Chapter Seven
WHEN EARTH WAS DIVIDED
 

""And the sons of Noah that came out of the Ark were Shem, Ham and Japhet . . . these were the three sons of Noah of whom all the Earth was overspread."

"Thus is the biblical tale of the Deluge followed by the recital of the Table of Nations (Genesis 10), a unique document, at first doubted by scholars because it listed then unknown nation states, then taken apart critically, and finally - after a century and a half of archaeological discoveries - amazing in its accuracy. It is a document that holds a wealth of reliable historical, geographical, and political information concerning the rise of mankind’s remnants from the mud and desolation following the Deluge, to the heights of civilizations and empires.

Mr. Sitchin at this point goes through the descendants of the three sons, making some interesting points:

"Leaving the all important line of Shem to the last, the Table of Nations begins with the descendants of Japhet ("The Fair One") and calls attention to:

"....While the later generations had thus spread to coastal areas and islands, the unnoticed fact was that all the first seven nations/sons corresponded to the highlands of Asia Minor, The Black Sea and the Caspian Sea areas - highlands that were habitable soon after the Deluge, unlike the lower coastal areas and islands that could become habitable only much later.

"The descendants of Ham ("He Who is Hot" and also "The Dark-Hued One").... correspond to the African nation-lands of Nubia, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Lybia as the core nations of African resettlement, again beginning with the topographically higher areas, then spreading to the lowlands.

""And Shem, the father of all who descended of Eber, also had offspring; he was the elder brother of Japhet." The first nation-sons of Shem were "Elam and Ashur, Arpakhshad and Lud and Aram," nation-states that encompassed the highlands arching from the Persian Gulf in the south to the Mediterranean Sea in the northwest and bordering the great Land-Between-the-Rivers, which was as yet not habitable. Those were the lands one could call the Spaceport Lands:

• Mesopotamia, where the pre-Diluvial spaceport had been

• the Cedar Mountain, where the Landing Place remained functioning

• the Land of Shalem, where the post-Diluvial Mission Control Center was to be established

• the adjoining Sinai peninsula, site of the future spaceport

The name of the forefather of all these nations, Shem - meaning "Sky Chamber" - was thus quite appropriate.

"The broad division of mankind into three branches, as related in the Bible, followed not only the geography and topography of the areas to which man had spread, it also followed the division of the Earth between the descendants of Enlil and the descendants of Enki.

"....Scholars have recognized an abrupt change in human culture about 11,000 B.C. - the time of the Deluge, according to our findings - and have named that era of domestication Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age). Circa 7400 B.C. - exactly 3,600 years later - another abrupt advancement has been recognized. Scholars have named it Neolithic ("New Stone Age"); but its principal feature was the switch from stone to clay and the appearance of pottery. And then, "suddenly and inexplicable" - but exactly 3,600 years later - there blossomed out (circa 3800 B.C.) in the plain between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers the high civilization of Sumer. It was followed, circa 3100 B.C., by the civilization of the Nile River; and circa 2800 B.C., the third civilization of antiquity, that of the Indus River, made its appearance. These were the three regions allotted to mankind; of them evolved the nations of the Near East, Africa, and Indo-Europe - a division faithfully recorded in the Old Testament’s Table of Nations.

"All that, Sumerian chronicles held, was the result of deliberate decisions by the Anunnaki:

The Anunnaki who decree the fates
sat exchanging their counsels
regarding the Earth.
The four regions they created.

"....Three regions were alloted to mankind’s three civilizations; the fourth was retained by the Anunnaki for their own use. It was given the name TIL.MUN, "Land of the Missiles." in The Stairway to Heaven we provided the evidence identifying Tilmun with the Sinai peninsula.

"Although as far as human habitation was concerned, it was the descendants of Shem - "Sand Dwellers" in Egyptian scriptures - who would reside in the unrestricted areas of the peninsula, when it came to alloting the territory among the Anunnaki, profound differences arose. Control of the site of the post Diluvial spaceport was tantamount to control all the links between Earth and Nibiru, as the experiences with Kumarbi and Zu had so clearly shown. In the rekindled rivalry between the clans of Enlil and Enki, a neutral authority over the Land of the Missiles was called for.

"The solution was ingenious. Of equal lineage with them was their sister Sud. As a daughter of Anu, she bore the title NIN.MAH ("Great Lady"). She was one of the original group of Great Anunnaki who were pioneers on Earth, a member of the Pantheon of Twelve. She bore a son to Enlil, a daughter to Enki, and was lovingly called Mammi ("Mother of the Gods"). She helped create Man. With her medical skills she saved many a life and was also known as NIN.TI ("Lady Life). But she never had her own dominion. To make Tilmun her domain was an idea that no one opposed.

"....But although an abode was made for Sud in one of Mesopotamian’s rebuilt sites, she decided to go and take personal possession of the mountainous region. With all her attributes of status and knowledge, she always played secondary role. When she came to Earth she was young and beautiful; now she was old and nicknamed "The Cow" behind her back. So now that she was given her own domain, she decided to go there. Proudly she declared,

"A Mistress I am now! Alone will I stay there, reigning for ever!"

"Unable to dissuade her, Ninurta applied his experience in damming and channeling waters to make his mother’s new mountain region livable.... tablet IX of the "Feats and exploits of Ninurta":

Since you, noble lady,
alone to the Land of Landing had gone,
Since to the Land of Casting Down
unafraid you went -
A dam I shall heap up for you,
so that the Land may have a mistress.

Its valleys shall be verdant with vegetation,
Its slopes shall produce honey and wine for you,
Shall produce . . . zabalum-trees amd boxwood;
its terraces shall be adorned with fruit as a garden;
The Harsag shall provide you with the fragrance of the gods, shall provide you with the shiny lodes;
Its mines will as tribute copper and tin give you;
Its mountains shall multiply cattle large and small;
The Harsag shall bring forth the four-legged creature.

"This is indeed a befitting description of the Sinai peninsula: a land of mines, a major source in antiquity of copper, turquoise, and other minerals; a source of the acacia wood, which was used for temple furnishings; a verdant place wherever water was available; a place where flocks could graze. Is it an accident that the principal winter-river of the peninsula is still called el Arish - "The Husbandman" - the very nickname (Urash) of Ninurta?

"Making a home for his mother in the Sinai’s southern region of high granite peaks, Ninurta bestowed on her a new title: NIN.HAR.SAG ("The Lady of the Head Mountain"); it was the title by which Sud was to be called ever since.

"....To understand the grand post-Diluvial design, we must first review the manner in which the pre-Diluvial spaceport and its Landing Corridor were developed.

"The Anunnaki first selected as their focal point the twin-peaked Mount Ararat....

"The next natural features were the Euphrates River and the Persian Gulf....

"Drawing an imaginary north-south line from Mount Ararat, the Anunnaki determined that the spaceport shall be where the line intercepted the river....

"Then, diagonally to it from the direction of the Persian Gulf - at a precise angle of forty-five degrees - they drew the Landing Path....

"They then laid out their first settlements so as to mark out a Landing Corridor on both sides of the Landing Path....

"In the center point, Nippur was established as a Mission Control Center;

"All the other settlements were equidistant from it.

"The post-Diluvial space facilities were planned on the same principles.

The reader can review the building of the post-Diluvial Spaceport and Landing Corridor HERE

"By suggesting that the great pyramids of Giza were not built by Pharaohs but by the Anunnaki millennia earlier, we of course contradict long-held theories concerning these pyramids.

"The theory of nineteenth-century Egyptologists, that the Egyptian pyramids, including the unique three of Giza, were erected by a succession of Pharaohs as grandiose tombs for themselves, has long been disproven: no one of them was found to contain the body of the Pharaoh who was their known or presumed builder.

"....For a while it was believed that proof had been found in the smaller one of the three pyramids of Giza and the identity of the Pharaoh who had built it established. The credit for this was claimed by a Colonel Howard Vyse and his two assistants, who claimed to have discovered within the pyramid the coffin and mummified remains of the Pharaoh Menkara. The fact, however - known to scholars for some time now but for some reason still hardly publicized - is that neither the wooden coffin nor the skeletal remains were authentic. Someone - undoubtedly that Colonel Vyse and his cronies - had brought into the pyramid a coffin dating from about 2,000 years after Menkara had lived, and bones from the even much later Christian times, and put the two together in an unabashed archaeological fraud.

Earlier, Mr. Sitchin explained that inscriptions of the supposed Pharaoh to have built the pyramid (Pharaoh Khufu - Cheops) had been "discovered," but these also proved to be a forgery. He continues:

"....In The Stairway to Heaven we have put together substantial evidence to show that the inscription was a forgery, perpetrated by its "discoverers." At the end of 1983, a reader of that book came forward to provide us with family records showing that his great-grandfather, a master mason named Humphries Brewer, who was engaged by Vyse to help use gunpowder to blast its way inside the pyramid, was an eyewitness to the forgery and, having objected to the deed, was expelled from the site and forced to leave Egypt altogether!

"In The Stairway to Heaven we have shown that Khufu could not have been the builder of the Great Pyramid because he had already referred to it as existing in his time in a stela he had erected near the pyramids; even the Sphinx, supposedly erected by next-after successor of Khufu, is mentioned in that inscription.

"....The whole Giza complex - pyramids and Sphinx - had thus already existed when kingship began in Egypt; its builders were not and could not have been the Pharaohs of the sixth dynasty.

"The other pyramids of Egypt - smaller, primitive by comparison, some fallen even before completion, all crumbling - had indeed been built by various Pharaohs; not as tombs, nor as cenotaphs (monumental symbolic tombs), but in emulation of the gods. For it was held and believed in antiquity that the Giza pyramids and the Sphinx that accompanies them show the way to the Stairway to Heaven - the Spaceport - in the Sinai peninsula.

"....The three pyramids of Giza, we have concluded, were built by first erecting the smaller Third Pyramid as a scale model. Then, in keeping with the preference for twin-peaked focal points, the two large pyramids were erected, although the Second Pyramid is smaller than the Great Pyramid, it appears to be of the same height; this is because it is built on somewhat higher ground, so that to achieve the same height, it need not to be as tall as the first one.

"Apart from its incomparable size, the Great Pyramid is also unique in that, in addition to the descending passage that is found in all the other pyramids, it has a unique Ascending Passage, a level Corridor, two Upper Chambers, and a series of narrow compartments. The uppermost chamber is reached via an incredibly elaborate Grand Gallery and an Antechamber that could be sealed with one pull of a cord. The uppermost chamber contained - still does - an unusual hollowed-out stone block whose fashioning required amazing technology and which rang out as a bell; above the chamber are the narrow series of low and ragged spaces, offering extreme resonance.

"What was the purpose of all that?

"....When Mesopotamia was reinhabited and Nippur was reestablished, the abode of Enlil and Ninlil there was a large temple surrounded by courtyards, with gates through which the worshippers could enter. It was no longer forbidden territory; the space-related functions, as the Spaceport itself, had shifted elsewhere.

"....Not recognizing the immense antiquity of the Giza pyramids or the identity of their true builders, scholars have also been puzzled by this apparent reference to an Ekur ("House Which is Like a Mountain") far from Sumer. Indeed, if one is to follow accepted interpretations of Mesopotamian texts, no one in Mesopotamia was ever aware of the existence of the Egyptian pyramids. None of the Mesopotamian kings who invaded Egypt, none of the merchants who traded with her, none of the emissaries who had visited there - not one of them had noticed these colossal monuments . . .

"Could that be possible?

"We suggest that the Giza monuments were known in Sumer and Akkad. We suggest that the Great Pyramid was the post-Diluvial Ekur, of which the Mesopotamian texts did speak at length, (as we shall show soon). And we suggest that ancient Mesopotamian drawings depicted the pyramids during their construction and after they had been completed!

"We have already shown how the Mesopotamian "pyramids" - the ziggurats or stage-towers - looked like. We find completely different structures on some of the most archaic Sumerian depictions. In some we see the construction of a structure with a square base and triangular sides - a smooth-sided pyramid. Other descriptions show a completed pyramid with the serpent symbol clearly locating it in an Enki territory. And yet another endows the completed pyramid with wings, to indicate its space-related function. This depiction, of which several were found, shows the pyramid together with other amazingly accurate features: a crouching Sphinx facing toward the Place of Reeds; another Sphinx on the other side of the Lake of Reeds, supporting the suggestion in Egyptian texts that there was another, facing the Sphinx in the Sinai peninsula. Both the pyramid and the Sphinx near it are located by a river, as the Giza complex is indeed located by the Nile. And beyond all that is the body of water on which the horned gods are sailing, just as the Egyptians had said that their gods had from the south, via the Red Sea.
 

"The inevitable conclusion, then, is that the Great Pyramid was known in Mesopotamia, if for no other reason than because it was built by the same Anunnaki who had built the original Ekur in Nippur, and likewise and quite logically, it, too, was called by them E.KUR - "House Which is Like a Mountain." Like its predecessor, the Great Pyramid of Giza was built with mysterious dark chambers and was equipped with instruments for guiding the shuttlecraft to the post-Diluvial Spaceport in the Sinai. And, to assure its neutrality, the Pyramid was put under the patronage of Ninharsag.

"Our solution gives meaning to an otherwise enigmatic poem exalting Ninharsag as mistress of the "House With a Pointed Peak" - a pyramid:

House bright and dark of Heaven and Earth,
for the rocketships put together;
E.KUR, House of the Gods with pointed peak;
For Heaven-to-Earth it is greatly equipped.
House whose interior glows with a reddish Light of Heaven,
pulsating a beam which reaches far and wide;
Its awesomeness touches the flesh.
Awesome ziggurat, lofty mountain of mountains -
Thy creation is great and lofty,
men cannot understand it.

"The function of this "House of the Gods with Pointed Peak" is then made clear: it was a "House of Equipment" serving to "bring down to rest" the astronauts "who see and orbit," a "great landmark for the lofty Shems" (the "sky chambers"):

House of Equipment, lofty house of Eternity:
Its foundation are stones [which reach] the water;
Its great circumference is set in the clay.
House whose parts are skilfully woven together;
House, the rightness of whose howling
The Great-Ones-Who-See-and-Orbit brings down the rest . . .
Mountain by which Utu ascends.
[House] whose deep insides men cannot penetrate . . .
Anu has magnified it.

In the book, more descriptions of several parts of the pyramid are given, followed by,

"....the laudatory text provides information regarding the functions and location of the structure:

On this day the Mistress herself speaks truly;
The Goddess of the Rocketships , the Pure Great Lady, praises herself:
"I am the Mistress, Anu has determined my destiny;
the daughter of Anu am I.
Enlil has added to me a great destiny;
his sister-princess am I.
The gods have given unto my hand
the pilot-guiding instruments of Heaven-Earth;
Mother of the sky-chambers am I.
Ereshkigal alloted to me the place-of-opening
of the pilot-guiding instruments;
The great landmark,
the mountain by which Utu rises,
I have established as my dais."

"....Ninharsag....to the Egyptians she was known as "Hat-hor. Texbooks will tell us that the name means "House of Horus"; but that is only superficially correct. The reading stems from the hieroglyphic writing of the name depicting a house and a falcon, the falcon having been the symbol of Horus because he could soar as a falcon. What the goddess’s name literally meant was: "Goddess Whose Home is Where the ’Falcons’ Are," where the astronauts make their home: Spaceport.

"....All the temples and stelas erected by Egyptian Pharaohs in the peninsula were dedicated exclusively to this goddess. And, like Ninharsag in her later years, Hathor, too, was nicknamed "The Cow" and was depicted with Cow’s horns.

"But was Hathor also - as we have claimed for Ninharsag - Mistress of the Great Pyramid?  That, amazingly but not surprisingly, she was.

The Inventory Stela (click image right) states:

Live Horus Mezdau.
To king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu,
Life is given!
He founded the House of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid
beside the House of the Sphinx.

"At his time, then, Isis (the wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus) was considered to have been the "Mistress of the Pyramid"

"But as the continuing inscription makes clear, she was not the pyramid’s first mistress:

Live Horus Mezdau.
To king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu,
Life is given!
For his divine mother Isis,
Mistress of the "The Western Mountain of Hathor,"
he made [this] writing on a stela.

"Thus, was not only the Pyramid a "Mountain of Hathor" - the exact parallel of the Sumerian "House Which is Like a Mountain" - but also it was her western mountain, implying that she also had an eastern one. That, we know from the Sumerian sources, was the Har-Sag, the highest peak in the Sinai peninsula.

"In spite of the rivalry and suspicions between the two divine dynasties, there is little doubt that the works of constructing the Spaceport and the control and guidance facilities fell into the hands of Enki and his descendants. Ninurta proved himself capable of damming and irrigation works: Utu/Shamash knew how to command and operate the landing and take-off facilities; but only Enki, the master engineer and scientist who had been through all this before, had the require know-how and experience for planning the massive construction works and supervising their execution.

"There is not even a hint in Sumerian texts that describe the achievements of Ninurta and Utu that either one of them had planned or engaged in space-related construction works. When Ninurta, in later times, called upon a Sumerian king to build him a ziggurat with a special enclosure for his Divine Bird, it was another god, accompanying Ninurta, who gave the king the architectural plans and building instructions. On the other hand, several texts reported that Enki had passed to his son Marduk the scientific knowledge he had possessed. The texts report a conversation between father and son, after Marduk had approached his father with a difficult question:

Enki answered his son Marduk:
"My son, what is it you do not know?
What more could I give to you?
Marduk, what is it that you do not know?
What could I give you in addition?
Whatever I know, you know!"

"Since the similarities between Ptah and Enki as the father, and Marduk and Ra as the son, are so strong, we should not be surprised at all to find that Egyptian texts did connect Ra with space facilities and with related construction works. In this he was assisted by Shu and Tefnut, Geb and Nut, and Thoth the god of magical things. The Sphinx, the "divine guide" that showed the way eastward exactly along the 30^th parallel, bore the features of "Hor-Akhti ("Falcon of the Horizon") the epithet for Ra.

This chapter concludes, after Mr. Sitchin relates another Egyptian tale of Pharaoh Khufu, his three sons and the "secret of the Chambers of Thoth" in the Great Pyramid (already blocked and hidden in Khufu’s time!) When Khufu, through a sage found out he could not open the Chamber, but one of his future descendants would, decreed so by Ra, Khufu then built, near the Sphinx, a temple dedicated to the Mistress of the Pyramid.

"The circle of evidence is thus complete. Sumerian and Egyptian texts confirm each other and our conclusions:

The same neutral goddess was the mistress of Sinai’s highest peak and of the artificial mountain erected in Egypt, both to serve as anchors of the Landing Corridor.

"But the Anunnaki’s desire to keep the Sinai peninsula and its facilities neutral did not prevail for long. Rivalry and love tragically combined to upset the status quo; and the divided Earth was soon embroiled in the Pyramid Wars.

Return

Chapter Eight
THE PYRAMID WARS
 

"In the year 363 His Majesty Ra, the holy one, the Falcon of the Horizon, the Immortal who forever lives, was in the land of Khenn. He was accompanied by his warriors, for the enemies had conspired against their lord. . . Horus, the Winged Measurer, came to the boat of Ra. He said to his forefather: "O Falcon of the Horizon, I have seen the enemy conspire against thy Lordship, to trade the Luminous Crown unto themselves. . . Then Ra, the holy one, the Falcon of the Horizon, said unto Horus, the Winged Measurer: ’Lofty issue of Ra, my begotten: Go quickly, knock down the enemy whom you have seen.’ "

"Thus began the tale inscribed on the temple walls in the ancient Egyptian city of Edfu. It is the tale we believe, of what could only be called the First Pyramid War - a war that had its roots in the never-ending struggle for control over Earth and its space facilities and in the shenanigans of the Great Anunnaki, especially Enki/Ptah and his son Ra/Marduk.

"....Although the Sinai peninsula, where the Spaceport was established, and the Giza pyramids were supposed to remain neutral under the aegis of Ninharsag, it is doubtful whether the builders of these facilities - Enki and his descendants - had really any intentions of relinquishing control over these installations. A Sumerian text, which begins with an idyllic description, has been named by scholars a "Paradise Myth." Its ancient name was Enki and Ninharsag, and it is, in fact, a tale of a deal between Enki and his half-sister Ninharsag pertaining to the control of Egypt and the Sinai peninsula - of the pyramids and the Spaceport.

"The tale’s time is after Earth was apportioned between the Anunnaki, with Tilmun (the Sinai peninsula) granted to Ninharsag and Egypt as Enki’s clan.

"....Enki’s real intention was to obtain a son by his half-sister; but the offspring was a daughter.

Enki later committed incest with his daughter and grand-daughter. Eight gods - six female and two male were born to Enki. Ninharsag angered, stopped him with her nursing skills making Enki sick.

Eventually, Ninharsag changed her mind, and:

"....After she cured his body part by part, Enki proposed that the two of them as masters of Egypt and the Sinai assign tasks, spouses, and territories to the eight young gods:

Let Abu be the master of the plants;
Let Nintulla be the lord of Magan;
Let Ninsutu marry Ninazu;
Let Ninkashi be she who sates the thirsts;
Let Nazi marry Nindara;
Let Azimua marry Ningishzida;
Let Nintu be the queen of the months;
Let Enshag be the lord of Tilmun!

"Egyptian theological texts from Memphis likewise held that "there came into being" eight gods from the heart, tongue, teeth, lips and other parts of the body of Ptah.

"....If, as it appears, these tales had a basis in fact, then the rivalries that such confused parentages brought about could only be aggravated by the sexual shenanigans attributed to Ra as well. The most significant among these was the assertion that Osiris was truly the son of Ra and not of Geb, conceived when Ra had come by stealth unto his own granddaughter. This as we have earlier related, lay at the core of the Osiris-Seth conflict.

"Why had Seth, to whom Upper Egypt had been alloted by Geb, coveted Lower Egypt, which was granted to Osiris? Egyptologists have offered explanations in terms of geography, the land’s fertility, etc. But as we have shown, there was one more factor - one that, from the god’s point of view, was more important than how many crops a region could grow: The Great Pyramid and its companions at Giza; whoever controlled them shared in the control of the space activities, of the coming and goings of the gods, of the vital supply link to and from the Twelfth Planet....

""In the year 363" following the disappearance of Osiris, the young Horus became the avenger of his father and launched a war against Seth - the First Pyramid War. It was, as we have seen, also the first war in which the gods involved men in their struggles.

"Supported by other Enki-gods reigning in Africa, the avenger Horus began the hostilities in Upper Egypt. Aided by the Winged Disk that Thoth had fashioned for him, Horus persistently advanced northward, toward the pyramids.

After fierce battles Horus became victorious, with Seth hiding in one battle, and being seriously wounded in another.

"So the Council of the Gods gave the whole of Egypt "as heritage... to Horus."

"And what had become of Seth, one of the eight gods descended from Ptah?

"He was banished from Egypt and took abode in Asiatic lands to the east, including a place that enabled him "to speak out from the sky." Was he the god called Enshag in the Sumerian tale of Enki and Ninharsag, the one to whom Tilmun (the Sinai peninsula) was alloted by the two lovemakers? If so, then he was the Egyptian (Hamitic) who had extended his domain over the land of Shem later known as Canaan.

"It was in this outcome of the First Pyramid War that there lies an understanding of biblical tales. Therein lay the causes of the Second Pyramid War.

"In addition to the Spaceport and the guidance facilities, there was also a need after the Deluge for a new Mission control Center, to replace the one that had existed before in Nippur. We have shown (in The Stairway to Heaven) that the need to equidistance this center from the other space-related facilities dictated its locating on Mount Moriah ("The Mount of Directing"), the site of the future city of Jerusalem.

"That site, by both Mesopotamian and biblical accounts, was located in the lands of Shem - a dominion of the Enlilites. Yet it ended up under an illegal occupation by the line of Enki, the Hamitic gods, and by the descendants of the Hamitic Canaan.

"....The tale in the Book of Genesis leaves many aspects unexplained. Why was Canaan accursed if it was his father who had accidentally transgressed? Why was his punishment to be a slave of Shem and to the god of Shem? And how were the gods involved in the crime and its punishment? As one reads the supplemental information in the ex-biblical Book of Jubilees, it becomes clear that the real offense was the illegal occupation of Shem’s territory.

"....Seth’s trespass into Canaan meant that all the space-related sites - Giza, the Sinai peninsula, Jerusalem - came under the control of the Enki gods. It was a development in which the Enlilites could not acquiesce. And so, soon thereafter - 300 years later, we believe - they deliberately launched a war to dislodge the illegal occupiers from the vital space facilities. This Second Pyramid War is described in several texts , some found in the original Sumerian, others in Akkadian and Assyrian renderings. Scholars refer to these texts as the "Myths of Kur" - "myths" of the Mountain Lands; they are, in fact, poetically rendered chronicles of the war to control the space-related peaks - Mount Moriah; the Harsag (Mount St. Katherine) in the Sinai; and the artificial mount, the Ekur (the Great Pyramid) in Egypt.

"....The Hamitic gods were beaten there, but they retreated to continue the war from the mountain lands of Africa. Ninurta rose to the challenge.... in this final phase the war was fought at the Great Pyramid; the last and impregnable stronghold of Ninurta’s opponents; there the Hamitic gods were besieged until they run out of food and water.

"This war, which we call the Second Pyramid War was commemorated extensively in Sumeria records - both written chronicles and pictorial depictions:

King, the glory of thy day is lordly;
Ninurta, Foremost, possessor of the Divine Powers,
who into the throes of the Mountainlands stepped forth.
Like a flood which cannot be stopped,
the Enemyland as with a girdle you tightly bound.
Foremost one, who in battle vehemently enters;
Hero, who in his hand the Divine Brilliant Weapon carries;
Lord: the Mountainland you subdued as your creature.
Ninurta, royal son, whose father to him had given might;
Hero: in fear of thee, the city has surrender . . .
O mighty one -
the Great Serpent, the heroic god,
you tore away from all the mountains.

"Thus extolling Ninurta, his feats, and his Brilliant Weapon, the poem also describes the location of the conflict ("the Mountainlands") and his principal enemy "The Great Serpent," leader of the Egyptian deities. The Sumerian poem identifies this adversary several times as Azag and once refers to him as Ashar, both well known epithets for Marduk, thereby establishing the two principal sons of Enlil and Enki - Ninurta and Marduk -as the leaders of the opposing camps in the Second Pyramid War.

"Ninurta had built a ship for himself, after his original one had been destroyed in an accident. It was called IM.DU.GUD, usually translated "Divine Storm Bird" but which literally means "That Which Like Heroic Storm Runs"; we know from various texts that its wingspan was about seventy five feet.

"Archaic drawings depicted it as a mechanically constructed "bird," with two wing surfaces supported by cross beams; an undercarriage reveals a series of round openings, perhaps air intakes for jetlike engines. This aircraft, from millennia ago, bears a remarkable resemblance not only to the early biplanes of the modern air age, but also an incredible likeness to the sketch made in 1497 by Leonardo da Vinci, depicting his concept of a man-powered flying machine.

"The Imdugud was the inspiration for Ninurta’s emblem - a heroic lion-headed bird rested on two lions or sometimes on two bulls. It was in this "crafted ship" - a manufactured vehicle - "that which in war destroys the princely abodes," that Ninurta soared into the skies during the battles of Second Pyramid War.

Ishtar, the goddess, was also involved in this war:

"....In the clash of weapons, in the feats of heroship, Ishtar her arm did not hold back." As the two (leading) gods saw her, they shouted encouraging her: "Advance hither without stopping! Put your foot firmly on the Earth! In the mountains we await thee!"

"....The partial verses suggest that after the intensified attack with Ishtar’s assistance, there arose a great cry and lamentation in the Enemyland. "Fear of Ninurta’s Brilliance encompassed the land," and their residents had to use substitutes instead of wheat and barley "to grind and mill as flour."

"Under this onslaught the Enemy forces kept retreating south. It was then that the war assumed its ferocious and vicious character. When Ninurta led the Enlilite gods in an attack on the heartland of Nergal’s African domain and his temple-city, Meslam. They scorched the earth and made the rivers run red with blood of the innocent bystanders - the men, women, and children of the Abzu.

"....Those who survived the attack on the city escaped to the surrounding mountains. But Ninurta "with the Weapon That Smites threw fire upon the mountains; the godly Weapon of the Gods, whose Tooth is bitter, smote down the people."

"....Overwhelmed by the merciless onslaught, Azag called on his followers to show no resistance....

"Ninurta took the lack of resistance as a sign of victory.... but the claim of victory was premature. By his nonresistance tactics, Azag had escaped defeat. The capital city was indeed destroyed, but not so the leaders of the Enemy. Soberly, the text Lugal-e observed: "The scorpion of Kurt Ninurta did not annihilate." Instead, the enemy Gods retreated into the Great Pyramid, where "The Wise Craftsman" - Enki? Thoth? - raised up a protective wall "which the Brilliance could not match," a shield through which the death rays could not penetrate.

"Our knowledge of this final and most dramatic phase of the Second Pyramid War is augmented by texts from "the other side." Just as Ninurta’s followers composed hymns to him, so did the followers of Nergal. Some of the latter, which have also been discovered by archaeologists, were put together in Gebete und Hymnem on Nergal by J. Bullenrucher.

"Recalling the heroic feats of Nergal in this war, the text relates how, as the other gods found themselves hemmed in within the Giza complex, Nergal - "Lofty Dragon Beloved of Ekur" - "at night stole out" and, carrying awesome weapons and accompanied by his lieutenants, broke through the encirclement to reach the Great Pyramid (the Ekur). Reaching it at night, he entered through "the locked doors which by themselves can open." A roar of welcome greeted him as he entered:

Divine Nergal,
Lord who by night stole out,
had come to the battle!
He cracks his whip, his weapons clank...
He who is welcome, his mighty is immense;
Like a dream at the doorstep he appeared.
Divine Nergal, the One Who Is Welcome:
Fight the enemy of Ekur,
lay hold on the Wild One from Nippur.

"....As Nergal joined the defenders of the Great Pyramid ("the Formidable House Which Is Raised Like a Heap"), he strengthened his defenses through the various ray-emitting crystals (mineral "stones") positioned within the pyramid....

"With the pyramid’s defenses thus enhanced, Ninurta resorted to another tactic, he called upon Utu/Shamash to cut off the pyramid’s water supply by tampering with the "watery stream" that ran near its foundations....

"....the besieged gods did their best to ward off their attackers.... now one of the younger gods - Horus, we believe - trying to sneak out of the Great Pyramid disguised as a ram, was struck by Ninurta’s Brilliant Weapon and lost the sight of his eyes. An Olden God then cried to Ninharsag - reputed for her medical wonders - to save the young god’s life....

"It was then, responding to the "outcry," that Ninharsag decided to intervene to stop the fighting.

"The ninth tablet of the Lugal-e text begins with the statement of Ninharsag, her address to the Enlilite commander, her own son Ninurta, "the son of Enlil . . . the Legitimate Heir whom the sister-wife had brought forth."

To the House Where Cord-Measuring begins,
Where Asar his eyes to Anu raised,
I shall go.
The cord I will cut off,
for the sake of the warring gods.

"Her destination was the "House Where Cord-Measuring begins," the Great Pyramid!

"Ninurta was at first astounded by her decision to "enter alone the Enemyland"; but since her mind was made up, he provided her with "clothes that should make her unafraid" (of the radiation left by the beams?). As she neared the pyramid, she addressed Enki: "She shouts to him... she beseeches him." The exchanges are lost by the breaks in the tablet; but Enki agreed to surrender the pyramid to her:

The House that is like a heap,
that which I have as a pile raised up -
its mistress you may be.

"There was, however, a condition: The surrender was subject to a final resolution of the conflict until "the destiny-determining time" shall come. Promising to relay Enki’s conditions, Ninharsag went to address Enlil.

Mr. Sitchin now continues narrating from a text titled I Sing the Song of the Mother of the Gods, first reported by P. Dhorme in his study La Souveraine des Dieux. "It is a poetic text in praise of Ninmah ("the Great Lady") and her role as Mammi ("Mother of the Gods") on both sides of the battle lines.

"....Asserting that she was acting with the approval of Anu, Ninharsag took the surrender offer of Enki to Enlil. She met him in the presence of Adad (while Ninurta remained at the battlefield).

"....If she wants to bring about a cessation of hostilities, Adad said, let her call discussions on the basis that the Enlilites are about to win.

Adad and Enlil wanted Enki to attend the discussions as well; so they sent Ninharsag to fetch him. Assurance for his and his son’s safety was obtained.

"....She conducted him (Enki) and the other defenders of the Great Pyramid to the Harsag, her abode. Ninurta and his warriors watched the Enkites depart. And the great and impregnable structure stood unoccupied, silent.

"Nowadays the visitor to the Great Pyramid finds its passages and chambers bare and empty, its complex inner construction apparently purposeless, its neaches and noocks meaningless.

"It has been so ever since the first men had entered the pyramid. But it was not so when Ninurta entered it - circa 8670 B.C. according to our calculations. "Unto the radiant place," yielded by its defenders, Ninurta had entered, the Sumerian text relates. And what he had done after he had entered changed the Great Pyramid not only from within and without but also the course of human affairs.

"When, for the first time ever, Ninurta went into the "House which is like a Mountain," he must have wondered what he would find inside. Conceived by Enki/Ptah, planned by Ra/Marduk, built by Geb, equipped by Thoth, defended by Nergal, what mysteries of space guidance, what secret of impregnable defense did it hold?

Ninurta found inside the pyramid, all the features given along these pages, and of course many more are given in the actual books of Mr. Sitchin.

"....Escorted by the Chief Mineralmaster, Ninurta inspected the array of "stones" and instruments. As he stopped by each one of them, he determined its destiny - to be smashed up and destroyed, to be taken away for display, or to be installed as instruments elsewhere. We know of these "destinies" and of the order in which Ninurta had stopped by the stones, from the text inscribed on tablets 10-13 of the epic poem Lugal-e. It is by following and correctly interpreting this text that the mystery of the purpose and functions of many features of the pyramid’s inner structure can be finally understood.

"Going up the Ascending Passage, Ninurta reached its junction with the imposing Grand Gallery and a Horizontal Passage. Ninurta followed the Horizontal Passage first, reaching a large chamber with a corbelled roof. Called "vulva" in the Ninharsag poem, this chamber’s axis lay exactly on the east-west center line of the pyramid. Its emission ("an outpouring which is like a lion whom no one dares attack") came from a stone fitted into a niche that was hollowed out in the east wall. It was the SHAM ("Destiny") Stone. Emitting a red radiance which Ninurta "saw in the darkness," it was the pulsating heart of the pyramid. But it was anathema to Ninurta, for during the battle, when he was aloft, this stone’s "strong power" was used " to grab to kill me, with a tracking which kills to seize me." He ordered it "pulled out... be taken apart... and to obliteration be destroyed."

Among other features, Ninurta encountered:

"....Whereas in the narrow passages only " a deem green light glowed," the Gallery glittered in multicolored lights - "its vault is like a rainbow, the darkness ends there." The many-hued glows were emitted by twenty-seven pairs of diverse crystal stones that were evenly spaced along the whole length of each side of the Gallery.... each crystal stone emitted a different radiance, giving the place its rainbow effect....

Ninurta’s priority was the uppermost Grand Chamber and its pulsating stone.... he reached the Antichamber of unique design...."There three portcullises - "the bolt, the bar and the lock" of the Sumerian poem - elaborately fitted into grooves in the walls and floor, hermetically sealed off the uppermost Grand Chamber: "to foe it is not opened...." But now, by pulling some cords, the portcullises were raised, and Ninurta passed through.

"He was now in the pyramid’s most restricted ("sacred") chamber, from which the guiding "Net" (radar?) was "spread out" to "survey Heaven and Earth...." It responded to vibrations with bell-like resonance. The heart of the guidance unit was the GUG Stone ("Direction Determining").... Ninurta ordered this stone destroyed: "Then, by the fate-determining Ninurta, on that day was the Gug stone from its hollow taken out and smashed."

"To make sure no one would ever attempt to restore the "Direction Determining" function of the pyramid, Ninurta also ordered the three portcullises removed.

"....As he walked down, Ninurta stopped by each on of them (mineral stones and crystals positioned atop the ramps in the Grand Gallery):

"Several of them Ninurta ordered to be crushed or pulverized; others, which could be used in the Mission Control Center, were ordered given to Shamash; and the rest were carried to Mesopotamia, to be displayed in Ninurta’s temple, in Nippur, and elsewhere as constant evidence of the great victory of the Enlilites over the Enki-gods.

"All this, Ninurta announced, he was doing not only for his sake but for future generations, to:

"Let the fear of thee" - the Great Pyramid - "be removed from my descendants; let their peace be ordained."

Finally there was the Apex Stone of the Pyramid, the UL ("High As The Sky") Stone: "Let the mother’s offspring see it no more," he ordered. And, as the stone was sent crashing down, "let everyone distance himself," he shouted. The "Stones," which were "anathema" to Ninurta, were no more.

Ninurta returned home.... at Nippur.... his comrades urged him.... may thy heart be at rest.... may thy heart become appeased....

"The Second Pyramid War was over, but its ferocity and feats, and Ninurta’s final victory at the pyramids of Giza, were remembered long thereafter in epic and song - and in a remarkable drawing on a cylinder seal, showing Ninurta’s Divine Bird within a victory wreath, soaring in triumph above the two great pyramids.

"And the Great Pyramid itself, bare and void without its apex stone, has been left standing as a mute witness of the defeat of its defenders.

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Chapter Nine
PEACE ON EARTH
 

"How did the Pyramid Wars end?

"They ended as historic wars have ended in historic times: with a peace conference; with the gathering of the combatants, as at the Congress of Vienna (1814 - 1815), which redrew the map of Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, on the Paris Peace Conference that ended World War I (1914 -1918) with the Treaty of Versailles.

"The first inkling that the warring Anunnaki had convened in a similar manner some ten thousand years ago comes from the text which George A. Barton found inscribed on a broken clay-cylinder. It was an Akkadian version of a much earlier Sumerian text; and Barton concluded that the clay cylinder was deposited by the ruler Naram-Sin circa 2300 B.C. when this Akkadian king repaired the platform of Enlil’s temple in Nippur.

"....In spite of damage to the text, especially at the beginning, it is clear that the leading gods gathered in the aftermath of a great and bitter war. We learn that they convened at the Harsag, Ninharsag’s mountain abode in the Sinai, and that she played the role of peacemaker. Yet she is not treated by the text’s author as a really neutral personage: he repeatedly refers to her by the epithet Tsir ("Snake"), which stamped her as an Egyptian/Enkite goddess and convey a derogatory connotation.

"....The Enlilites’ first reaction to Niharsag’s bold initiative was to accuse her of giving aid and comfort to the "demons." Ninharsag denied the accusation: "My House is pure," she answered. But a god whose identity is unclear challenged her sarcastically; "Is the House which is loftier and brightest of all" - the Great Pyramid - also "pure?"

"Of that I cannot speak," Ninharsag answered; "its brilliance Gibil is soldiering."

"After the first accusations and explanations wore off some of the bitterness, a symbolic ceremony of forgiveness was performed. It involved two jars holding waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a ceremony of symbolic baptism making Ninharsag welcome again in Mesopotamia. Enlil touched her with his "bright scepter," and the "power of her was not overthrown."

At Harsag, where all the leading gods had gathered for the "peace conference," and after Ninharsag executed a ceremony of her own, incantations, and extolling the virtues of peace:

"....Enlil was the first to speak. "Removed is the affliction from the face of the Earth," Enlil declared to Enki; "the Great Weapon is lifted up." He agreed to let Enki regain his abode in Sumer: "the E.DIN shall be a place for thy Holy House," with enough land around to bear fruit for the temple and to have seeded fields.

"On hearing this Ninurta objected. "Let it not come!" the "prince of Enlil" shouted.

Ninharsag intervened again, and eventually the negotiations could proceed.

"....And we pick up the tale of the unprecedented encounter between the two warring gods from the text I Sing the Song of the Mother of Gods. First to address the assembled Anunnaki was Enki:

Enki addressed to Enlil words of lauding:

"O one who is foremost among the brothers
Bull of Heaven, who the fate of Mankind holds:
In my lands, desolation is widespread;
All the dwellings are filled with sorrow
by your attacks."

"The first item of the agenda was thus the cessation of hostilities - peace on Earth - and Enlil readily agreed, on condition that the territorial disputes be brought to an end and the lands rightfully belonging to the Enlilites and the people of the line of Shem be vacated by the Enkites. Enki agreed to cede forever these territories:

"I will grant thee the ruler’s position
in the gods’ Restricted Zone;
The Radiant Place, in thy hand I will entrust!"

"In so ceding the Restricted Zone (the Sinai peninsula with its Spaceport) and the Radiant Place (the site of Mission Control Center, the future Jerusalem) Enki had a firm condition. In return for granting Enlil and his offspring eternal rights to those lands and vital sites, the sovereignty of Enki and his descendants over the Giza complex had to be recognized for all time.

"Enlil agreed but not without a condition: the sons of Enki who had brought about the war and used the Great Pyramid for combat purposes should be barred for ruling over Giza, or over the whole of Lower Egypt, for that matter.

Enki announced his decision and made lord of Giza and Lower Egypt, a young son of his, whom he named with the exalted title NIN.GISH.ZI.DA ("Lord of the Artifact of Life")

"....Who was Ningishzidda? Scholars find the information concerning him meager and confusing.... our own conclusion is that he was indeed a son of Enki, conceived during Enki’s and Ereshkigal stormy voyage to the Lower World. As such, he was acceptable to both sides as guardian of the secrets of the pyramid.

"What did the Egyptians called this son of Enki/Ptah? Their "god of the cord who measures the Earth" was Thoth; he was (as the Tales of the Magicians related) the one appointed to be guardian of the secrets of the Giza pyramids. It was Thoth, according to Manetho, who replaced Horus on the throne of Egypt; it happened circa 8670 B.C. - just at the time when the Second Pyramid War had ended. Having thus settled the disputes between them, the great Anunnaki turned to the affairs of mankind.

"As one reads the ancient words it becomes clear that this peace conference dealt not only with the cessation of hostilities and the drawing of binding territorial lines; it also laid the plans for the manner in which the lands would be settled by mankind! We read that Enki "before the feet of the adversary [Enlil] laid the cities that were alloted to him"; Enlil, in turn, "before the feet of his adversary [Enki] the land Sumer he laid out."

"....And with all these matters settled, Enki and his sons departed for their African domains.

But among Enlil’s direct heirs there was dispute.....

"....We learn that at that crucial moment, the rivalry between Ninurta - the legal heir, being the son of Enlil by his half-sister - and Nannar, the first born of Enlil by his official spouse Ninlil, had broken out in full force. Enlil, we are told, contemplated favorably the attributes of Nannar: "A firstborn. . . of beautiful countenance, perfect of limbs, wise without compare." Enlil, "him loved" because he gave him the two all important grandchildren, the twins Utu/Shamash and Inanna/Ishtar, he called Nannar SU.EN - "Multiplying Lord" - an endearing epithet from which there stemmed the Akkadian/Semitic name for Nannar: Sin. But as much as Enlil had favored Nannar, the fact was that it was Ninurta who was the legal heir, he was "Enlil’s foremost warrior," and he led the Enlilites to victory.

"Could one ever imagine, in those far-reaching decisions that were to affect the fate of gods and men for millennia to come, that the female spouses had played such a decisive role? We read of Ningal coming to the aid of her husband (Sin); we see Ninlil being enlisted in persuading the wavering Enlil. But then there entered the scene yet another great goddess - and by her words achieved an unintended decision...

"As Enlil was urged by Ninlil to "follow your heart" rather than his mind, to prefer the firstborn over the legal heir....

at Ninurta’s protests:

"....we learn that Ninharsag threw in her weight behind her son Ninurta....

"....But Ninharsag’s appeal was ill-worded. She meant to appeal as Enlil’s sister in behalf of the child (Ninurta) she bore him; but her call sounded like an appeal to Enki. Enraged, Enlil shouted at her: "Who is this brother of yours that you call? This brother, who an infant made you carry?" And he made a decision favoring the line of Sin. Ever since then, and to this very day, the Land of the Spaceport has been known as Sin’s land - Sinai peninsula.

"As his final act Enlil appointed Sin’s son as the commander of the Mission Control Center:

He called in Shamash
The grandchild of Ninlil.
He took him [by the hand];
In Shulim he placed him.

"Jerusalem - Ur-Shulim, the "City of shulim" - was given to Shamash to command. Its name, SHU.LIM, meant "The supreme Place of the Four Regions," applied to it, possibly the forerunner of the Jewish emblem called the Star of David.

"Replacing the pre-Diluvial Nippur as the post-Diluvial Mission Control Center, Jerusalem also acquired Nippur’s former title of being the Navel of the Earth - the central point in the Divine Grid that made the comings and goings between Earth and Nibiru possible. Emulating the concentric pre-Diluvial plan based on Nippur, the site selected for the "Navel of the Earth" - Mount Moriah - was located on the middle line, the Landing Path, within the Landing Corridor; it was equidistant from the Landing Platform in Baalbek and the Spaceport itself.

"The two anchors of the Landing Corridor also had to be equidistant from Mission Control Center; but here there was a need to make a change in the original plans, for the previous artificially constructed "House Which Is Like a Mountain" - the Great Pyramid - was stripped of its crystals and equipment and was rendered useless by Ninurta.... still precisely on the northwestern corridor line but north of Giza, a new Beacon City, the Egyptians called it the City of Anu.... the Greeks, millennia later called the place Heliopolis... (click image right).

"The shifting of the beacon site at the northwestern anchor of the Landing corridor from Giza to Heliopolis also required a shift in the southeastern anchor, to keep the two anchors equidistant from Mount Moriah.... Mount Umm-Shumar was found precisely on the Corridor line....

"....The construction, manning, and operation of the aerospace facilities in Tilmun and Canaan required new supply routes and protective outposts. The sea lane to Tilmun was improved by the establishment of a port city ("Tilmun City," as distinguished from the "Land Tilmun") on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, probably where the port city of el-Tor still exists. It also led, we believe, to the establishments of the world’s oldest town: Jericho, which was dedicated to Sin (Yeriho in Hebrew) and his celestial symbol, the Moon.

"The age of Jericho has been an enigma that has continually baffled the scholars. They broadly divide man’s advancement (which spread from the Near East) into the Mesolithic ("Middle Stone") Age, which saw the introduction of agriculture and animal domestication circa 11,000 B.C.; a Neolithic ("New Stone") Age 3,600 later, bringing with it villages and pottery; and then, finally, Sumer’s urban civilization, again 3,600 years later. Yet there was Jericho, an urban site occupied and built by unknowns sometime circa 8500 B.C., when man had not yet learned to lead even a village life...

Jericho.... "was protected by a massive wall that surrounded the town (millennia before Joshua!).

"....Who could have built this advanced town so early, who had come to live in such a place, and whom it served as a fortified store city?

"The solution to this enigma lies, in our opinion, in the chronology of the "gods," not of men. It lies in the fact that the incredible first urban settlement in Jericho (from circa 8500 B.C. to 7000 B.C.) exactly matches the period which, according to Manetho, encompassed the reign of Toth in Egypt (from about 8670 to 7100 B.C.) His accession, as we have seen from the Mesopotamian texts, followed the Peace Conference.

"....The period the Egyptians associated with the reign of Thoth was a time of peace among the gods, when the Anunnaki first and foremost established settlements relating to the construction and the protection of the new space facilities.

"The sea lane to Egypt and Tilmun, via the Red Sea, had to be augmented by a land route that could connect Mesopotamia with the Mission Control Center and the Spaceport.

"....The most vital of these, the one that led directly to Mission Control Center in Jerusalem, was the crossing point at Jericho. It was there that the Israelites crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land. It was there, we suggest, that millennia earlier the Anunnaki established a town to guard the crossing point and to supply the travellers with provisions for the continued journey. Until man made Jericho his home, it was an outpost of the gods.

"Would the Anunnaki have built a settlement only on the west side of the Jordan, leaving the more vital eastern side, where the King’s Highway ran, unprotected? It stands to reason that a settlement should have existed on the opposite, eastern side of the Jordan, too.

"....The puzzling place with outstanding remains, was first unearthed in 1929 by an archaeological mission organized by the Vatican’s Pontifical Biblical Institute. The archaeologists, led by Alexis Mallon, were surprised by the high level of civilization found there.... The place is named after the mound where it was found - Tel Ghassul.

"....The principal remains uncovered at Tel Ghassul cover a period when it was occupied by highly advanced settlers from before 4000 B.C. to circa 2000 B.C. (when it was abruptly abandoned).

Several details of Tel Ghassul (Teleilat el-Ghassul) are given in the book, but among the most prominent findings were the painted murals:

"....The archaeologists who had discovered these murals during the 1931-32 and 1932-33 excavations theorized that the rayed object (on a mural, from which a depiction of a person whom apparently had stepped out of an object emitting rays) might have been similar to a most unusual rayed "star" found painted in another building. It was an eight-pointed "star" within a larger eight-pointed "star," culminating in a burst of eight rays (below image). The precise design, employing a variety of geometric shapes, was artificially executed in black, red, white, gray, and combinations thereof; a chemical analysis of the paints used showed that they were not natural substances but sophisticated compounds of twelve to eighteen minerals.

"....There is no evidence of any religious worship whatsoever, no "cult objects," statuettes of gods, etc.... This, we suggest, indicates that it was inhabited not by worshippers but by those who were the subject of worshipping: the "gods" of antiquity, the Anunnaki.

"In fact, we have come upon a similar design in Washington, D.C. It can be seen in the foyer of the headquarters of the National Geographic Society: a floor mosaic of a compass denoting the Society’s interest in the four corners of the Earth and their intermediate points (east, northeast; north, northwest; west, southwest; south, southeast). It was this we believe, that the design’s ancient painters, too, had in mind: to indicate their, and the place’s association with the four regions of the Earth.

At Tell Ghassul’s murals there were also depictions of the already described (in previous books) "Whirlwinds" of the Near Eastern texts.... the "Flying Saucers" of the Anunnaki?

"The Tell Ghassul/Jericho crossing point played important and miraculous roles in several biblical events in the site. It was there that the prophet Elijah crossed the river (to its eastern bank) in order to keep an appointment - at Tell Ghassul? - to be taken aloft by "a chariot of fire . . . in a Whirlwind." It was in that area that at the end of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt, Moses (having been denied by the Lord entry into Canaan proper),

"went up from the plain of Moab" - the area of Tell Ghassul - "unto the Mount of Nebo, to its uppermost peak, which overlooked Jericho; and the Lord showed him all the land: the Gilead up to Dan, and the land of Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh and the whole land of Judea, unto the Mediterranean; and the Negeb and the plain valley of Jericho, the city of datepalms."

It is a description of a view as encompassing as that seen by the archaeologists who stood atop Tell Ghassul.

"Indeed, the Old Testament clearly states that there had been in earlier times settlements of the Anunnaki at the vital approaches to the Sinai peninsula and Jerusalem. Hebron, the city guarding the route between Jerusalem and the Sinai, "was called earlier Kiryat Arba ("Stronghold of Arba"), a Great Man ("king") among the Anakim he was" (Joshua 14:15). The descendants of the Anakim, we are further told, were still residing in the area during the Israelite conquest of Canaan; and there are numerous other biblical references to abodes of the Anakim on the east side of the Jordan.

"Who were these Anakim?  The term is commonly translated "giants," just as the biblical term Nefilim had been translated. But we have already shown conclusively that by Nefilim ("Those Who Had Come Down") the Old Testament had referred to the "People of the Rocketships."

"The Anakim, we suggest were none other than the Anunnaki.

"No one had hitherto paid any particular attention to the count of 3,650 years which Manetho assigned to the reign of the "demigods" who belonged to the dynasty of Thoth. We, however, find the figure highly significant, for it defers but by 50 years from the 3,600-year orbit of Nibiru, the home planet of the Anunnaki.

"....We can assume that at each of these intervals the fate of mankind and the god’s relations with it were discussed by the Great Anunnaki, the "seven who decree." We know for sure that such a deliberation had taken place prior to the sudden and otherwise inexplicable blooming of the Sumerian civilization, for the Sumerians have left us records of such discussions!

"When the reconstruction of Sumer began, first to have been rebuilt on its soil were the Olden Cities but no longer as exclusive Cities of the Gods; for mankind was now allowed into these urban centers to tend the surrounding fields, orchards and cattlefolds in behalf of the gods, and to be in the service of the gods in all conceivable manners: not only as cooks and bakers, artisans and clothiers, but also as priests, musicians, entertainers, and temple prostitutes.

"First to be established was Eridu. Having been Enki’s first settlement on Earth, it was given to him anew in perpetuity....

For Enlil and Ninlil Nippur was reestablished.... this time equipped not as Mission Control Center but with awesome weapons: "the Lifted Eye which scans the land"; and "the Lifted Beam," which penetrates all. Their sacred area also housed Enlil’s "fast-stepping Bird" whose "grasp no one could escape."

At this stage, a gathering of the Great Anunnaki took place, to which Anu and Antu his spouse attended, coming from Nibiru. With great pomposity they were received, presented to their new abode on Earth: E.ANNA - "House of Anu." After deliberating the fate for mankind, and after Anu and Antu departed for Nibiru, the need to give mankind "Kingship" was decided. Reaching to the tales of The Tower of Babel, Mr. Sitchin concludes this chapter:

"....It is undoubtedly an Akkadian version of the Sumerian tale of the Tower of Babel; and it is clear from it that the incident was brought about not by mankind but by the gods themselves. Mankind was only a pawn in the struggle.

"....As the sinful work came to the attention of "the lord of the Pure Mound" - already identified as Enlil in the Cattle and Grain tale - Enlil "to Heaven on Earth spoke... He lifted his heart to the Lord of the Gods, Anu, his father, to receive a command his heart requested. At that time he also lifted up [his heart? voice?] to Damkina." We well know that she was the mother of Marduk; so all the clues point to him as the instigator....

The Tower of Babel was destroyed, in his anger, by Enlil, and the people was filled with confusion.

"....The ancient Mesopotamian scribe ended the tale of the Tower of Babel with a bitter memory. Because they "against the gods revolted with violence, violently they wept for Babylon, very much they wept."

The biblical version also names Babel (Hebrew for Babylon) as the place where the incident had occurred. The name is significant, for in its original Akkadian - Bab-Ili- it meant "Gateway of the Gods," the place by which the gods were to enter and leave Sumer....

"....The biblical and Mesopotamian texts - undoubtedly based on an original Sumerian chronicle - thus relate the same incident: Marduk’s frustrated attempt to prevent the transfer of kingship from Kish to Erech and Ur - cities destined to be power centers of Nannar/Sin and his children - and to seize suzerainty for his own city, Babylon.

"By this attempt, however, Marduk started a change of events replete with tragedies.

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