GoKawiilContext
The Sumerian King List starts with eight kings who ruled before the flood. Their reign lengths are enormous and unusually regular. Three examples are 28,800 years, 36,000 years, and 43,200 years. Most are integer multiples of 3,600, and all eight are multiples of 600. Their total is 241,200 years.
The input sequence tested here is the ETCSL composite antediluvian list:
Order King Reign length 1 Alulim 28,800 years 2 Alalgar 36,000 years 3 Enmenluana 43,200 years 4 Enmengalana 28,800 years 5 Dumuzid 36,000 years 6 Ensipadzidana 28,800 years 7 Enmenduranna 21,000 years 8 Ubara-Tutu 18,600 years Total 241,200 years
The transliterations follow the composite text cited below. Like the post-flood sections of the King List, the antediluvian list is a textual tradition with variants, so the table is an analysis input rather than a claim about literal historical reigns.
One speculative interpretation treats these numbers as a distorted memory of prehistory. Under this hypothesis, the reign boundaries encode real climate shifts, eruptions, impacts, or sea-level changes. After rescaling and anchoring the list to a proposed flood date, the boundaries should coincide with dated events in the geological record.
Here, I test that idea with an exploratory analysis. The explorer rescales each chronology to a fixed 241.2 ka span, anchors one boundary, and compares the resulting dates with a catalog of Quaternary events. I use 11.6 ka BP, or about 11,600 years ago, as an analyst-chosen anchor near the Younger Dryas termination. The King List does not provide that date or suggest this paleoclimate interpretation.
Finding matches is easy. With nine boundaries and freedom to change the anchor or bandwidth, chance alignments are common. The relevant question is whether the observed Sumerian reign order scores unusually high under a clearly defined null model.
Results
In the primary paleoclimate catalog, the Sumerian sequence does not show a statistically significant alignment. At the fixed 11.6 ka anchor and a kernel bandwidth of σ = 1.60 ka, the permutation p-value is 0.350. After adjustment for multiple comparisons, q = 0.622.
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