The Book of Enoch chapters 17 to 37 described a kind of ‘grand tour’ given to Enoch by angels. He visited many remarkable places on earth and even descended alive into the places of the dead (Greek Hades, Hebrew Sheol) as also taught about by the Son of Man a long time afterwards. If we accept that the Book of Enoch is genuinely from Sumerian times before the Noah flood we would be a step closer to understanding other passages in ancient literature which also mention places such as this place of the dead and traditions from that time which suggest strongly where such a place exists. Here is the beginning of Enoch’s account of his journeys under angelic guidance: Book of Enoch chapter 17:
“1. And they took ⌈and⌉ brought me to a place in which those who were there were like flaming fire, and, when they wished, they appeared as men. 2. And they brought me to the place of darkness, and to a mountain the point of whose summit reached to heaven. 3. And I saw the places of the luminaries ⌈and the treasuries of the stars⌉ and of the thunder ⌈and⌉ in the uttermost depths, where were a fiery bow and arrows and their quiver, and ⌈⌈a fiery sword⌉⌉ and all the lightnings. 4. And they took me to the living waters, and to the fire of the west, which receives every setting of the sun. 5. And I came to a river of fire in which the fire flows like water and discharges itself into the great sea towards the west. 6. I saw the great rivers and came to the great ⌈river and to the great⌉ darkness, and went to the place where no flesh walks. 7. I saw the mountains of the darkness of winter and the place whence all the waters of the deep flow. 8. I saw the mouths of all the rivers of the earth and the mouth of the deep.”
The place of the underworld (Sheol, Hades) visited by Enoch seems likely to be in the Zagros mountains because it seems Enoch’s account circulated sufficiently for it to be recorded in other Sumerian accounts or oral traditions and to have survived independantly of the Book of Enoch. The Sumerian words for this underworld known today from archaeology and written Sumerian records are ‘Kur’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kur) and ‘Irkulla’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irkalla). There is enough similarity to Enoch’s account of what he witnessed about these places of the dead to be confident it was the same place as history tells us was known to Sumerians. For example Enoch described it as associated with seven mountains and as beneath a mountain or mountains. The symbol for kur is a mountain or group of mountains. The Kur underworld is described in Sumerian literature as having seven consecutive gates leading there. So it seems plausible that the Sumerian tradition of its location being in the Zagros mountains is also consistent with what Enoch taught to Sumerians after his visit there around 2900 BC, the place also taught about by Jesus and His apostles and found in New Testament scriptures.
