About Madeleine Daines

After completing studies in both art history and linguistics and a career involving translating, Madeleine chose to investigate the Sumerian language from an innovative angle, with an emphasis on the earliest pre-cuneiform pictographic forms. What she discovered in that process led her to question and finally to refute the orthodox translation of an important literary text from the 3rd millennium BC.

Books by Madeleine Daines

The Story Of Sukurru Sumerian symbols and their true meaning

Before Babel The Crystal Tongue

All posts by Madeleine Daines

The Secrets of Man | Part 5 of Images from Göbekli Tepe and other Neolithic sites reflected in Sumerian pictograms and texts
(…) He turned to his disciples and said to them, “I am not a divider, am I?” (Secret Saying of Jesus no.72, Gospel of Thomas, Nag Hammadi Library, trans. Lambdin) 1 Is it possible that the writing on Sumerian clay tablets, when combined with the stones of Göbekli Tepe, might […]
Madeleine Daines | 17th September 2025
The Labyrinth and the Travelling Bag: Part 4 of Images from Göbekli Tepe and Other Neolithic sites reflected in Sumerian pictograms and texts
There can be no getting away from the ancient handbag. Whether carried by a giant Mesopotamian birdman in one place or held aloft by a Mesoamerican voyager in another, the bag was ubiquitous in ancient iconography. And it had a quite uncanny way of travelling between continents at a time […]
Madeleine Daines | 19th June 2025
Land of Milk and Psychedelic Honey: Part 3 of Images from Göbekli Tepe and Other Neolithic sites reflected in Sumerian pictograms and texts
It was a border guard who stopped Lao Tzu as he was riding off on his water buffalo never to return and requested that he write down his words of wisdom before leaving China. (Lost Stones of the Anunnaki, p.218-219) But first…. It should go without saying that anyone attempting […]
Madeleine Daines | 27th April 2025
Images from Göbekli Tepe and Other Neolithic sites reflected in Sumerian pictograms and texts – Part 2. Pagan Wings and Sailors’ Feet
Who else have civilised the world, and built the cities, if not the nobles and kings of Paganism? Who else have set in order the harbours and rivers? And who else have taught the hidden wisdom? To whom else has the Deity revealed itself, given oracles, and told about the […]
Madeleine Daines | 14th December 2024
Images from Göbekli Tepe and other Neolithic sites reflected in Sumerian pictograms and texts – Part 1. The Pillar and the Snake
Since the 19th century, when many thousands of clay tablets rather suddenly appeared out of ancient Mesopotamia, a great deal has been written about the Sumerian language. This is the earliest writing system known to the modern world, its script having evolved stylistically from the pictographic forms of the 4th […]
Madeleine Daines | 18th October 2024
Comet Strike according to the Sumerian Texts
  My first re-translation of a Sumerian literary text, titled The Story of Sukurru (aka The Instructions of Shuruppak) and self-published in 2017, has been safely dated to ca.2600-2500 BC thanks to the discovery of fragments written in the style of that period. Thus, it is also proven to be […]
Madeleine Daines | 13th June 2024
At The Eleventh Hour – A Sumerian Riddle
111 Now the whole world had one language and a common form of speech. (Genesis 11:1) 111 Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches. (Revelation 1:11) 111 Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff and was told, “Go and measure […]
Madeleine Daines | 23rd May 2023
The Trouble With Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh, Mesopotamian hero of heroes. That’s the name – or something close – that popped up in a Greek text titled On the Nature of Animals, written by Claudius Aelianus in the 2nd century AD. It was written ‘Gilgamos’, but why quibble about one vowel sound in one syllable? Another […]
Madeleine Daines | 16th November 2022
Visions Of An Ancient Sumerian Deer
And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. (Revelation 21:23) Cycles of Life It’s not easy to begin to piece together the thought processes of a Sumerian […]
Madeleine Daines | 1st June 2022
Lost Stones Of The Anunnaki
It is our pleasure to welcome Madeleine Daines, author of Lost Stones of Annunaki, as our featured author for January. In her book, Madeleine revives our understanding of Sumerian and its precious and important words whose hidden meanings have been missed and overlooked in modern times. Peeling back the layers of false […]
Madeleine Daines | 6th January 2022
A Temple Built On Sand – Part 2
Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. (John 15:4) If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, […]
Madeleine Daines | 22nd December 2021
A Temple Built On Sand
But everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. (Matthew 7:26) In the mid-19th century, Edward Hincks (1792-1866), an Irish clergyman, came to several paradigm-establishing conclusions while studying the cuneiform tablets that had recently […]
Madeleine Daines | 19th October 2021
AMA-NITA Mon Amour: How The Magic Mushroom Got Its Name
Syllables A-MA-NI-TA, trip quite pleasingly off the tongue. Most people are aware of the name, that of the mushroom with extraordinary psychedelic properties. With its distinctive red and white cap, the amanita mushroom has long epitomised the winter solstice season. Plastic versions hang on Christmas trees, and its colourful image […]
Madeleine Daines | 10th October 2020
Before Babel: The Crystal Tongue
It is our pleasure to welcome back Madeleine Daines, author of The Story of Sukurru and Before Babel: The Crystal Tongue, as our featured author for February.  Madeleine embarks on a quest that weaves and winds its way towards a greater understanding of the sacred language of Sumer and in […]
Madeleine Daines | 4th February 2020
Response To An Archaeologist At Göbekli Tepe
In 2016, while working on a re-translation of a Sumerian literary text, I came across this image on the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative website. It was apparent to me that the multiple imprints on this clay tablet were strikingly reminiscent of the T-shaped pillars of Göbekli Tepe.i I decided to […]
Madeleine Daines | 7th February 2018
The Story Of Sukurru
“The dividing line between the author’s choice of symbols and the translator’s choice of words, like the dividing line between truth and lies, is an affair of the heart.” – Madeleine Daines, Preface.  It’s time we talked about Sumerian translation: the author’s words ring true. Meno to Socrates: “And how will […]
Madeleine Daines | 1st August 2017
The Rustle of Stones
Since the pillars of Göbekli Tepe have been unearthed and their consequential temporality assigned, the voices of esoteric intermediaries with ancient-kind have been amplified. And so it has been for writer and independent researcher Madeleine Daines, who has spent the past few years revising the meanings of archaic pictograms of the most antiquated […]
Madeleine Daines | 27th August 2016