Willem McLoud

Willem McLoud is an independent scholar with a lively interest in ancient Middle Eastern and Mediterranean studies, Kantian philosophy and philosophy of science. Willem holds a PhD in Nuclear Physics (Nuclear Fusion) as well as three Masters’ degrees. He is an innovative thinker who produced original work in various fields published in peer-review journals, his research of and writing about the ancient world stretching over more than three decades.

McLoud’s main areas of study regarding the ancient Middle East are the Sumerian, Akkadian and early Egyptian civilizations, with special focus on the Uruk and Akkadian Periods in Mesopotamian history and the Old Kingdom Period in Egyptian history. The legends and myths associated with these great heroic ages of the ancient Middle East is a great passion of his. Willem had the privilege of participating for a few years in a Sumerian reading group led by the cuneiform specialist, Prof Fanie Vermaak. Additionally, he has a keen interest in the civilizations that formed in the eastern Mediterranean Region during the early second millennium BC, also finding the early Roman Era and the origins of Christianity captivating.

As part of his research and writing projects, he has led many a research tour to the Middle East as well as the Black Sea and Mediterranean regions, visiting countries such as Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Bahrain, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria to name but a few. McLoud developed a new ancient Middle Eastern chronological model in which the Mesopotamian high chronology is correlated with the Egyptian low chronology, published in the Journal for Semitic Studies (2019/2). This model was afterwards dramatically confirmed by the newly published text of the recently discovered Epic of Gulkišar (Journal for Semitics 2020/1). Willem also developed a Sumerian Hypothesis to explain the many Mesopotamian influences in the primeval history in the Book of Genesis (Journal for Semitics 2020/2).

Willem McLoud is the author of The Nephilim, an extensive and authoritative trilogy tracing the long and legendary tradition of those claiming descent from the gods from ancient Sumer and Egypt through the Mediterranean Region and later into Europe to our present times. The first book, The Nephilim, Kings of an Epic Age (2021), focuses on the glorious age of Sumerian and Akkadian greatness, whereas the second book, The Nephilim, An Unholy Brood (2022), picking up from the first, tells the story of an ancient Mediterranean race who appeared in Canaan early in the second millennium BC before migrating through the Mediterranean Region, a cursed race called the “dragon seed” amongst others. The third book is yet to be published.