Iron and Myth 23: Nimrod

ONE OF THE MOST notorious characters in the Bible, and all of history, is a man about which we know almost nothing.

Nimrod is blamed for the Tower of Babel and the occult wickedness of Babylon. However, a close reading of the Bible and the history of the ancient Near East doesn’t specifically connect him with either. Some identify Nimrod as the Sumerian king Enmerkar, some as Sargon the Great of Akkad, others as the mythical hero of Uruk, Gilgamesh. 

How much do we really know about Nimrod? Is there any connection to Semiramis, Tammuz, and Christmas? Doug Van Dorn, author of Giants: Sons of the Gods, Dr. Judd Burton, author of Interview With the Giant, and Brian Godawa, best-selling author of the new novel Cruel Logic join us for our monthly round table to discuss the man, the myth, the legend—Nimrod.

This is the BBC News article that got everyone so excited 20 years ago: “Gilgamesh Tomb Believed Found.” Except that’s not what Dr. Jörg Fassbinder actually said.

Fassbinder’s team did a magenetometric survey of the site of ancient Uruk, the city ruled by Gilgamesh probably 5,000 years ago (give or take). They mapped magnetic anomalies in the soil to find the city walls and outlines of buildings in the city. During the survey, they found the outline of a structure in what was formerly the course of the Euphrates River that was similar to the description of the tomb described in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Fassbinder and his team excavated nothing. And yet that BBC story has been twisted and retold so often that it’s now taken as an article of faith that videos with titles like “Gilgamesh Nephilim King FOUND INTACT IN TOMB” are still being produced—and getting about 100 times more views than our program because we stick to actual evidence.

Here’s a 2002 story from Radio Free Europe about Dr. Fassbinder’s work with a title that’s more accurate and less clickbait: “Iraq: Archaeological Expedition Mapping Ancient City Of Uruk.”

Here are the relevant papers by Jörg Fassbinder:

Beneath the Euphrates Sediments: Magnetic Traces of the Mesopotamian Megacity Uruk (2020)

Uruk (Iraq) Magnetometry in the First Megacity of Mesopotamia (2018)

Magnetometry at Uruk (Iraq): City of King Gilgamesh (2003)

You can see his work is all with the magnetometer, not the shovel or spade. Gilgamesh was not exhumed.