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 t h eir 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 take 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. According to Manetho, Ptah turned over the dominion over Egypt after a reign of 9,000 years; but the reign of Ra was cut short after 1,000 years—by the Deluge, we have concluded. Then there followed a reign of 700 years by Shu, who helped Ra “control the skies over Earth,” and the 500-year reign of Geb (“Who Piles Up the Earth”). It was at that time, circa 10,000 B.C., that the space facilities—the Spaceport in the Sinai and the Giza pyramids—were built.

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 intention 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 record of the politically motivated lovemaking between the two, 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 to Enki’s clan. It was then, the Sumerian tale relates, that Enki crossed the marshy lakes that separated Egypt and the Sinai peninsula and came unto the lonely Ninharsag for an orgy of lovemaking:

To the one who is alone. To the Lady of Life, mistress of the land. Enki came unto the wise Lady of Life. He causes his phallus to water the dikes; He causes his phallus to submerge the reeds . . . He poured his semen into the great lady of the Anunnaki, poured the semen in the womb of Ninharsag; She took the semen into the womb, the semen of Enki. Enki’s real intention was to obtain a son by his half-sister; but the offspring was a daughter. Enki then made love to the daughter as soon as she became “young and fair,” and then to his granddaughter. As a result of these sexual activities, a total of eight gods—six female and two male—were born. Angered by the incest, Ninharsag used her medical skills to sicken Enki. The Anunnaki who were with him pleaded for his life, but Ninharsag was determined: “Until he is dead, I shall not look upon him with the ‘Eye of Life’!”

Satisfied that Enki had indeed been finally stopped. Ninurta— who went to Tilmun for inspection—returned to Mesopotamia to report the developments at a meeting attended by Enlil, Nanna/Sin, Utu/Shamash and Inanna/Ishtar. Unsatisfied, Enlil ordered Ninurta to return to Tilmun and bring back Ninharsag with him. But in the interim, Ninharsag had pity on her brother and changed her mind. “Ninharsag seated Enki by her vulva and asked: ‘My brother, what hurts thee?’ " 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; The Pyramid Wars 155 Let Ninkashi be she who sates the thirsts; Let Nazi marry Nindara; Let Azimua many 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. In this text, too, as in the Mesopotamian one. Ptah followed up the bringing forth of these gods by assigning abodes and territories to them: “After he had formed the gods, he made cities, established districts, put the gods in their sacred abodes; he built their shrines and established their offerings.” All that he did “to make rejoice the heart of the Mistress of Life.” 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 allotted 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 gods’ 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 comings and goings of the gods, of the vital supply link to and from the Twelfth Planet.

For a while Seth succeeded in his ambition, having outwitted Osiris. But “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. A major battle took place in the “water district,” the chain of lakes that separates Egypt from the Sinai peninsula, and a good many of Seth’s followers were slain. After peacemaking efforts by other gods had failed. Seth and Horns engaged in personal combat in and over the Sinai peninsula. In the course of one battle, Seth hid in “secret tunnels” somewhere in the peninsula; in another battle, he lost his testicles. 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 up 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 allotted by the two lovemakers? If so, then he was the Egyptian (Hamitic) god 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 also 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 Old Testament refers to the land of which Jerusalem in time became the capital as Canaan, after the fourth and youngest son of Ham. It also singled out Canaan for special rebuke and consigned his descendants to be subservient to the descendants of Shem. The improbable excuse for this treatment was that Ham—not his son Canaan—had inadvertently seen the naked genitals of his father Noah; therefore, the Lord had put a curse upon Canaan: “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren . . . Blessed be Yahweh the god of Shem; may Canaan be a servant unto them.”

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.

After mankind was dispersed and its various clans allotted their lands, the Book of Jubilees relates, ‘“Ham and his sons went to the land which he was to occupy, [the land] which he acquired as his portion in the country of the south.” But then, journeying from where Noah had been saved to his allotted land in Africa, “Canaan saw the land of Lebanon [all the way down] to the river of Egypt, that it was very good.” And so he changed his mind: “He went not into the land of his inheritance to the west of the sea [west of the Red Sea); he dwelt [instead] in the land of Lebanon, eastward and westward of the Jordan.”

His father and his brothers tried to dissuade Canaan from such an illegal act: “And Ham his father, and Cush and Mizra’im his brothers, said unto him: “Thou hast settled in a land which is not thine, and which did not fall to us by lot; do not do so; for if thou dost do so, thou and thy sons will be fallen in the land and be accursed through sedition; for by sedition ye have settled, and by sedition will thy children fall, and thou shall be rooted out forever. Dwell not in the dwelling of Shem; for to Shem and his sons did it come by their lot.’ "

Were he to illegally occupy the territory assigned to Shem, they pointed out, “Cursed art thou and cursed shalt thou be beyond the sons of Noah, by the curse which we bound ourselves by an oath in the presence of the Holy Judge and in the presence of Noah our father. . . . “But Canaan did not hearken unto them, and dwelt in the land of Lebanon from Hamath to the entering of Egypt, he and his sons until this day. For this reason is that land named Canaan.” Behind the biblical and pseudoepigraphical tale of a territorial usurpation by a descendant of Ham must lie a tale of a similar usurpation by a descendant of the God of Egypt. We must bear in mind that at the time the allotment of lands and territories was not among the peoples but among the gods; the gods, not the people, were the landlords. A people could only settle a territory allotted to their god and could occupy another’s territory only if their god had extended his or her dominion to that territory, by agreement or by force. The illegal seizure of the area between the Spaceport in the Sinai and the Landing Place in Baalbek by a descendant of Ham could have occurred only if that area had been usurped by a descendant of the Hamitic deities, by a younger god of Egypt. And that, as we have shown, was indeed the result of the First Pyramid War.

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. It is clear from the texts that the Enlilite forces were led and commanded by Ninurta, “Enlil’s foremost warrior,” and that the first encounters were in the Sinai peninsula. The Hamitic gods were beaten there; but they retreated to continue the war from the mountain lands of Africa. Ninurta rose to the challenge, and in the second phase of the war carried the battle to the strongholds of his foes; that phase entailed vicious and ferocious battles. Then, in its 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 ran out of food and water. This war, which we call the Second Pyramid War, was commemorated extensively in Sumerian records—both written chronicles and pictorial depictions. Hymns to Ninurta contain numerous references to his feats and heroic deeds in this war; a great part of the psalm “Like Anu Art Thou Made” is devoted to a record of the struggle and the final victory. But the principal and most direct chronicle of the war is the epic text Lugal-e Ud Melam-bi, best collated and edited by Samuel

Geller in Altorientalische Texte und Untersuchungen. Like all Mesopotamian texts, it is so titled after its opening line: 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 surrendered . . . 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. The second tablet (one of thirteen on which the long poem was inscribed) describes the first battle. Ninurta’s upper hand is ascribed to both his godly weapons and a new airship that he built 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 seventyfive feet. Archaic drawings depicted it as a mechanically constructed “bird,” with two wing surfaces supported by cross beams (Fig. 47a); 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 modem 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 (Fig. 47b).

The Imdugud was the inspiration for Ninurta’s emblem—a heroic lion-headed bird resting on two lions (Fig. 48) 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 the Second Pyramid War. He soared so high that his companions lost sight of him. Then, the texts relate, “in his Winged Bird, against the walled abode” he swooped down. “As his Bird neared the ground, the summit [of the enemy’s stronghold] he smashed.” Chased out of his strongholds, the Enemy began to retreat. While Ninurta kept up the frontal attack, Adad roamed the countryside behind the enemy lines, destroying the adversary’s food supplies: “In the Abzu, Adad the fish caused to be washed away . . .

Fig. 48 the cattle he dispersed.” When the Enemy kept retreating into the mountains, the two gods “like an onrushing flood the mountains ravaged.”

As the battles extended in time and scope, the two leading gods called on the others to join them. “My lord, to the battle which is becoming extensive, why don’t you go?” they asked a god whose name is missing in a damaged verse. The question was clearly also addressed to Ishtar, for she is mentioned by name: “In the clash of weapons, in the feats of heroship, Ishtar her arm did not hold back.” As the two gods saw her, they shouted encouragingly to her: “Advance hither without stopping! Put your foot down firmly on the Earth! In the mountains, we await thee!”

“The weapon which is lordly brilliant, the goddess brought forth … a horn [to direct it] she made for it.” As she used it against the enemy in a feat “that to distant days” shall be remembered, “the skies were like red-hued wool in color.” The explosive beam “tore apart [the enemy), made him with his hand clutch his heart.” The continued tale, on tablets v-viii, is too damaged to be properly read. 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 its 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 the blood of the innocent bystanders—the men, women, and children of the Abzu. The verses describing this aspect of the war are damaged on the tablets of the main text; its details are, however, available from various other fragmented tablets that deal with the “overwhelming of the land” by Ninurta, “a feat whereby he earned the title “Vanquisher of Meslam.” In these battles the attackers resorted to chemical warfare. We read that Ninurta rained on the city poisonbearing missiles, which “he catapulted into it; the poison, by itself, destroyed the city.” 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.” Here, too, some kind of chemical warfare is indicated: The Weapon Which Tears Apart robbed the senses: The Tooth skinned them off. Tearing-apart he stretched upon the land; The canals he filled with blood, in the Enemyland for dogs like milk to lick. Overwhelmed by the merciless onslaught. Azag called on his followers to show no resistance: “The arisen Enemy to his wife and child called; against the lord Ninurta he raised not his ami. The weapons of Kur with soil were covered” (i.e.. hidden away); “Azag them did not raise.”

Ninurta took the lack of resistance as a sign of victory. A text reported by F. Hrozny (“Mythen von dem Gotte Ninib”) relates how. after Ninurta killed the opponents occupying the land of the Harsag (Sinai) and went on “like a Bird” to attack the gods who “behind their walls retreated” in Kur, he defeated them in the mountains. He then burst out in a song of victory: My fearsome Brilliance like Anu’s is mighty; Against it, who can rise? I am lord of the high mountains. of the mountains which to the horizon raise their peaks. In the mountains, I am the master.

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 Kur Ninurta did not annihilate.” Instead, the Enemy gods retreated into the Great Pryamid, 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 Hymnen an Nergal by J. Bollenrucher.

Recalling the heroic feats of Nergal in this war, the texts relate 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 might 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! But the high hopes of the besieged gods were soon dashed. We learn more of the last phases of this Pyramid War from yet another text, first pieced together by George A. Barton (Miscellaneous Babylonian Texts) from fragments of an inscribed clay cylinder found in the ruins of Enlil’s temple in Nippur. As Nergal joined the defenders of the Great Pyramid (“the Formidable House Which Is Raised Up Like a Heap”), he strengthened its defenses through the various ray-emitting crystals (mineral “stones”) positioned within the pyramid: 164 THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN The Water-Stone, the Apex-Stone, the . . . -Stone, the .. . … the lord Nergal increased its strength. The door for protection he . . . To heaven its Eye he raised, Dug deep that which gives life . . . … in the House he fed them food.

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 text here is too mutilated to enable a reading of the details; but the tactic apparently achieved its purpose. Huddled in their last stronghold, cut off from food and water, the besieged gods did their best to ward off their attackers. Until then, in spite of the ferocity of the battles, no major god had fallen a casualty to the fighting. But 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 out to Ninharsag—reputed for her medical wonders—to save the young god’s life:

At that time the Killing Brightness came; The House’s platform withstood the lord. Unto Ninharsag there was an outcry: “. . .the weapon … my offspring with death is accursed. . . . "

Other Sumerian texts call this young god “offspring who did not know his father,” an epithet befitting Horus, who was born after his father’s death. In Egyptian lore the Legend of the Ram reports the injuries to the eyes of Horus when a god “blew fire” at him.

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 The Pyramid Wars 165 sister-wife had brought forth.” In telltale verses she announced her decision to cross the battle lines and bring an end to the hostilities: 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 which 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. The events that followed are recorded in part in the Lugal-e epic and in other fragmentary texts. But they are most dramatically described in a text titled I Sing the Song of the Mother of the Gods. Surviving in great length because it was copied and recopied throughout the ancient Near East, the text was 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. Opening with a call upon “the comrades in arms and the combatants” to listen, the poem briefly describes the warfare and its participants, as well as its nearly global extent. On the one side were “the firstborn of Ninmah” (Ninurta) and Adad, soon joined by Sin and later on by Inanna/Ishtar. On the opposing side are listed Nergal, a god referred to as “Mighty, Lofty One”— Ra/Marduk—and the “God of the two Great Houses” (the two 166 THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN great pyramids of Giza) who had tried to escape camouflaged in a ram’s skin: Horus. 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). “O hear my prayers!” she begged the two gods as she explained her ideas. Adad was at first adamant: Presenting himself there, to the Mother, Adad thus said: “We are expecting victory. The enemy forces are beaten. The trembling of the land he could not withstand.” 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:

“Get up and go—talk to the enemy. Let him attend the discussions so that the attack be withdrawn.” Enlil, in less forceful language, supported the suggestion: Enlil opened his mouth; In the assembly of the gods he said: “Whereas Anu at the mountain the gods assembled, warfare to discourage, peace to bring, and has dispatched the Mother of the Gods to entreat with me— Let the Mother of the Gods be an emissary.” Turning to his sister, he said in a conciliatory vein: “Go, appease my brother! Raise unto him a hand for Life; From his barred doorway, let him come out!” Doing as suggested, Ninharsag “his brother went to fetch, put her prayers before the god.” She informed him that his safety, and that of his sons, was assured: “by the stars she gave a sign.” The Pyramid Wars 167 As Enki hesitated she said to him tenderly: “Come, let me lead you out.” And as he did, he gave her his hand. . . . She conducted him and the other defenders of the Great Pyramid to the Harsag, her abode. Ninurta and his warriors watched the Enkites depart.

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 niches and nooks meaningless. It has been so ever since the first men had entered the pyramid. But it was not so when Ninurta had 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 not only the Great Pyramid 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 secrets of impregnable defense did it hold?

In the smooth and seemingly solid north face of the pyramid, a swivel stone swung open to reveal the entranceway, protected by the massive diagonal stone blocks, just as the text lauding Ninharsag had described. A straight Descending Passage led to the lower service chambers where Ninurta could see a shaft dug by the defenders in search for subterranean water. But his interest focused on the upper passages and chambers; there, the magical “stones” were arrayed—minerals and crystals, some earthly, some heavenly, some the likes of which he had never seen. From them there were emitted the beamed pulsations for the guidance of the astronauts and the radiations for the defense of the structure. 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 function 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 corbeled roof. Called the ‘“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 (Fig. 49). 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.”

Returning to the junction of the passages, Ninurta looked around him in the Grand Gallery (Fig. 45). As ingenious and complex as the whole pyramid was. this gallery was breathtaking and a most unusual sight. Compared to the low and narrow passages, it rose high (some twenty-eight feet) in seven overlapping stages, its walls closing in ever more at each stage. The ceiling was also built in slanting sections, each one angled into the massive walls so as not to exert any pressure on the segment below it. Whereas in the narrow passages only “a dim 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 (Fig. 50a). These glowing stones were placed in cavities that were precisely cut into the ramps that ran the length of the Gallery on both sides of its floor. Firmly held in place by an elaborate niche in the wall (Fig. 50b), each crystal stone emitted a different radiance, giving the place its rainbow effect. For the moment Ninurta passed by them on his way up; his priority was the uppermost Grand Chamber and its pulsating stone.

Atop the Grand Gallery, Ninurta reached a great step which led through a low passage to an Antechamber of unique design (Fig. 46). 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 Great Chamber: “to foe it is not opened; only to Them Who Live, for them it is 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.” The delicate mechanism was housed in a hollowed-out stone chest; placed precisely on the north-south axis of the pyramid, it responded to vibrations with bell-like resonance. The heart of the guidance unit was the GUG (“Direction Determining”) Stone; its emissions, amplified by five hollow compartments constructed above the chamber, were beamed out and up through two sloping channels leading to the north and south faces of the pyramid. 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” functions of the pyramid. Ninurta also ordered the 3 portcullises removed. First to be tackled were the SU (“Vertical”) Stone and the KA.SHUR.RA (“Awesome, Pure Which Opens”) Stone. Then “the hero stepped up to the SAG.KAL Stone” (“Sturdy Stone Which Is In Front”). “He called out his full strength,” shook it out of its grooves, cut the cords that were holding it, and “to the ground set its course.” Now came the turn of the mineral stones and crystals positioned atop the ramps in the Grand Gallery. As he walked down Ninurta stopped by each one of them to declare its fate. Were it not for breaks in the clay tablets on which the text was written, we would have had the names of all twenty-seven of them; as it is. only twenty-two names are legible. Several of them Ninurta ordered to be crushed or pulverized; others, which could be used in the new Mission Control Center, were ordered given to Shamash; and the rest were carried off 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, too: “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. The deed having been done, Ninurta’s comrades urged him to leave the battleground and return home. AN DIM DIM.MA, “Like Anu Art Thou Made,” they told him in praise; “The Radiant House where the cord-measuring begins, the House in the land which thou hast come to know—rejoice in having entered it.” Now, return to thy home, where thy wife and son await thee: “In the city which thou lovest, in the abode of Nippur, 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 (Fig. 51).

Fig. 51

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