Aquatics · A–Z catalog
Apkallu (Oannes and the Fish-Sages)
Fish-cloaked sages who rose from the sea to teach the first cities
The Apkallu are the seven fish-cloaked sages of Mesopotamian tradition, led by Oannes, who according to the Babylonian priest Berossus came up from the Persian Gulf to teach writing, law, the arts and farming. Ismael Perez does not name them in the transcripts reviewed. They are included from the wider ancient-astronaut and starseed community, which reads them as amphibious ET teachers like the Dogon's Nommo and links them to Enki, god of the watery Abzu, the same Enki Ismael equates with Poseidon.
Also called: Oannes, The Seven Sages, Abgal, Fish-cloaked sages.
- Home
- The Persian Gulf and the Abzu (in Mesopotamian tradition); Sirius (in some ancient-astronaut readings)
- Star
- Unknown
- Alignment
- Benevolent: Described as serving others and helping humanity
If you met one…
At dawn on a quiet shore, a tall, bearded figure in a cloak of silver-gold scales walks up out of the shallows. He speaks with a patient teacher's calm, draws signs in the wet sand, and returns to the sea at nightfall.
What they look like
Shown in Mesopotamian reliefs as bearded men wearing a full fish-skin cloak, the fish's head forming a hood; Berossus describes Oannes as having a fish's body with a man's head beneath the fish's head and human feet beneath the tail.
Their gifts
Writing, mathematics, law, architecture, agriculture and the founding of cities.
Their bond with Earth
Remembered as the sages who civilised the first Mesopotamian cities before the flood, serving the water-god Enki-Ea.
What each source says
Berossus's account, preserved by later Greek writers, has Oannes leaving the sea each morning to teach humanity and returning at night. Mesopotamian art shows the seven apkallu in fish cloaks serving Enki-Ea, god of the Abzu. Ancient-astronaut writers such as Robert Temple read them as amphibious visitors comparable to the Dogon Nommo.
Ismael Perez does not mention the apkallu, but he identifies Enki with the sea-god Poseidon and places Enki's headquarters in the Abzu. Readers of his work sometimes link the fish-sages to that lineage. The link is the community's, not his.
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