Our method

IL Archive does not seek to prove a predetermined belief. It maps evidence that readers can trace for themselves.

Levels of certainty

• Confirmed: direct, strong evidence; never published without linked evidence.
• Probable: a reading stronger than the alternatives; never published without linked evidence.
• Possible: indications permit the hypothesis, but a conclusion is unavailable.
• Unproven: a circulating idea, identified as such rather than presented as a result.

Who is speaking?

• Source statement: what the text or object says.
• Modern scholarly interpretation: an identifiable researcher's interpretation, not part of the ancient tablet.
• Archive inference: a conclusion IL Archive builds from evidence and attributes to itself.
• Hypothesis: an open possibility.
• Conflicting evidence: disagreement remains visible, rather than being folded into one conclusion.

Follow the evidence

A claim opens onto its evidence, source, segment, archival note, and level of certainty. This trail is part of the record, not decoration.

Resemblance is not borrowing

A proposed transfer of an idea remains no more than possible until chronology, contact, the precision and structure of the resemblance, the route of transmission, and independent developmentIndependent developmentSimilar elements arising without historical transmission between them.Glossary · Click to read the explanation have been examined. Linguistic kinshipLinguistic relatednessA relationship through shared linguistic ancestry, distinct from direct borrowing or identical beliefs.Glossary · Click to read the explanation is a separate kind of relationship and does not mean identical beliefs.

What the archive does not do

We do not disparage ancient texts as superstitions, turn the AnunnakiAnunna / AnunnakiCollective designation for gods in Mesopotamian texts, with variable scope and membership; earliest known attestations belong to the late third millennium BCE.Glossary · Click to read the explanation into extraterrestrial visitors, or claim that an object proves or disproves God's existence. If evidence is insufficient, the page says so.

Each published item should be read within the limits of its evidence and references. Information and conclusions remain open to review, and significant research changes are recorded in an explicit revision that preserves the history of the record.