Chapter Four
THE EARTH CHRONICLES
 

"As if the similarities of the genealogies and warfare between the Greek and Hindu gods were not enough, tablets discovered in the Hittite royal archives (at a site nowadays called Boghazkoi) contained more tales of the same story: how, as one generation waned unto the other, one god fought another for supremacy.

"The longest texts discovered dealt, as could be expected, with the Hittite supreme deity Teshub: his genealogy, his rightful assumption of dominion over Earth’s upper regions, and the battles launched against him by the god KUMARBI and his offspring. As in the Greek and Egyptian tales, the avenger of Kumarbi was hidden with the aid of allied gods until he grew up somewhere in a "dark-hued" part of Earth. The final battles raged in the skies and in the seas; in one battle Teshub was supported by seventy gods riding in their chariots. At first defeated and either hiding or exiled, Teshub finally faced his challenger in god-to-god combat. Armed with the "Thunder-Stormer which scatters the rocks for ninety furlongs" and "the Lightning which flashes frightfully," he ascended skyward in his chariot, pulled by two gold-plated Bulls of Heaven, and "from the sky he set his face" toward his enemy. Though the fragmented tablets lack the tale’s ending, it is evident that Teshub was finally victorious.

"Who were these ancient gods, who fought each other for supremacy and sought dominion over Earth by pitting nation against nation?

"Fittingly, perhaps, treaties that had ended some of the very wars launched by men for their gods provide important clues.

"When the Egyptians and the Hittites made peace after more than two centuries of warfare, it was sealed by the marriage of the daughter of the Hittite king Hattusilish III to the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II. The Pharaoh recorded the event on commemorative stelas which he placed at Kamak, at Elephantine near Aswan and at Abu Simbel.

Pharaoh Ramses II had refused accepting the texts of the Peace Treaty from king Hattusilish, but the king decided finally to send his elder daughter to him with tributes and accompanied by nobles. The Pharaoh, he at once fell in love.

"....Two copies, one almost complete, the other fragmentary, have been discovered, deciphered, and translated by Egyptologists. As a result we not only have the full text of the Treaty but also know that the Hittite king wrote down the Treaty in the Akkadian language, which was then (as French was a century and two ago) the common language of international relations. To the Pharaoh he sent a copy of the Akkadian original written on a silver tablet, which the Egyptian inscription at Kamak described thus:

What is in the middle of the tablet of silver, on the front side:

Figures consisting of an image of Seth, embracing a figure of the Great Prince of Hatti, surrounded by a border with the words "the seal of Seth, ruler of the sky; "the seal of the regulation which Hattusilish made". . .

What is within that which surrounds the image of the seal of Seth on the other side:

Figures consisting of a female image of the goddess of Hatti embracing a female image of the Princes of Hatti, surrounded by a border with the words "the seal of the Ra of the town of Arinna, the lord of the land". . .

What is within the [frame] surrounding the figures: the seal of Ra of Arinna, the lord of every land.

"In the royal Hittite archives, archaeologists have in fact discovered royal seals depicting the chief Hittite deity embracing the Hittite king, exactly as described in the Egyptian record, even including the inscription surrounding the border of the seal....

"But the Hittite texts called their chief deity Teshub not "Seth of Hatti." Since Teshub meant "Windy Storm," and Seth (to judge by his Greek name Typhon) meant "Fierce Wind," it appeared that the Egyptians and Hittites were matching their pantheons according to the epithet-names of their gods.

"....The Egyptians and the Hittites, it became evident, were matching separate, but parallel, pantheons; and scholars began to wonder what other ancient treaties would reveal. One that provided surprising information was the treaty made circa 1350 B.C. between the Hittite king Shuppilulima and Mattiwaza, king of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, which was situated on the Euphrates river midway between the Land of the Hittites and the ancient lands of Sumer and Akkad.

"....As all treaties in those days, the one between the Hittite and Mitannian kings also ended with a call upon "the gods of the contracting parties to be present, to listen and to serve as witnesses," so that adherence to the treaty shall bring divine bliss, and its violation the wrath of the gods.

"....As other discovered texts proved, the Hittite pantheon was in fact borrowed from (or through) the Hurrians. But this particular treaty held a special surprise: toward the end of the tablet, among the divine witnesses, there were also listed Mitra-ash, Uruwana, Indar, and the Nashatiyanu gods - the very Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and the Nasaya gods of the Hindu pantheon!

"Which of the three - Hittite, Hindu, Hurrian - was then the common source? The answer was provided in the same Hittite-Mitannian treaty: none of them; for those so-called "Aryan" gods were listed in the treaty together with their parents and grandparents, the "Olden Gods,":

the couples Anu and Antu, Enlil and his spouse Ninlil, Ea and his wife Damkina; as well as "the divine Sin, lord of the oath . . . Nergal of Kutha . . . the warrior god Ninurta . . . the warlike Ishtar."

"These are familiar names; they had been involved in earlier days by Sargon of Akkad, who had claimed that he was "overseer of Ishtar, anointed priest of Anu, great righteous shepherd of Enlil."

• "His grandson Naram-Sin ("Whom the god Sin Loves") could attack the Cedar Mountain when the god Nergal "opened the path" for him

• Hammurabi of Babylon marched against other lands "on the command of Anu, with Enlil advancing in front of the army"

• The Assyrian king Tiglat-Pileser went conquering on the command of Anu, Adad, and Ninurta

• Shalmaneser fought with weapons provided by Nergal

• Esarhaddon was accompanied by Ishtar on his march to Nineveh

"No less illuminating was the discovery that the Hittites and the Hurrians, though they pronounced the deities’ names in their own language, wrote the names employing Sumerian script; even the "divine" determinative used was the Sumerian DIN.GIR, literally meaning "The Righteous Ones" (DIN) "Of the Rocketship."

"....By the time the Hittites and their writings were reclaimed from oblivion, scholars had already determined that before the Hittite and Egyptian civilizations, before Assyria and Babylon, even before Akkad, there arose in southern Mesopotamia the high civilization of Sumer. All the others were offshoots of that first-known civilization.

"And it is by now established beyond doubt that it was in Sumer that the tales of gods and men were first recorded.... It was that numerous texts - more numerous that can be imagined, more detailed than could be expected - were first inscribed. It was there that the written records of history and prehistory on our planet Earth had originated. We call them THE EARTH CHRONICLES.

"The discovery and understanding of the ancient civilizations has been a process of continuous astonishment, of incredible realizations. The monuments of antiquity -pyramids, ziggurats, vast platforms, columned ruins, carved stones - would have remained enigmas, mute evidence to bygone events, were it not for the Written Word. Were it not for that, the ancient monuments would have remained puzzles: their age uncertain; their creators obscure; their purpose unclear.

"We owe what we know to the ancient scribes - a prolific and meticulous lot, who used monuments, artifacts, foundation stones, bricks, utensils, weapons of any conceivable material, as inviting slates on which to write down names and record events. Above all there were the clay tablets: flattened pieces of wet clay, some small enough to be held in the palm of the hand, on which the scribe deftly embossed with a stylus the symbols that formed syllables, words, and sentences. Then the tablet would be left to dry (or be kiln-dried), and a permanent record had been created - a record that has survived millennia of natural erosion and human destructiveness.

"In place after place - in centers of commerce or administration, in temples and palaces, in all parts of the ancient Near East - there were both state and private archives full of such tablets, and there were also actual libraries where the tablets, tens of thousands of them, were neatly arranged by subject, their contents entitled, their scribed named, their sequel numbered. Invariably, whenever they dealt with history or science or the gods, they were identified as copies of earlier tablets, tablets in the "olden language."

"Astounded as the archaeologists were to uncover the grandeur of Assyria and Babylonia, they were even more puzzled to read in their inscriptions of "olden cities." And what was the meaning of the title "king of Sumer and Akkad" that the kings of these empires coveted so much?

"It was only with the discovery of the records concerning Sargon of Agade that modern scholars were able to convince themselves that a great kingdom, the Kingdom of Akkad, had indeed arisen in Mesopotamia half a millennium before Assyria and Babylonia were to flourish. It was with the greatest amazement that scholars read in these records that Sargon "defeated Uruk and tore down its wall . . . Sargon, king of Agade, was victorious over the inhabitants of Ur. . . He defeated E-Nimmar and tore down its wall and defeated its territory from Lagash as far as the sea. His weapons he washed in the sea. In the battle with the inhabitants of Umma he was victorious..."

"The scholars were incredulous: Could there have been urban centers, walled cities, even before Sargon of Agade, even before 2500 B.C.?

"As is now known, indeed there were. These were the cities and urban centers of Sumer, the "Sumer" in the title "king of Sumer and Akkad." It was, as a century of archaeological discoveries and scholarly research has established, the land where Civilization began nearly six thousand years ago; when suddenly and inexplicably, as though out of nowhere, there appeared:

• a written language and literature

• kings and priests

• schools and temples

• doctors and astronomers

• high rise buildings, canals, docks, and ships

• an intensive agriculture

• an advance metallurgy

• a textile industry

• trade and commerce

• laws and concepts of justice and morality

• cosmological theories

• tales and records of history and prehistory

"In all these writings, be it an epic tale or two-line proverbs, in inscriptions mundane or divine, the same facts emerge as an unshakable tenet of the Sumerians and the peoples that followed them: in bygone days, the DIN.GIR - "The Righteous Ones of the Rocketships," the beings the Greeks began to call "gods" - had come to Earth from their own planet. . . The Akkadian name, Shumer, meant "Land of the Guardians."

"....The statement that the first to establish settlements on Earth were astronauts from another planet was not lightly made by the Sumerians. In text after text, whenever the starting point was recalled, it was always this: 432,000 years before the Deluge, the DIN.GIR (Righteous Ones of the Rocketships) came down from their own planet. The Sumerians considered it a twelfth member of our Solar System - a system made up of the Sun in the center, the Moon, all the nine planets we know of today, and one more planet whose orbit lasts a Sar, 3,600 Earth-years.... This orbit, they wrote, takes the planet to a "station" in the distant heavens, then brings it back to Earth’s vicinity, crossing between Mars and Jupiter. It was in that position - as depicted in a 4,500 year-old Sumerian drawing that the planet obtained its name NIBIRU ("Crossing") and its symbol, the Cross.

"The leader of the astronauts who had come to Earth from Nibiru, we know from numerous ancient texts, was called E.A ("Whose House Is Water"); after he had landed and established Eridu, the First Earth Station, he assumed the title EN.KI ("Lord of Earth")....

"A text that was discovered in the ruins of Sumer describes Ea’s efforts to build extraordinary waterworks in the marshlands at the head of the Persian Gulf.... He built his Water House, with a wharf and other facilities.

"It all had a reason. On his planet gold was needed. Not for jewelry or other frivolous use, for at no time during the millennium that followed were these visitors to Earth ever shown wearing golden jewelry. Gold was, no doubt, required for the space programs of the Nibiruans, as is evident from the Hindu texts’ referenced to the celestial chariots being covered with gold; indeed, gold is vital to many aspects of the space instruments and vehicles of our own times. But that alone could not have been the reason for the intensity of the Nibiruans’ search for gold on Earth and their immense efforts to obtain it here and transfer it in large quantities to their own planet. The metal with its unique properties, was needed back home for a vital need, affecting the very survival of life on that planet; as best as we can make out, this vital need could have been for suspending the gold particles in Nibiru’s waning atmosphere and thus shield it from critical dissipation.

"....Back on the home planet, where Enki’s father AN (Anu in Akkadian) was the ruler, the progress of the landing parties was followed with anxiety and expectation. This must have turned to impatience at the slow progress, and then to disappointment. Evidently the scheme to extract gold from seawaters by laboratory-like processes did not work as expected.

"But the gold was still badly needed; and the Anunnaki faced a tough decision: to abandon the project - which was out of the question - or to try to get the gold in a new way: mining. For gold, the Anunnaki knew by then, was naturally available in abundance in the AB.ZU ("The Primeval Source") on the continent of Africa.

"....The far-reaching decision to change from the sophisticated water-treatment process to a backbreaking toil below the surface of the earth was not lightly taken. Anu (Enki’s father), felt that he (Enki), could not take charge. Anu "came to Earth to see things for himself. He came down accompanied by the Hair Apparent EN.LIL ("Lord of the Command") - a son who, Anu must have felt, could take charge of Earth mission and organize the gold deliveries to Nibiru.

"The choice of Enlil for the mission might have been a necessary one, but it must have been an agonizing one as well, for it only sharpened the rivalry and jealousy between the two half-brothers. For Enki was the first son of Anu by Id, one of his six concubines.... but Enlil was son of Anu by his half-sister wife Antum.... And by the Nibiruan rules of succession, Enlil became the legal heir instead of Enki. And now this rival, this robber of Enki’s birthright, came to Earth to take over the command!

"One cannot stress enough the importance of lineage and genealogy in the Wars of the Gods; the struggles for succession and supremacy, on Nibiru as on Earth later on.

"Indeed, as we unravel the puzzling persistence and ferocity of the wars of the gods, trying to fit them into the framework of history and prehistory - a task never undertaken before - it becomes clear that they stemmed for a code of sexual behavior based not on morality but on considerations of genetic purity. At the core of these wars lay an intricate genealogy that determined hierarchy and succession; and sexual acts were judge not by their tenderness or violence but by their purpose and outcome.

Continuing from the theme of genealogy, Mr. Sitchin gives a few examples (in his book) involving the gods and goddesses and their romances, and rules, among brothers and half-sister wives, concubines and marriage. Then he continues:

"....Because of the importance of the family relationships between these great Anunnaki, many so-called God Lists prepared by ancient scribes were genealogical in nature. In one such major list, titled by the ancient scribes the "An : ilu Anum" series, there are listed the "forty-two fore-parents of Enlil," clearly arranged as twenty-one divine couples. This must have a mark of great royal lineage, for two similar documents for Anu also list his twenty-one ancestral couples on Nibiru. We learn that the parents of Anu were AN.SHAR.GAL, ("Great Prince of Heaven") and KI.SHAR.GAL, ("Great Princess of Firm Ground"). As their names indicate, they were not the reigning couple on Nibiru: rather, the father was the Great Prince, meaning the heir apparent; and his spouse was a great princess, the firstborn daughter of the ruler (by a different wife) and thus a half-sister of Anshargal.

"In these genealogical facts lies the key of the understanding of the events on Nibiru before the landing on Earth, and on Earth thereafter.

"Sending Ea to Earth for gold implies that the Nibiruans had already been aware of the metal’s availability on Earth well before the landing was launched. How?

"One could offer several answers: They could have probed Earth with unmanned satellites, as we have been doing to other planets in our Solar System. They could have surveyed Earth by landing on it, as we have done on our Moon. Indeed, their landing on Mars cannot be ruled out as we read texts dealing with the space voyages from Nibiru to Earth.

"Whether and when such manned premeditated landings on Earth had taken place, we do not know. But there does exist an ancient chronicle dealing with an earlier landing in dramatic circumstances: when the deposed ruler of Nibiru escaped to Earth in his spacecraft!

"The event must have happened before Ea was sent to Earth by his father, for it was through that event that Anu became Nibiru’s ruler. Indeed the event was the usurpation of the throne on Nibiru by Anu.

"The information is contained in a text whose Hittite version has been titled by scholars Kingship in Heaven. It throws light on life at the royal court of Nibiru and tells a tale of betrayal and usurpation worthy of a Shakespearean plot. It reveals that when the time for succession arrived on Nibiru - through natural death or otherwise - it was not Anshargal, Anu’s father and the heir apparent, who had ascended the throne. Instead a relative named Alalu (Alalush in the Hittite text) became the ruler.

"As a gesture of reconciliation or by custom, Alalu appointed Anu as his cup-bearer, an honored and trusted position also known to us from several Near Eastern texts and royal depictions. But after nine Nibiruan years, Anu (Anush in the Hittite text) "gave battle to Alalu" and deposed him.

"....It was then, the ancient text tells us that the dramatic flight to Earth had occurred:

Alalu was defeated , he fled before Anush -
Down he descended to the dark-hued Earth.
Anush took his seat upon the throne.

"While it is quite possible that much about Earth and its resources may have been known on Nibiru even before Alalu’s flight, the fact is that we do have in this tale a record of the arrival on Earth of a spaceship bearing Nibiruans before Ea’s mission to Earth. The Sumerian King Lists report that the first administrator of Eridu was called Alulim - a name that could have been yet another epithet for Ea/Enki, or the Sumerian rendering of Alalu’s name; the possibility thus comes to mind that, though deposed, Alalu was sufficiently concern about Nibiru’s fate to advise his deposer that he had found gold in Earth’s waters. That this is indeed what had happened might be indicated by the fact that a reconciliation between deposer and deposed did ensue; for Anu went ahead and appointed Kumarbi, a grandson of Alalu, to be his royal cup-bearer.

But Kumarbi could not forget that Anu had usurped the throne off his grandfather.
This fact brought strife for Anu.
So when Anu left Nibiru for Earth, to inspect the mission, he took Kumarbi with him.

Mr. Sitchin continues:

"The decision to bring Enlil to Earth and put him in charge led to heated arguments with Enki.... The angry Enki threatened to leave Earth and return to Nibiru, but could he be trusted not to usurp the throne there? If, as a compromise, Anu himself were to stay on Earth, appointing Enlil as surrogate ruler on Nibiru, could Enlil be trusted to step down when Anu returned? Finally it was decided to draw lots: let chance determine how it shall be. One of the longest Earth Chronicles, a text called The Atra-Hasis Epic, records the drawing of lots and its outcome:

The gods clasped hands together,
then cast lots and divided:
Anu to heaven went up;
To Enlil the Earth was made subject;
That which the sea as a loop encloses,
they gave to the prince Enki.
To the Abzu Enki went down,
assumed the rulership of the Abzu.

"Believing that he had managed to separate the rival brothers, "Anu to Heaven went up." But in the skies above Earth, an unexpected turn of events awaited him. Perhaps as a precaution, Kumarbi was left on the space platform orbiting Earth; when Anu returned to it, ready to take off to the long voyage back to Nibiru, he was confronted by an angry Kumarbi.

They fought face to face, and Kumarbi was victorious.

"Disgraced and in pain, Anu took off on his way to Nibiru, leaving Kumarbi behind with the astronauts manning the space platform and shuttlecraft.

"After Anu had left, Earth Mission was launched in earnest.... There, additional settlements were established in accordance with a master plan laid out by Enlil, as part of a complete organizational plan of action and clear-cut procedures:

"Each of these pre-Diluvial settlements in Mesopotamia had a specific function, revealed by its name:

• E.RI.DU   "House in Faraway Built" - the gold extracting facility by the water’s edge.

• BAD.TIBIRA   "Bright Place Where the Ores Are Made Final" - the metallurgical center for smeltering and refining.

• LA.RA.AK   "Seeing the Bright Glow" - was a beacon-city to guide the landing shuttlecraft.

• SIPPAR    "Bird City" - was the Landing Place

• SHU.RUK.PAK    "The Place of Utmost Well-Being" - was equipped as a medical center; it was put in the charge of SUD ("She Who Resuscitates"), a half sister of both Enki and Enlil.

• LA.AR.SA    ("Seeing the Red Light"), was also built, for the complex operation depended on close coordination between the Anunnaki who had landed on Earth and 300 astronauts, called IGI.GI ("Those Who See and Observe"), who remained in constant Earth orbit.

Acting as intermediaries between Earth and Nibiru, the Igigi stayed in Earth’s skies on orbiting platforms, to which the processed ores were delivered from Earth by shuttlecraft, thereafter to be transferred to proper spaceships, who could ferry the gold to the Home Planet as it periodically neared Earth in its vast elliptical orbit. Astronauts and equipment were delivered to Earth by the same stages, in reverse.

Enlil proceeded to build and equip a Mission control Center:

• "NIBRU.KI    ("The Earth-Place of Nibiru") - Nippur in Akkadian. There, atop an artificially raised platform equipped with antennas - the prototype of the Mesopotamian "Towers of Babel" - was a secret chamber, the DIR.GA ("Dark, Glowing Chamber") where space charts ("the emblems of the stars") were displayed and where the DUR.AN.KI (Bond Heaven-Earth") was maintained.

"The Chronicles have asserted that the first settlements of the Anunnaki on Earth were "laid out as centers." To this enigmatic statement was added the puzzle of the claim by post-Diluvial kings that in reestablishing in Sumer the cities wiped out by the Flood, they had followed,

The everlasting ground plan,
that which for all time
the construction has determined.
It is the one which bears
the drawing from the Olden Times
and the writing of the Upper Heaven.

"The puzzle will be solved if we mark those first cities established by Enki and Enlil on the region’s map and connect them with concentric circles. They were indeed "laid out as centers": all were equidistant from the Mission control Center in Nippur. It was indeed a plan "from Upper Heaven," for it made sense only to those who could view the whole Near East from high above Earth. Choosing the twin-peaked Mount Ararat - the area’s most conspicuous feature - as their landmark, they placed the space port where the north line based on Ararat crossed the visible Euphrates River. In this "everlasting ground plan," all the cities were arranged as an arrow, marking out the Landing Path to the Spaceport at Sippar.

"The periodic deliveries of gold to Nibiru mitigated the concerns, even the rivalries, on that planet, for Anu stayed on as its ruler for a long time thereafter, but on Earth all the main actors were present on the "dark-hued" stage to give vent to every imaginable emotion and to incredible conflicts.

Return

Chapter Five
THE WARS OF THE OLDEN GODS
 

"Anu’s first visit to Earth and the decisions then reached set the course of events on Earth for all the millennia that followed. In time they led to the creation of The Adam - Man as we know him, Homo sapiens; they also planted the seeds of future conflict on Earth between Enlil and Enki and their descendants.

"But first there were the lingering and bitter struggles between the House of Anu and the House of Alalu, an enmity that burst out on Earth into the War of Titans. It was a war that pitted "the gods who are in heaven" against the "gods who are upon dark-hued Earth", it was, in its last climactic phase, an uprising of the Igigi!

"That it had taken place in the early days of the settlement of the Nibiruans on Earth and in the aftermath of Anu’s first visit to Earth, we know from the Kingship in Heaven text....

It is augmented and continued in several other Hittite/Hurrian texts, which scholars call collectively The Kumarbi Cycle.

"....We do learn that after the passage of some time.... Kumarbi came down to Earth. For reasons that may have been explained in missing parts of the texts, he went to Ea in the Abzu.

There was conflict between Kumarbi and the Storm God Teshub, who according to the Sumerians was Enlil’s younger son Ishkur/Adad.

Kumarbi went to consult Ea.

"Ea suggested that Kumarbi "ascend to heaven" and seek the help of Lama, who was "mother of the two gods" and thus, apparently, an ancestral matriarch of the two contesting dynasties. With some self-interest, Ea offered to transport Kumarbi to the Celestial Abode in his MAR.GID.DA (celestial chariot) which the Akkadians called Ti-ia-ri-ta, "the flying vehicle." But the goddess, having found out that Ea was coming without the permission of the Assembly of the Gods, sent "lightning winds" against Ea’s spacecraft, forcing him and Kumarbi to return to Earth.

"But rather than go down all the way, Kumarbi chose to stay with the orbiting gods whom the Hittite/Hurrian text calls Irsirra ("Those Who See and Orbit"), the Sumerian IGI.GI.

....The essence of his thoughts was that he should be proclaimed "the father of all the gods," the supreme deity!

"Gaining the backing of the orbiting Irsirra gods, Kumarbi "put swift shoes on his feet" and flew down to Earth. There he sent his emissary to the other leading gods, demanding that they recognize his supremacy.

"It was then that Anu decided that enough was enough. To vanquish once and for all the grandson of his adversary Alalu, Anu ordered his own grandson, the "Storm God" Teshub, to find Kumarbi and kill him.

After terrible battles between terrestrial gods led by Teshub and the sky-borne gods led by Kumarbi, Teshub prevailed. But according to additional Hittite epic tales in the Kumarbi Cycle, it is said that he impregnated a goddess of the mountain, and the child "Stone God" Ullikumi was borne and instructed to destroy Teshub and to take the throne by force on Nibiru.

As Ullikumi grew up he made ready to attack Teshub. He had assumed giant proportions.

"Realizing there was no alternative to battle, Teshub readied his chariot for combat; the Hittite text calls it by its Sumerian name ID.DUG.GA, "The Flowing Leaden Rider."

The instructions for outfitting the celestial chariot, for which the Hittite text heavily employed the original Sumerian terminology, merit quoting. They called for revving up the vehicle with the "Great Cracker"; attaching the "Bull" (power-plant) that "Lights Up" in front and the "Bull for Lofty Missile" in the back end; installing the radarlike or navigational device "That Which Shows The Way" in the forepart; activating the instruments with the powerful energy "Stones" (minerals); and then arming the vehicle with the "Storm Thunderer," loading it with no less than eight hundred "Fire Stones."

"....After the initial unsuccessful attacks, Ninurta, the brother of Teshub/Adad, joined the battles. But the Stone god remained unharmed and carried the battle to the very gates of Kummiya, the Storm God’s city.

There, Hebat, Teshub’s spouse had been listening to the messages of Teshub, and all the gods, and the progress of the battle, but Ullikummi’s missiles forced her out. Believing her husband was dead, she sent her messenger where all the gods were assembled to bring news back of the battle.

"....But Teshub had not been killed. Advised by his attendant to hide at some mountainous sites, he refused: If we do that, he said, "there will be no king in Heaven!" The two then decided to go to Ea in the Abzu, to seek there an oracle according to "the old tablets with the words of fate."

"Realizing that Kumarbi had brought forth a monster that was getting out of hand, Ea went to Enlil to warn him of the danger: "Ullikummi will block off the Heaven and the god’s holy houses!" An assembly of the Great Anunnaki was called. With all at a loss for a solution, Ea had one: From the scale storehouse of the "stone cutters," let them bring out a certain Olden Metal Cutter and let them cut under the feet of Ullikummi the Stone God.

"When this was achieved, the Stone God was crippled.... But Ullikummi was still defiant, declaring: "Kummiya I shall destroy, the Sacred House I shall take over, the gods I shall drive out... up to Heaven I shall go to assume Kingship!"

"The closing lines of the Hittite epic are completely damaged; but can we doubt that they told us the Sanskrit tale of the final battle between Indra and the "demon" Vritra?

And then was seen a dreadful sight,
when god and demon met in fight.
His sharpened missiles Vritra shot,
his thunderbolts and lightnings hot . . .
The lightnings then began to flash,
the direful thunderbolts to crash,
by Indra proudly hurled . . .
And soon the knell of Vritra’s doom
was sounded by the clang and boom
of Indra’s iron shower.
Pierced, cloven, crushed, with horrid yell
the dying demon headlong fell . . .
And Indra smote him with a bolt
between the shoulders.

"These, we believe, were the battles of the "gods" and the Titans of the Greek tales. No one has yet found the meaning of "Titans"; but if the tales had a Sumerian origin, and if so did these gods’ name, then TI.TA.AN in Sumerian would have literally meant "Those Who in Heaven Live" - precisely the designation of the Igigi led by Kumarbi; and their adversaries were the Anunnaki "Who are on Earth."

"Sumerian texts indeed record an olden life-and-death battle between a grandson of Anu and a "demon" of a different clan; the tale is known as The Myth of Zu. Its hero is Ninurta, Enlil’s son by his half-sister Sud; it could well have been the original tale from which the Hindu tales were borrowed.

"....In Nippur, there, atop a raised platform was the DIR.GA room, the most restricted "holy of holies" where the vital celestial charts and orbital data panels - the "Tablets of Destinies" - were installed.

"It was into this sacred chamber that a god named Zu gained access, seizing the vital tablets and thereby holding in his hands the fate of the Anunnaki on Earth and of Nibiru itself.

"By combining portions of Old Babylonian and Assyrian versions of the Sumerian text, a good deal of the tale has been restored. But damaged portions still held the secret of Zu’s true identity, as well as an explanation of how he had gained access to the Dirga....

"....In Sumerian the name Zu meant "He Who Knows," one expert in certain knowledge. Several references to the evil hero of this tale as AN.ZU - "He Who Knows the Heavens" suggest a connection with the space program that had linked Earth with Nibiru; and the now-restored beginning of the chronicle indeed relates how Zu, an orphan, was adopted by the astronauts who manned the shuttlecraft and orbiting platforms, the Igigi - learning from them the secrets of the heavens and of space travel.

Continuing with the subject of the Igigi....

"The action begins as the Igigi, "being gathered from all parts," decided to make an appeal to Enlil. Their complaint was that "until that time for the Igigi a break-taking place had not yet been built." In other words, there simply was no facility on Earth for the rest and recreation of the Igigi, where they could relax from the rigors of space and its weightlessness. To voice their complaint they selected Zu to be their spokesman, sending him to Enlil’s center in Nippur.

"Enlil, "the father of the gods , in the Dur-An-Ki, saw him, and thought of what they [the Igigi] said." As "in his mind he pondered" the request, "he studied the heavenly Zu closely."

Who, after all, was this emissary, not one of the astronauts and yet wearing their uniform? As his suspicions grew, Ea - aware of Zu’s true ancestry - spoke up; he suggested to Enlil that a decision on the request of the Igigi could be postponed if Zu were delayed at Enlil’s headquarters. "Your service let him enter," Ea said to Enlil; "in the sanctuary, to the innermost seat, let him be the one to block the way."

"....And so it was, with Ea’s connivance, that an adversary god - a secret descendant of Alalu - was admitted to Enlil’s innermost and most sensitive chamber. We read that there Zu "constantly views Enlil, the father of the gods, the god of Bond-Heaven-Earth . . . his celestial Tablet of Destinies Zu constantly views." And soon a scheme took shape: "the removal of the Enlilship he conceives in his heart."

"....Zu saw his chance one day as Enlil went to take a cooling swim. "He seized the Tablet of Destinies in his hands" and in his Bird "took off and flew to safety in the HUR.SAG.MU" ("Mountain of the Sky-Chambers"). No sooner had this happened than everything came to a standstill:

Suspended were the divine formulas;
The lighted brightness petered out;
Silence prevailed.
In space, the Igigi were confounded;
The sanctuary’s brilliance was taken off.

"....Anu on Nibiru was also informed. It was clear that Zu must be captured and the Tablet of Destinies restored to the Dir-ga. But who will do it?

"....Ninurta, Enlil’s legal heir, stepped forth to undertake the task, for - as his mother Sud had pointed out, Zu deprived not only Enlil but also Ninurta of the "Enlilship."

Ninurta and Zu engaged in a "terrifying war, a fierce battle":

Zu and Ninurta met at the mountainside. (Mount Hazzi)
When Zu perceived him, he broke out in rage.
With his Brilliance, he made the mountain
bright as daylight;
He let loose rays in a rage.

"....But Ninurta continued to "advance aggressively" against Zu."

Ninurta, however, was not able to vanquish Zu in his attempt.

"....Stalemated, Ninurta asked his younger brother Ishkur/Adad to obtain the advice of Enlil. "Ishkur, the prince, took the report, the news of the battle he reported to Enlil."

"Enlil instructed Ishkur to go back and tell Ninurta: "In the battle do not tire, prove thy strength!" More practically, he sent Ninurta a tillu - a missile to attach to the Stormer that shoots the projectiles.

With this Ninurta "attacked Zu as suggested by his father.... by aiming at the "pinions" of Zu’s Whirlwind.... Zu was captured and brought back before Enlil in Nippur; the Tablet of Destinies was reinstalled where it belonged; "Lordship again entered the Ekur, the Divine Formulas were returned."

"The captured Zu was put on trial before a court-martial consisting of the Seven Great Anunnaki; he was found guilty and sentenced to death; Ninurta, his vanquisher "cut his throat."

"....The defeat of Zu lingered in the memory of the Anunnaki as a great deliverance. Perhaps because of the assumption that the spirit of Zu - representing betrayal, duplicity, and all evil in general - persists in causing ill and suffering, the trial and execution of Zu were transmitted to mankind’s generations in the form of an elaborate ritual. In this annual commemoration a bull was chosen to stand for Zu and atone for his evil deed.

"Long instructions for the ritual have been found in both Babylonian and Assyrian versions, all indicating their earlier Sumerian source. After extensive preparations, a "great bull, strong bull who treads upon clean pastures," was brought into the temple and purified on the first day of a certain month. It was then whispered into the bull’s left ear through a reed tube: "Bull, the guilty Zu are you"; and into the right ear: "Bull, you have been chosen for the rite and the ceremonies." On the fifteenth day the bull was brought before the images of "the Seven Gods Who Judge" and the symbols of the twelve celestial bodies of the Solar System.

"The trial of Zu was then reenacted, the bull was put down before Enlil, "the Great Shepherd." The accusing priest recited rhetorical accusasional questions, as though addressed to Enlil: How could you have given "the store treasure" to the enemy? How could you have let him to come and dwell in the "pure place"? How could he gain access to your quarters? Then the play acting called for Ea and other gods to beseech Enlil to calm himself, for Ninurta had stepped forward and asked his father: "Point my hands in the right direction! Give me the right words of command!"

"Following this recital of the evidence given at the trial, judgment was passed. As the bull was being slaughtered in accord with detailed instructions, the priests recited the bull’s verdict: his liver was to be boiled in a sacrificial kettle; his skin and muscles were to be burned inside the temple; but his "evil tongue shall remain outside."

"Then the priests playing the role of the other gods, broke out in a hymn of praise to Ninurta.

"....The conspiracy of Zu and his evil plotting remained also in mankind’s memory, evolving into a fear of birdlike demons who can cause affliction and pestilence. Some of these demons were called Lillu, a term that played on the double meaning "to howl" and "of the night"; their female leader, Lillitu - Lillith - was depicted as a naked, winged goddess with birdlike feet. The many shurpu ("purification by burning") texts that have been found were formulas for incantations against these evil spirits - forerunners of the sorcery and witchcraft that had lasted throughout the millennia.

"In spite of the solemn vows taken after the defeat of Zu to honor and respect Enlil’s supremacy and Ninurta’s position as second-in-command, the basic factors causing rivalry and contentions had remained - breaking into the open from time to time in the ensuing millennia. Realizing that this would be so, Anu and Enlil provided Ninurta with new, marvelous weapons. Anu gave him the SHAR.UR ("Supreme Hunter") and the SHAR.GAZ ("Supreme Smiter"); Enlil gave him several weapons, of which the unique IB - a weapon with "fifty killing heads" - was the most awesome, leading to references in the chronicles to Ninurta as "The Lord of the Ib." Thus armed, Ninurta became the "Foremost Warrior of Enlil," ready to fight off all challenges to the Enlilship.

"The next such challenge came in the shape of a mutiny of the Anunnaki who were working in the gold mines of the Abzu. The mutiny, and the events that had led to it and followed it, are fully described in a text called by scholars The Atra-Hasis Epic - a full-fledged Earth Chronicle which, inter alia, records the events that led to the creation of Homo sapiens - Man as we know him.
 

"The text informs us that after Anu had gone back to Nibiru and Earth was divided between Enlil and Enki, the Anunnaki toiled in the mines of Abzu for "forty counted periods" - forty orbits of their planet, or 144,000 Earth-years. But the work was difficult and backbreaking....

"....The mining operations, deep inside the earth, were never interrupted: the Anunnaki "suffered the toil day and night."

....Dissatisfaction grew: "They were complaining, backbiting, grumbling in the excavations."

Ninurta went to the Abzu, but this strained relations with Enki even more.

Enlil went to the Abzu, and the Anunnaki took their opportunity to mutiny.

"....As Enlil remained a prisoner in his own quarters, he sent a message to Anu and asked that he come to Earth. When Anu arrived, the Great Anunnaki assembled for a court-martial. Anu ruled in favor of the Anunnaki.

But a solution to the hard toil was needed. And Enki found one:

"....While the Chief Medical Officer, their sister Sud, was here in the Abzu with them:

Let her create a Primitive Worker;
And let him bear the yoke. . .
Let the Worker carry the toil of the gods,
Let him bear the yoke!

"In the following one hundred lines of the Atra-Hasis text, and in several other "Creation of Man" texts that have been discovered in various states of preservation, the tale of the genetic engineering of Homo sapiens has been told in amazing detail. To achieve the feat Enki suggested that a "Being that already exists" - Apewoman - be used to create the Lulu Amelu ("The Mixed Worker") by "binding" upon the less evolved beings "the mold of the gods." The goddess Sud purified the "essence" of a young male Anunnaki, she mixed into the egg of an Apewoman. The fertilized egg was then implanted in the womb of a female Anunnaki, for the required period of pregnancy. When the "mixed creature" was born, Sud lifted him up and shouted:

"I have created! My hands have made him!"

"The "Primitive Worker" - Homo sapiens - had come into being. It happened some 300,000 years ago; it came about through a feat of genetic engineering and embryo-implant techniques which mankind itself is beginning to employ. There has undoubtedly been a long process of evolution; but then the Anunnaki had taken a hand in the process and jumped the gun on evolution "creating" us sooner than we might have evolved on our own. Scholars have been searching for a long time for the "missing link" in man’s evolution. The Sumerian texts reveal that the "missing link" was a feat of genetic manipulation performed in a laboratory. . . It was not a feat over and done with in an instant. The texts make clear that it had taken the Anunnaki considerable trial and error to achieve the desired "perfect model" of the Primitive Worker, but once achieved, a mass-production process was launched: fourteen "birth goddesses" at a time were implanted with the genetically manipulated Apewoman eggs: seven to bear males and seven to bear female Workers. As soon as they grew up, the Workers were put to work in the mines; and as their numbers grew, they assumed more and more of the physical chores in the Abzu.

"The armed clash between Enlil and Enki that was soon to take place, however, was over these same slave laborers.

"The more the production of ores improved in the Abzu, the greater was the work load on the Anunnaki that had remained to operate the facilities in Mesopotamia. The climate was milder, rains were more plentiful, and the rivers of Mesopotamia were constantly overflowing. Increasingly the Mesopotamian Anunnaki "were digging the river," raising dykes and deepening canals. Soon they too began to clamor for the slave workers, the "creatures of bright countenance" but with thick black hair.

"....It is understood that Enki refused Enlil’s request for the transfer of Primitive Workers to Mesopotamia. Deciding to take matters into his hands, Enlil took the extreme step of disconnecting the communications with the home planet: "In the ’Bond Heaven-Earth’ he made a gash. . . verily did he speed to disconnect Heaven from Earth." Then he launched an armed attack against the Land of the Mines.

"The Anunnaki in the Abzu assembled the Primitive Workers in a central compound, strengthening its walls against the coming attack. But Enlil fashioned a marvelous weapon, the AL.A.NI ("Ax That Produces Power") equipped with a "horn" and an "earth slitter" that could drill through earth and earthworks. With these weapons Enlil drove a hole through the fortifications. As the whole widened Primitive Workers were breaking out toward Enlil. He eyed the Black-headed Ones in fascination."

"Thereafter the Primitive Workers performed the manual tasks in both Lands: in the Land of the Mines they "bore the work and suffered the toil"; in Mesopotamia, "with picks and spades they built gods’ houses, they built the big canal banks; food they grew for the sustenance of the gods."

"Many ancient drawings engraved on cylinder seals depicted these Primitive Workers performing their tasks, naked as the animals of the field. Various Sumerian texts recorded this animal like stage in human development:

When mankind was first created,
They knew not the eating of bread,
Knew not the dressing of garments,
Ate plants with their mouth like sheep,
Drank water from the ditch . . .

"How long, however, could young female Anunnaki be asked (or forced) to perform the role of "birth goddesses"? Unbeknownst to Enlil, and with the connivance of Sud, Enki contrived to give the new creature one more genetic twist: granting to the hybrid beings - incapable of procreating, as all hybrids are - the ability to have offspring, the sexual "Knowing" for having children. The event is echoed in the tale of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and although the original Sumerian text of the tale has not yet been found, a number of Sumerian depictions of the event were indeed discovered. They show different aspects of the tale: the Tree of Life; the offering of the forbidden fruit; the angry encounter that ensued between the "Lord God" and the "Serpent." Yet another shows Eve girdled in a garment around her loins while Adam is still naked, another detail related in the Bible.

Mr. Sitchin draws his attention to a particular depiction (page 107, figure 30 of his book):

"While the Serpent God features in all these ancient depictions, the illustration reproduced here is of particular significance as it writes out in archaic Sumerian the god’s epithet/name as (a star and a triangular symbol). The "star" spells "god" and the triangular symbol reads BUR, BURU, or BUZUR - all terms that make the epithet/name mean "God Who Solves Secrets," "God of the Deep Mines," and variations thereof. The Bible (in the original Hebrew) calls the god who tempted Eve Nahash, translated "Serpent," but literally meaning "He Who Solves Secrets" and "He Who Knows Metals," the exact parallels of the god’s names in the Sumerian depiction. This depiction is of further interest because it shows the Serpent God with his hands and feet in tethers, suggesting that Enki was arrested after his unauthorized deed.

"In his anger Enlil ordered the expulsion of the Adam - the Homo sapiens Earthling - from the E.DIN ("The Abode of the Righteous Ones"). No longer confined to the settlements of the Anunnaki, Man began to roam the Earth.

""And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain. . . and she bore his brother Abel." The gods were no longer alone on Earth.

"Little did the Anunnaki then know the role that the Primitive Worker would play in the wars between them.

Return

Chapter Six
MANKIND EMERGES
 

"Ever since George Smith found and reported in 1876 (The Chaldean Account of Genesis) detailed Mesopotamian tales of Creation, followed by L.W. King’s The Seven Tablets of Creation, scholars and theologians alike have come to recognize that the Creation Tales of the Old Testament (Genesis chapters 1 through 3) are condensed and edited versions of original Sumerian texts. A century later, in our work, The 12th Planet (1976), we have shown that these texts were no primitive myths, but depositories of advanced scientific knowledge with which modern scholars are only now beginning to catch up.

"The unmanned space probes of Jupiter and Saturn confirmed many "incredible" facets of the Sumerian knowledge regarding our Solar System, such as that the outer planets have numerous satellites and that water is present in some of them. Those distant planets, and some of their principal satellites, were found to have active cores that generate internal heat; some radiate out more heat than they can ever receive from the distant Sun. Volcanic activity provided those celestial bodies with their own atmospheres. All the basic requirements for the development of life exist out there, just as the Sumerians had said 6,000 years ago.

"What then of the existence of a twelfth member of our Solar System - a tenth planet beyond Pluto, the Sumerian Nibiru (and Babylonian Marduk) - a planet whose existence was a basic and far-reaching conclusion in The 12^th Planet?

"In 1978, astronomers at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington determined that Pluto - being smaller than formerly believed - could not by itself account for perturbations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune; they postulated the existence of yet another celestial body beyond Pluto. In 1982 the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced its conclusion that there indeed exists such a body; whether or not it is another large planet, it planned to determine by deploying in a certain manner its two Pioneer spacecraft that had been hurtling into space beyond Saturn.

"And at the close of 1983, astronomers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California announced that IRAS - the infrared telescope mounted on a spacecraft and launched under NASA’s auspices with the cooperation of other nations - had discovered beyond Pluto a very distant "mystery celestial body" about four times the size of Earth and moving toward Earth. They have not yet called it a planet; but our Earth Chronicles leave the ultimate finding in no doubt.

"In 1983, rocks were found in Antarctica and elsewhere which are undoubtedly fragments of the Moon and Mars; and the scientists are totally baffled as to how that could have happened. The Sumerian tale of the Creation of the Solar System, the collision between Nibiru’s satellites and Tiamat, and the rest of the cosmogony in the celebrated Epic of Creation offer a comprehensive explanation.

"And how about the texts describing how Man was created through genetic manipulation: in vitro fertilization and reimplantation?

"....After relating how "The Adam" (literally "the Earthling") was granted the ability to procreate, the book of Genesis moves from recounting the general events on Earth to the saga of a specific branch of mankind: the person named Adam and his descendants.

""This is the Book of the Generations of Adam," the Old Testament informs us. Such a book, we can safely assume, had surely existed. The evidence strongly suggests that the person whom the Bible called Adam was the one whom the Sumerians called Adapa, an Earthling "perfected" by Enki and deemed to have been genetically related to him. "Wide understanding Enki perfected for him, to disclose the designs of the Earth; to him he gave Knowing; but immortality he did not give him."

"Portions of the "Tale of Adapa" have been found; the complete text might have well been the "Book of the Generations of Adam" to which the Old Testament refers.

"....The Book of Genesis relates that the first son of Adam and Eve, Cain, "was a tiller of the earth," and his brother Abel "was a herder of sheep."

"Cain had a son whom he named Enoch, and built a city called likewise, the name meaning "Foundation." The Old Testament, having no particular interest in the line of Cain, skips quickly to the fourth generation after Enoch, when Lamech was born.

"....The pseudepigraphical Book of Jubilees, believed to have been composed in the second century B.C. from earlier material, adds the information that Cain espoused his own sister Awan and she bore him Enoch "at the close of the fourth Jubilee. And in the first year of the first week of the fifth Jubilee, houses were built on the earth, and Cain built a city and called its name Foundation, after the name of his son." Where did this additional information come from?

"It has long been held that this part of the Genesis tale stands alone, without corroboration or parallel in the Mesopotamian texts. But we have found that it is just not so.

"First we have come upon a Babylonian tablet in the British Museum (No 74329), catalogued as "containing an otherwise unknown myth." Yet it may in fact be a Babylonian/Assyrian version from circa 2000 B.C. of a missing Sumerian record of the Line of Cain!

"As copied by A.R. Millard and translated by W.G. Lambert (Kadmos, vol. VI), it speaks of the beginnings of a group of people who were ploughmen, which corresponds to the biblical "tiller of the land." They are called Amakandu - "People Who In Sorrow Roam"; it parallels the condemnation of Cain: "Banned be thou from the soil which hath received thy brother’s blood . . . a restless nomad shalt thou be upon the earth." And, most remarkably, the Mesopotamian chief of these exiled people was called Ka’in!

He built in Dunnu
a city with twin towers
Ka’in dedicated to himself
the lordship over the city.

"....After the death (or murder) of Ka’in, "he was laid to rest in the city of Dunnu, which he loved." As in the biblical tale, the Mesopotamian text records the history of four following generations: brothers married their sisters and murdered their parents, taking over the rulership in Dunnu as well as setting in new places, the last of which was named Shupat ("Judgment").

"....We also find among traditional Assyrian eponyms of royal names the combination Ashur-bel-Ka’ini ("Ashur, lord of the Ka’inites"); and the Assyrian scribes paralleled this with the Sumerian ASHUR-EN.DUNI ("Ashur is lord of Duni"), implying that the Ka’ini ("The people of Kain") and the Duni ("The people of Dun") were one and the same; and thus reaffirming the biblical Cain and Land of Nun or Dun.

"Having dealt briefly with the line of Cain, the Old Testament turned its full attention to a new line descended of Adam: "And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son, and called his name Seth, for [she said] the Lord hath granted me another offspring instead of Abel, whom Cain had slain."

"....The name of Seth’s son and the next pre-Diluvial patriarch in which the Bible was interested was Enosh; it has come to mean in Hebrew "Human, Mortal," and it is clear that the Old Testament considered him the progenitor of the human lineage at the core of the ancient chronicles. It states in respect to him, that "It was then that the name of Yahweh began to be called," that worship and priesthood began.

"There are a number of Sumerian texts that shed more light on this intriguing aspect. The available portions of the Adapa text state that he was "perfected" and treated as a son by Enki in Enki’s city Eridu. It is likely then, as William Hallo (Antediluvian Cities) had suggested that the great-grandson of Enosh was named Yared to mean "He of Eridu." Here, then, is the answer: While the Bible loses interest in the banished descendants of Adam, it focuses its attention on the patriarchs from Adam’s line who had stayed in Eden - southern Mesopotamia - and were the first to be called to priesthood.

"In the fourth generation after Enosh the firstborn son was named Enoch; scholars believe that here the name’s meaning stemmed from a variant of the Hebrew root, connoting "to train, to educate." Of him the Old Testament briefly states that he "had walked with the Deity" and did not die on Earth, "for the Deity had taken him." The sole verse in Genesis 5:24 is substantially enlarged upon in the extra-biblical Books of Enoch. They detail his first visit with the Angels of God to be instructed in various sciences and ethics. Then, after returning to Earth to pass the knowledge and the requisites of priesthood to his sons, he was taken aloft once more, to permanently join the Nefilim (the biblical term meaning "Those Who Had Dropped Down") in their celestial abode.

There is another indication of priests who were able to approach the gods:

"The Sumerian King Lists record the priestly reign of Enmeduranki in Sippar....

Enmeduranki [was] a prince in Sippar,
Beloved of Anu, Enlil and Ea.
Shamash in the Bright Temple appointed him.
Shamash and Adad [took him] to the assembly [of the gods]. . .
They showed him how to observe oil on water,
a secret of Anu, Enlil and Ea.
They gave him the Divine Tablet,
the kibdu secret of Heaven and Earth . . .
They taught him how to make calculations with numbers.

"The tablet concludes with a postscript: "Thus was the line of priests created - those who are allowed to approach Shamash and Adad."

"By the time of the seventh generation after Enosh, on the Eve of the Deluge, the Earth and its inhabitants were gripped by a new Ice Age. The Mesopotamian texts detail the sufferings by mankind, the shortages of food, even cannibalism.... The biblical version tells us little about Noah ("Respite"), apart from the fact that he was "righteous and of pure genealogy." The Mesopotamian texts inform us that the hero of the Deluge lived in Sharuppak, the Medical Center run by Sud.

"The Sumerian texts relate that as mankind’s hardships were increasing, Enki suggested, and Enlil vehemently opposed, the taking of measures to alleviate the suffering. What upset Enlil no end was the increasing sexual relationships between the young male Anunnaki and the Daughters of Man....

"....This growing togetherness between the young astronauts and the descendants of the Primitive Worker was not to Enlil’s liking. The Sumerian texts tell us that "as the Land extended and the people multiplied," Enlil became increasingly "disturbed by Mankind’s pronouncements" and its infatuation with sex and lust. The gets together between the Anunnaki and the daughters of Man caused him to lose sleep. "And the Lord said: "I will destroy the Earthling whom I have created off the face of the Earth."

"The texts inform us that when it was decided to develop the deep mines in the Abzu, the Anunnaki also proceeded to establish a scientific monitoring station at the tip of Africa. It was put in charge of Ereshkigal, a granddaughter of Enlil....

"....Enlil now saw his chance to get rid of the Earthlings when this scientific station at the tip of Africa began to report a dangerous situation: the growing icecap over Antarctica had become unstable, resting upon a layer of slippery slush. The problem was that this instability had developed just as Nibiru was about to make its approach to Earth’s vicinity; and Nibiru’s gravitational pull could upset the ice cap’s balance and cause it to slip into the Antarctic Ocean. The immense tidal waves that this would cause could engulf the whole globe.

"When the Igigi orbiting Earth confirmed the certainty of such a catastrophe, the Anunnaki began to assemble in Sippar, the spaceport. Enlil, however, insisted that mankind be kept unaware of the coming Deluge; and at a special session of the Assembly of the Gods, he made all of them, especially Enki, swear to keep the secret.

"The last part of the Atra-Hasis text, a major part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and other Mesopotamian texts describe at length the events that followed - how the catastrophe of the Deluge was used by Enlil to achieve the annihilation of mankind; and how Enki, opposed to the decision which Enlil forced upon the Assembly of the Gods, contrived to save his faithful follower Ziusudra ("Noah") by designing for him a submersible vessel that could withstand the avalanche of water.

"The Anunnaki themselves, on a signal, "lifted up" in their Rakub Ilani ("chariots of the gods"), the fired-up rocket ships "setting the land ablaze with their glare." Orbiting the Earth in their shuttlecraft, they watched in horror the onslaught of the tidal waves below. All that was upon the Earth was swept off in one colossal avalanche of water: A.MA.RU BA.UR. RA.TA - "The flood swept thereover." Sud, who had created Man with Enki, "saw and wept. . . .Ishtar cried out loud like a woman in travail. . . the gods, the Anunnaki, weep with her." Rolling back and forth, the tidal waves swept the soil away, leaving behind vast deposits of mud: "All that had been created turned back to clay."

"In The 12^th Planet we have presented the evidence for our conclusions that the Deluge, bringing about an abrupt end to the last Ice Age, had occurred some 13,000 years ago.

"As the waters of the Deluge "went back from off the land"....the Anunnaki began to land on Mount Nisir ("Mount of Salvation") - Mount Ararat.... Enlil was outraged to discover that "the seed of Mankind" was saved; but Enki persuaded him to relent.

"The Old Testament, focusing its interest on the line of Noah alone, lists no other passengers in the rescue ship. But the more detailed Mesopotamian Deluge texts also mention the Ark’s navigator and disclose that at the last moment friends or helpers of Ziusudra (and their families) also came on board. Greek versions of the account by Berossus state that after the Deluge, Ziusudra, his family, and the pilot were taken by the gods to stay with them; the other people were given directions to find their way back to Mesopotamia by themselves.

"The immediate problem facing all that were rescued was food. To Noah and his sons the Lord said: "All the animals that are upon the earth, and all that flies in the skies, and all that creepeth on the ground, and all the fishes of the sea, into your hands are given; all that teemeth and that liveth, shall be yours for food." And then came a significant addition: "As grassy vegetation all manner of grain have I given you."

Mr. Sitchin explains at this point the origin of "vegetation" as producing "grain," fruits and vegetables, after the Deluge, and how they grew in the high land rather than the plains, which were not suitable until the earth dried after many years.
Domestication of animals which provided meat, milk, and wool.

"How did it all come when it did? Modern science has yet to find the answer; but the Sumerian texts had already provided it millennia ago. Like the Bible, they relate how agriculture began after the Deluge, when (in the words of Genesis) "Noah began as a husbandman"; but like the Bible, which records that there had been tilling of the land (by Cain) and shepherding (by Abel) long before the Deluge, so do the Sumerian chronicles tell of the development of crop-growing and cattle-rearing in prehistoric times.

"....The Myth of Cattle and Grain states:

When from the heights of Heaven to Earth
Anu had caused the Anunnaki to come forth,
Grains had not yet been brought forth,
had not yet vegetated . . .
There was no ewe,
a lamb had not yet been dropped.
There was no she-goat,
a kid had not yet been dropped.
The ewe had not yet given birth to her lambs,
the she-goat had not yet given birth to her kid.
Weaving [of wool] had not yet been brought forth, had not yet been established.

"Then, in the "Creation Chamber" of the Anunnaki, their laboratory for genetic manipulation, Lahar ("wooly cattle") and Anshan ("grains") "were beautifully fashioned."

In those days,
in the Creation Chamber of the gods,
in the House of Fashioning, in the Pure Mound,
Lahar and Anshan were beautifully fashioned.
The abode was filled with food for the gods.
Of the multiplying of Lahar and Anshan
the Anunnaki, in their Holy Mound, eat -
but were not satiated.
The good milk from the sheepfold
the Anunnaki, in their Holy Mound, drink -
but are not satiated.

By the time the Anunnaki had fashioned grains and cattle in their Creation Chamber, before the Deluge

"The Primitive Workers - those who "knew not the eating of bread . . . who ate plants with their mouths" - were already in existence:

After Anu, Enlil, Enki and Sud
had fashioned the black-headed people,
Vegetation that luxuriates they multiplied in the Land.
Four-legged animals they artfully brought into existence;
In the E.DIN they placed them.

"So, in order to increase the production of grains and cattle to satiate the Anunnaki, a decision was made: Let NAM.LU.GAL.LU -"civilized mankind"- be taught the "tilling of the land" and the "keeping of sheep . . . for the sake of the gods":

For the sake of the satiating things,
for the pure sheepfold,
Civilized Mankind was brought into existence.

"Just as it describes what was brought into existence at that early time, so does this text also lists the domesticated varieties that had not then been brought forth:

That which by planting multiplies,
had not yet been fashioned;
Terraces had not yet been set up . . .
The triple grain of thirty days did not exist;
The triple grain of forty days did not exist;
The small grain, the grain of the mountains,
the grain of the pure A.DAM, did not exist . . .
Tuber-vegetables of the field had not yet come forth.

"These, as we shall see were introduced on Earth by Enlil and Ninurta some time after the Deluge.

"....Fortunately specimens of the domesticated cereals had been sent to Nibiru; and now "Anu provided them, from Heaven, to Enlil...." The only place that seemed suitable (after the Deluge) was "the mountain of aromatic cedars." We read in a fragmented text reported by S. N. Kramer in his Sumeriche Texte aus Nippur:

Enlil went up the peak and lifted his eyes;
he looked down: there the waters filled as a sea.
He looked up: there was the mountain of aromatic cedars.
He hauled up the barley, terraced it on the mountain.
That which vegetates he hauled up,
terraced the grain cereals on the mountain.

"The selection of the Cedar Mountain by Enlil and its conversion into a Restricted ("Holy") Place was, most likely, not accidental. Throughout the Near East - indeed, worldwide - there is only one unique Cedar Mountain of universal fame: in Lebanon. It is the location, to this very day (at Baalbek: in Lebanon), of a vast platform supported by colossal stone blocks that are still a marvel of technology. It was, as we have elaborated in The Stairway to Heaven, a Landing Place of the Anunnaki; a platform that persistent legends hold to have been built in pre-Diluvial times, even as early as the days of Adam. It was the only place, after the Deluge, immediately suitable for handling the shuttlecraft of the Anunnaki: the spaceport at Sippar was washed away and buried under layers of mud.

Therefore after the Deluge....we read this description in a Sumerian text:

Famine was severe, nothing was produced.
The small rivers were not cleaned,
the mud was not carried off . . .
In all the lands there were no crops,
only weeds grew.

"The two great rivers of Mesopotamia, the Euphrates and Tigris, were also not functioning: "The Euphrates was not bound together, there was misery; the Tigris was confounded, jolted and injured." The one who rose to the task of buildings dams in the mountains, digging new channels for the rivers, and draining off the excess water was Ninurta: "Thereon the lord sets his lofty mind; Ninurta, the son of Enlil, brings great things into being."

To protect the land, a mighty wall he raised.
With a mace he smote the rocks;
The stones the hero heaped, made a settlement . . .
The waters that had been scattered, he gathered;
What by the mountains had been dispersed,
he guided and sent down the Tigris.
The high waters it pours off the farmed land.
Now, behold -
Everything on Earth rejoiced at Ninurta,
the lord of the land.

"....We know from the Sumerian texts that first to be cultivated on the mountain slopes were fruit trees and bushes and most certainly grapes. The Anunnaki, the texts state, gave mankind "the excellent white grapes and the excellent white wine; the excellent black grapes and the excellent red wine." No wonder we read in the Bible that when "Noah began as a husbandman, he planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine and became drunken."

"When the drainage works carried out in Mesopotamia by Ninurta made cultivation possible in the plains, the Anunnaki "from the mountain the cereal grain they brought down," and "the Land [Sumer] with wheat and barley did become acquainted."

"In the millennia that followed mankind revered Ninurta as the one who had taught it farming....

"....While Enlil and Ninurta were credited with granting agriculture to mankind, the credit for the introduction of domesticated herds was given to Enki. It was after the first grains were already in cultivation but not yet "the grain that multiplies," the grains with the doubled, tripled, and quadrupled chromosomes; these were created by Enki artificially, with Enlil’s consent:

At that time Enki spoke to Enlil:
"Father Enlil, flocks and grains
have made joyful the Holy Mound,
have greatly multiplied in the Holy Mound.
Let us, Enki and Enlil, command:
The woolly-creature and grain-that-multiplies
let us cause to come out of the Holy Mound."

"Enlil agreed and abundance followed....

"....The revolutionary agricultural tool - a simple, but ingeniously designed, wooden implement - the plow, was at first pulled, as the above text states (appears in the book) by putting a yoke on the farm workers. But then Enki "brought into existence the larger living creatures" - domesticated cattle - and bulls replaced people as pullers of the plow. Thus, the texts conclude, did the gods "increase the fertility of the land."

"....Enki returned to Africa to assess the damage the Deluge had caused there.

"....As Enki surveyed Africa it was evident to him that the Abzu alone - the continent’s southern part - was insufficient. Just as in Mesopotamia "abundance" was based on riverine cultivation, so it had to be in Africa; and he turned his attention, planning, and knowledge to the recovery of the valley of the Nile.
 

"The Egyptians, we have seen, held that their gods had come to Egypt from Ur (meaning "the olden place"). According to Manetho, the reign of Ptah over the lands of the Nile began 17,900 years before Menes; i.e., circa 21,000 B.C. Nine thousand years later Ptah handed over the Egyptian domain to his son Ra; but the latter’s reign was abruptly interrupted after a brief 1,000 years, i.e., circa 11,000 B.C.; it was then, by our reckoning, that the Deluge had occurred.

"Then, the Egyptians believed, Ptah returned to Egypt to engage in great works of reclamation and to literally raise it from under the inundating waters. We find Sumerian texts that likewise attest that Enki went to the lands of Meluhha (Ethiopia/Nubia) and Magan (Egypt) to make them habitable for man and beast:

He proceeds to the Land Meluhha;
Enki, lord of the Abzu, decrees its fate:
Black land, may your trees be large trees,
may they be the Highland trees.
May thrones fill the royal palaces.
May your reed be large reeds,
may they be the Highland reeds . . .
May your bulls be large bulls,
may they be the Highland bulls . . .
May your silver be as gold,
May your copper be tin and bronze . . .
May your people multiply;
May your hero go forth as a bull . . .

"These Sumerian records, linking Enki with the African land of the Nile, assume a double significance: they corroborate the Egyptian tales with Mesopotamian tales and link Sumerian gods - especially the Enki-gods - with the gods of Egypt; for Ptah, we believe, was none other than Enki.

"After the lands were made habitable again, Enki divided the length of the African continent between his six sons.

• The southernmost domain was regranted to NER.GAL ("Great Watcher") and his spouse Ereshkigal.

• To his north, in the mining regions, GIBIL ("The One of Fire") was installed, having been taught by his father the secrets of metalworking.

• NIN.A.GAL ("Prince of Great Waters") was, as his name implied, given the region of the great lakes and the headwaters of the Nile.

• Farther north, in the grazing plateau of the Sudan, the youngest son, DUMU.ZI ("Son Who is Life"), whose nickname was "The Herder," was given reign.

"The identity of yet another son is in dispute among the scholars (we shall offer our own solution later on). But there is no doubt who the sixth son - actually Enki’s firstborn and legal heir - was: He was MAR.DUK ("Son of the Pure Mound"). Because one of his fifty epithets (as "All Powerful" or "Awesome") were applied to diverse deities, and Asar meaning "All Seeing" was also the epithet-name of the Assyrian god Ashur.

"In fact, we find more similarities between the Babylonian Marduk and the Egyptian god Ra: the former was the son of Enki, the latter of Ptah, being in our view one and the same, whereas Osiris was great-grandson of Ra and thus of a much later generation than either Ra or Marduk. In fact there is found in Sumerian texts scattered, but persistent, evidence supporting our belief that the god called Ra by the Egyptians and Marduk by the Mesopotamians was one and the same deity. Thus, a self-laudatory hymn to Marduk (tablet Ashur/4125) declares that one of the epithets was "The god IM.KUR.GAR RA" - "Ra Who Beside the Mountainland Abides."

"Indeed, as we shall soon show, Marduk’s rise to prominence began in Egypt, where its best-known monument - the Great Pyramid of Giza - had played a crucial role in his turbulent career. But the Great God of Egypt, Marduk/Ra, yearned to rule the whole Earth, and to do so from the olden "Navel of the Earth" in Mesopotamia. It was this ambition that led him to abdicate the divine throne of Egypt in favor of his children and grandchildren.

"Little did he know that this would lead to two Pyramid Wars and to his own near death.

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