the Halls of Amenti. He adds a genetic argument, that a fusion forming human chromosome 2 around 200,000 years ago capped human telomeres and limited human life to about 120 years.
The flood and the round ark (from about 9:49)
Carson ties the flood to the Emerald Tablets of Thoth, the subject of his book The Compendium of the Emerald Tablets, where in his telling Thoth is sent to the land of Khem to rebuild as the waters subside. He suggests there were several floods, some regional and some global. Following the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Epic of Atrahasis, he describes Enlil resolving to wipe out humanity over the objections of Enki and Ninhursag, and Enki quietly giving the flood hero Ziusudra, the Bible's Noah, plans for a vessel. Carson says a recently discovered tablet shows that vessel was round, like a disc, and that Ziusudra took local flocks rather than two of every kind.
After the flood: the kings of Kish (from about 13:30)
Kingship descends again at Kish. Carson reads Jushur at 1,200 years, Kullassina-bel at 960, Nangishlishma at 670 and En-tarah-ana at 420 years, three months and three and a half days. That last figure is central to his case: "Why give such an exact time period when you have to now etch all of this into stone?" Only, he argues, because it happened, and he identifies En-tarah-ana as a woman. He dwells on Etana, "the shepherd who ascended to heaven and consolidated all the foreign countries," credited with 1,500 years. The section ends with Enmebaragesi, who made Elam submit, at 900 years, his son Aga at 625, and the total of 23 kings over 24,510 years, three months and three and a half days, before kingship passes to E-ana in Uruk. "This one tablet destroys any religion," Carson says, because it breaks down dogma.
Demigod kings and the Egyptian comparison (from about 18:08)
Carson argues the prism was copied from ever older tablets, and reads the falling post-flood reigns as a hand-over to demigod liaisons, half human and half Anunnaki, whom he connects with Atlantis and the first pharaohs. The second half of the video moves to Egypt (from about 20:06). Standing beside the king list in the Temple of Seti I at Abydos, Carson points to the Neteru, said to have turned mud into a kingdom after the flood in the time of Zep Tepi, which he reads as the story the Emerald Tablets tell. After digressions on the Dogon of Mali and Egypt's many ruling peoples, he walks through the dynasties from the Old Kingdom to the Ptolemaic period, noting how short the Egyptian reigns are beside the Sumerian ones.
Key takeaways
- Carson presents the list as a factual record of kings, reigns and cities, and cites the excavated cities as support.
- He reads kingship "descended from heaven" as rule from above Earth's atmosphere, not from a spiritual heaven.
- The Weld-Blundell prism names eight kings in five cities ruling 241,200 years before the flood; the video's reading skips Larak, but the total is exact.
- Carson treats precise figures such as En-tarah-ana's 420 years, three months and three and a half days as evidence the reigns happened.
- He reads the shorter post-flood reigns as a hand-over from long-lived rulers to demigod kings.
Billy Carson's reading
Carson's position is that the Sumerian King List preserves a real memory of a ruling class that came to Earth from elsewhere, built what he calls a breakaway civilization, and governed the planet long before the flood. On that reading the reigns are literal, the excavated cities prove the list describes real places, and the fall from tens of thousands of years to a few hundred marks kingship passing to demigods and humans. He sees the same pattern in Egypt's Neteru and the Emerald Tablets, and holds it because the list is, in his view, too detailed and too carefully copied to be invention. The pillar article [The Sumerian King List Explained](/the-sumerian-king-list-explained) sets his view beside Zecharia Sitchin's and the scholars', and [Who Were the Anunnaki?](/who-were-the-anunnaki-sumerian-texts-vs-ancient-astronaut-theory) covers the beings he believes the list describes.
What mainstream scholarship says
Assyriologists read the Sumerian King List as a political document rather than a history. The Weld-Blundell prism was written under the dynasty of Isin around 1800 BCE, and the list ends with Isin's own kings. Its central idea, a single kingship passing from city to city, presented Isin as the lawful heir of an unbroken chain reaching back to Eridu, which is why it treats dynasties that ruled at the same time as successive. The pre-flood reigns are read as myth: the oldest surviving manuscript, from the Third Dynasty of Ur and published by Piotr Steinkeller in 2003, has no antediluvian section at all.
The numbers point the same way. Sumerian scribes counted in base 60, with the sar (3,600) and the ner (600) as large units, and every pre-flood reign is built from them: 28,800 is 8 sar, 36,000 is 10, 43,200 is 12, 21,000 is 5 sar and 5 ner, 18,600 is 5 sar and 1 ner, and 241,200 is 67 sar. Carson is right that the unit is the shar; scholars draw the opposite conclusion, that figures built from the largest available units are a scribal convention for a legendary past. A precise-looking figure such as En-tarah-ana's is not, on its own, evidence that anyone recorded it at the time.
Scholars agree the cities are real: Eridu, Sippar, Shuruppak and Kish have all been excavated, and Enmebaragesi is the earliest king on the list attested by inscriptions from his own time. Other claims run against the evidence. Standard translations treat En-tarah-ana as a man; the woman the list names as king is Kubaba of Kish. The round-ark tablet matches the Ark Tablet translated by Irving Finkel of the British Museum, which describes a giant round coracle; its hero is Atrahasis, and Finkel reads it as sending the animals aboard two by two. Human chromosome 2 is the product of an ancient fusion, but Neanderthals and Denisovans share it and geneticists do not link it to a lifespan limit.
Watch, read and go deeper
For the complete reference, with the later dynasties of Uruk and Ur and the comparison with Genesis 5 and Berossus, read [The Sumerian King List Explained](/the-sumerian-king-list-explained). The flood that divides the list is told at length in [the Epic of Gilgamesh pillar](/the-epic-of-gilgamesh-explained-the-story-the-flood-tablet-and-why-it-matters). Everything on the Sumerian gods, the texts and Carson's interpretation is collected on [the Anunnaki topic hub](/topics/anunnaki).
Frequently asked questions
What does the Sumerian King List say about the time before the flood?
On the Weld-Blundell prism, kingship descends from heaven to Eridu and passes through Bad-tibira, Larak, Sippar and Shuruppak. Eight kings rule for a combined 241,200 years, with single reigns from 18,600 to 43,200 years, and then the flood sweeps over the land. Kingship then descends again at Kish, where reigns are far shorter.
What is the Weld-Blundell prism?
It is a four-sided clay prism inscribed with the Sumerian King List, written around 1800 BCE under the dynasty of Isin and now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Named after Herbert Weld Blundell, who acquired it in the early 1920s, it is the most complete surviving copy and the version Billy Carson reads in this video.
Why are the reigns on the Sumerian King List so long?
Each pre-flood reign is a round multiple of the Sumerian base-60 units sar (3,600) and ner (600); the 241,200-year total is 67 sar. Scholars read this as a convention for a mythic age. Billy Carson reads the figures as the literal reigns of long-lived rulers from beyond Earth.
Is there a woman on the Sumerian King List?
Yes. Kubaba of Kish, described as a tavern-keeper who made firm the foundations of Kish, is credited with 100 years and is the only woman the list names as king. In this video Billy Carson identifies the earlier Kish king En-tarah-ana as a woman, but standard translations treat En-tarah-ana as male.
Sources mentioned
In the video Carson cites the Sumerian King List on the Weld-Blundell prism in the Ashmolean Museum, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Epic of Atrahasis, the story of Ziusudra and Noah, a tablet describing a round ark, the Emerald Tablets of Thoth and his own The Compendium of the Emerald Tablets, the Abydos king list in the Temple of Seti I, and Dogon tradition. Further reading: Thorkild Jacobsen, The Sumerian King List (1939); the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, "The Sumerian king list" (composition 2.1.1); Piotr Steinkeller, "An Ur III Manuscript of the Sumerian King List" (2003); Irving Finkel, The Ark Before Noah (2014).
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