Peace of Earth

How did the Pyramid Wars end?

They ended as great 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, or 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. Comparing the Mesopotamian text with texts inscribed at about the same time by Egyptian Pharaohs, Barton noted that the Egyptian texts “centered around the king and are interested in his fortunes as he enters among the gods”; the Mesopotamian text, on the other hand, “concerned itself with the community of the gods”; its subject was not the aspirations of the king but the affairs of the gods themselves. 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 conveyed a derogatory connotation.

The text’s opening verses, as we have already stated, briefly described the last phases of the war and the conditions within the besieged pyramid that led to the defenders’ “outcry,” leading to Ninharsag’s decision to intervene. We learn from the continuing ancient chronicle that Ninharsag first went with her idea of stopping the fighting and convening a peace conference to Enlil’s camp.

The Enlilites’ first reaction to Ninharsag’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.” The objections of Adad to a peace conference rather than unconditional surrender were already reported by us in the previous chapter. But then Enlil agreed, saying to her: “Go, appease my brother.” We have already read in another text how Ninharsag crossed the battle lines to arrange the cease-fire. Having brought out Enki and his sons, Ninharsag took them to her abode in the Harsag. The Enlilite gods were already there, waiting.

Announcing that she was acting in behalf of “the great lord Anu . . . Anu the Arbiter,” Ninharsag performed a symbolic ceremony of her own. She lighted seven fires, one each for the gathered gods: Enki and his two sons: Enlil and his three sons (Ninurta, Adad. and Sin). She uttered an incantation as she lit each fire: “A fiery offering to Enlil of Nippur. . . to Ninurta . . . to Adad. . . to Enki coming from the Abzu … to Nergal coming from Meslam.” By nightfall the place was ablaze: “as sunlight was the great light set off by the goddess.”

Ninharsag then appealed to the wisdom of the gods and extolled the virtues of peace: “Mighty are the fruits of the wise god; the great divine river to his vegetation shall come . . . its overflowing will make [the land) like a garden of god.” The abundance of plants and animals, of wheat and other grains, of vines and fruits, and the benefits of a “triple-sprouting mankind” planting, building, and serving the gods—all to follow peace—were then outlined by her.

After Ninharsag had finished her oracle of peace, Enlil was the first one 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.

Again Ninharsag took the floor. She reminded Ninurta how he had toiled, “day and night with might,” to enable cultivation and cattle herding in the land, how he “raised the foundations, filled [the earth], raised [the dykes].” Then the affliction of war destroyed it all, “all, in its entirety.” “Lord of life, god of fruit,” she appealed to him, “let the good beer pour in double measure! Make abundant the wool!"—agree to the peace terms! Overcome by her plea, Ninurta relented: “O my mother, brilliant one! Proceed; the flour I will not withhold … in the kingdom the garden will be restored . . . To end affliction, I [too] earnestly pray.” Now the peace 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 the 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 on the agenda was thus the cessation of hostilitiespeace 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 from ruling over Giza, or over the whole of Lower Egypt, for that matter.

Pondering the condition over, Enki agreed. He then and there announced his decision. The lord of Giza and Lower Egypt, he said, will be a young son of his, espoused to one of the female deities born when Enki had made love to Ninharsag: “For the formidable House Which Is Raised Like a Heap, he appointed the prince whose brilliant wife from the cohabitation with Tsir [Ninharsag] was brought forth. The strong prince who is like a fullgrown ibex—him he appointed, and commanded him to guard the Place of Life.” He then granted the young god 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. He is mentioned in Mesopotamian texts in association with Enki, Dumuzi, and Ninharsag; in the Great God List he is included among the gods of Africa following Nergal and Ereshkigal. The Sumerians depicted him with Enki’s emblem of the entwined serpents and with the Egyptian Ankh sign (Fig. 52 a,b). Yet they viewed Ningishzidda favorably; Ninurta befriended him and invited him to Sumer. Some texts suggest that his mother was Ereshkigal, Enlil’s granddaughter; our own conclusion is that he was indeed a son of Enki, conceived during Enki’s and Ereshkigal’s stormy voyage to the Lower World. As such, he was acceptable to both sides as guardian of the secrets of the pyramids.

Fig. 52

A hymn which Ake W. Sjoberg and E. Bergmann (’“The Collection of the Sumerian Temple Hymns”) believe was composed by the daughter of Sargon of Akkad in the third millennium B.C. exalted the pyramid-house of Ningishzidda and confirmed its Egyptian location: Enduring place, light-hued mountain which in an artful fashion was founded. Its dark hidden chamber is an awe-inspiring place; in a Field of Supervision it lies.

Awesome, its ways no one can fathom. In the Land of the Shield your pedestal is closely knit as a fine-mesh net . . . At night you face the heavens, your ancient measurements are surpassing. Your interior knows the place where Utu rises, the measure of its width is far reaching. Your prince is the prince whose pure hand is outstretched, whose luxuriant and abundant hair flows down on his back— the lord Ningishzida.

The concluding verses of the hymn twice restate the location of this unique structure: the “Land of the Shield.” It is a term equivalent to the Akkadian meaning of the Mesopotamian name for Egypt: the Land Magan, “The Land of the Shield.” And another hymn copied and translated by Sjoberg (tablet UET 6/1) called Ningishzidda “the falcon among the gods,” a designation commonly applied in Egyptian texts to Egyptian gods and found in Sumerian texts only one other time, applied to Ninurta, conqueror of the pyramids. What did the Egyptians call 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 allotted him”; Enlil, in turn, “before the feet of his adversary [Enki] the land Sumer he laid out.” We can envision the two brothers facing each other, Enki—as always—the more concerned of the two about mankind and its fate.

Having dealt with the disputes among the Anunnaki themselves, he now turns to the future of mankind. In the aftermath of the Deluge, it was given farming and domesticated animals; now it was the chance to look and plan ahead, and he seized the opportunity. The ancient text may well describe a spontaneous act; Enki drawing on the ground, “before the feet of Enlil,” a plan for the establishment of human settlement centers in his lands; agreeing, Enlil responds by drawing “before the feet of Enki” the plan for the restoration of the pre-Diluvial cities of southern Mesopotamia (Sumer). If the olden pre-Diluvial cities of Mesopotamia were to be restored, Enki had a condition: He and his sons were to be allowed to come freely to Mesopotamia; and he, Enki, was to be given back the site of Eridu, the hallowed place of his first Earth Station. Accepting the condition, Enlil said: “In my land, let your abode become everlasting; from the day that you shall come into my presence, the laden table shall exhale delicious smelis for thee.” Enlil expressed the hope that in return for this hospitality, Enki would help bring prosperity also to Mesopotamia: “Pour abundance on the Land, each year increase its fortunes.” And with all these matters settled, Enki and his sons departed for their African domains.

After Enki and his sons had departed, Enlil and his sons contemplated the future of their territories, born old and new. The first chronicle, the one reported by Barton, relates that in order to reaffirm the status of Ninurta as second to Enlil and superior over his brothers, Enlil put him in charge of the Olden Land. The territories of Adad in the northwest were extended by a thin “finger” (Lebanon) to include the Landing Place at Baalbek. The territory that was in contention—we can describe it as Greater Canaan, from the border of Egypt in the south to the border of Adad in the north, with modem Syria included—was put under the aegis of Nannar and his offspring. To that effect “a decree was established,” sealed, and celebrated with a meal offering shared by all me Enlilite gods. A more dramatic version of these final proceedings is found in the I Sing the Song of the Mother of the Gods text.

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 firstborn 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.

As Enlil wavered between Sin and Ninurta. Sin enlisted the help of his wife Ningal, who appealed to Enlil as well as to his spouse Ninlil, the mother of Sin: To the place of decision he called Ningal, Suen invited her to approach. A favorable decision she asked of the father . . . Enlil weighed [her words] . . . Before the mother she [pleaded] . . . “Remember the childhood,” she said [to Ninlil] . . . The mother quickly embraced him . . . She said to Enlil: . . .“Follow your heart’s desire”. . . 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; 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. “Ninurta opened his mouth and said …” His words of opposition are lost by a damage to the verses; but, as the tale is continued, we learn that Ninharsag threw in her weight behind her son Ninurta:

She cried out and lamented to her brother; Like a pregnant woman she was agitated, [saying:] “Inside the Ekur I call to my brother, my brother who an infant made me carry; upon my brother I call!”

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—the 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,” and the Sumerian emblem of the “Four Regions” (Fig. 53a) applied to it, possibly the forerunner of the Jewish emblem called the Star of David (Fig. 53b). 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.

Fig. 53

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 (Fig. 54); it was equidistant from the Landing Platform in Baalbek (BK) and the Spaceport itself (SP).

The two anchors of the Landing Corridor also had to be equidistant from Mission Control Center (JM); 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. The solution was to erect, still precisely on the northwestern corridor line but north of Giza, a new Beacon City. The Egyptians called it the City of Annu; its hieroglyphic symbol depicted it as a high sloping tower (Fig. 55) with an even taller superstructure pointing skyward as an arrow. The Greeks, many millennia later, called the place Heliopolis (“City of Helios,” the Sun god)—the same name they applied to Baalbek. In both instances it was a translation of earlier names relating the two places to Shamash, “Who Is Bright as the Sun”; Baalbek, in fact, was called in the Bible Beth-Shemesh, House of Shamash, or Heliopolis in Greek.

Fig. 55

The shifting of the beacon site at the northwestern anchor of the Landing Corridor from Giza (GZ) to Heliopolis (HL) also required a shift in the southeastern anchor, to keep the two anchors equidistant from Mount Moriah. A mount only slightly lower than Mount St. Katherine, but still precisely on the Corridor line, was found and adapted to the task. It is called Mount Vmm-Shumar (Mount of Sumer’s Mother—US on our map). Sumerian geographical lists called the two adjoining mountains in Tilmun KA HARSAG (“The Gateway Peak”) and HARSAG ZALA.ZALAG (“Peak Which Emits the Brilliance”).

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 establishment 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 continuously 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 years later, bringing with it villages and pottery: and then, finally. Sumer’s urban civilization, again 3,600 years later. Yet here 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. . . . The puzzles posed by Jericho pertain not only to its age, but also to what the archaeologists have found there: houses, built on stone foundations, had doors equipped with wooden jambs: the walls were carefully plastered and painted red, pink, and other colors— sometimes even covered with murals. Neat hearths and basins were sunk in whitewashed plaster floors, floors that were often decorated with patterns. Below the floors the dead were sometimes buried—buried but not forgotten: at least ten skulls were found which were filled with plaster to recreate the features of the deceased (Fig. 56). The features they reveal were by all opinions more advanced and finer than those of the usual Mediterranean dwellers of the time. All this was protected by a massive wall that surrounded the town (millennia before Joshua!). It was raised in the middle of a ditch nearly thirty feet wide and seven feet deep, dug out of the rock “without the help of picks and hoes” (James Mellaart. Earliest Civilizations of the Near East). It was “an explosive development … a spectacular development whose causes.” Mellaart says, “are still unknown to us.”

The enigma of prehistoric Jericho is compounded by the evidence of its round grain silos, one of which was found still partly standing. In a hot depression near the Dead Sea. 825 feet below sea level, in an inhospitable place unsuitable for grain cultivation, there was found evidence of ample supplies and continued storage of wheat and barley. Who could have built this advanced town that early, who had come to live in such a place, and whom did it serve as a fortified store city?

Fig. 56

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 Thoth in Egypt (from about 8670 to 7100 B.C). His accession, as we have seen from the Mesopotamian texts, followed the Peace Conference. Egyptian texts say of his accession that it was pronounced “in the presence of the Determiners of Annu, following the night of the battle” and after he had helped “defeat the Storm Wind” (Adad) “and the Whirlwind” (Ninurta), and then assisted in “making the two combatants be at peace.” 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 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.

From time immemorial this land route led up the Euphrates River to the major way station of Harran in the Balikh River region. From there the traveler had the choice of either to continue south down the Mediterranean coast—the road later called by the Romans Via Maris (“The Sea Way”)—or to proceed on the east side of the Jordan, along the equally famous King’s Highway. The former was the shortest route to Egypt; the latter could lead to the Gulf of Eilat, the Red Sea, Arabia, and Africa, as well as into the Sinai peninsula; it could also lead to the western side of the Jordan via several suitable crossing points. It was the route over which the African gold was brought.

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 travelers 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. Though little known outside of archaeological circles, such a place has indeed been found; and what was discovered there is even more astounding than what had been uncovered at Jericho.

The puzzling place with astounding 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. Even the oldest level of habitation (circa 7500 B.C.) was paved with bricks, and though the period of settlement stretched from the end of the Stone Age to the Bronze Age, the archaeologists were amazed to find that the same civilization revealed itself at all levels.

The place is named after the mound where it was found—Tell Ghassul; its ancient name is not known. Together with several satellite settlements, it clearly controlled the vital crossover point and the road leading to it—a road still followed to this day to a crossing point nowadays called the Allenby Bridge (Fig. 57). The strategic location of Tell Ghassul had been noted by the archaeologists when they began to dig up its remains: “From atop the mound, one has an interesting all-around view: the Jordan on the west as a dark line; to the northwest, the hillock of ancient Jericho; and beyond it, the mountains of Judea, including Beth-El and the Mount of Olives of Jerusalem. Bethlehem is obscured by Mount el-Muntar, but the heights of Tekoah and the environs of Hebron can be seen” (A. Mallon, R. Koeppel, and R. Neuville. Teleilat Ghassul, Compte Rendu des Fouilles de l’Institut Biblique Pontifical).

To the north, the view was unobscured for some thirty miles; to the cast, one could see Mount Moab and the foremounts of Mount Nebo; to the south, “beyond the mirror of the Dead Sea, one could see the salt mountain. Mount Sodom.”

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

Fig. 57

The artifacts and irrigation system, of a much higher standard than had then prevailed in the area, convinced the archaeologists that the settlers had come from Mesopotamia.

Of the three hillocks that together formed the large mound, two appear to have been used as abodes and one as a work area. The latter was found to have been subdivided into rectangularlike segments, within which there were built circular “pits,” frequently in pairs. That they were not hearths for food preparation is suggested not only by their pairing and profusion (why would six or eight of them be required in one compartment?), but also by the fact that some of them were cylindrical and went quite deep into the ground. Combined with them were enigmatic “bands of ashes” (Fig. 58), the remains of some combustible material, which were covered with fine sand and then with regular soil, only to form the foundation of yet another layer of such “band of ashes.”

Fig. 58

On the surface, the ground was strewn with pebbles, the remains of rocks broken up by some force that also blackened them. Among the artifacts found was a small, circular object made of fired clay (Fig. 59), shaped with precision for some unknown technical purpose. The mystery only deepened by the discoveries in the residential areas. There the walls of the rectangular houses collapsed as though hit by a sudden force just above ground level, as a result of which the upper parts of the walls collapsed neatly inward.

Fig. 59

Because of this neat collapse, it was possible to piece together some of the astounding murals that were painted and overpainted on these walls. In one instance a cagelike mesh shown over the object created on the wall a three-dimensional illusion. In one house every wall appeared to have been painted with some scene; in another a recessed divan was so built that it enabled the dweller, while reclining, to view a mural that covered the whole opposite wall. It depicted a row of people—the first two of whom were seated on thrones—facing toward (or greeting) another person who had apparently stepped out of an object emitting rays.

The archaeologists who had discovered these murals during the 1931-32 and 1932-33 excavations theorized that the rayed object 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 (Fig. 60). The precise design, employing a variety of geometric shapes, was artistically 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. The mural’s discoverers assumed that the eight-rayed “star” had some “religious significance,” pointing out that the eightpointed star, standing for the planet Venus, was the celestial symbol of Ishtar. However, the fact is that no evidence of any religious worship whatsoever, no “cult objects,” statuettes of gods, etc., had been found at Tell Ghassul, yet another anomaly of the place. This, we suggest, indicates that it was inhabited not by worshipers but by those who were the subject of worshiping: the “gods” of antiquity, the Anunnaki.

Fig. 60

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. That the rayed “star” had no sacred significance is further attested by the disrespect with which it was surrounded by graffiti. These (Fig. 60) depict thick-walled buildings, fins of fishes, birds, wings, a ship, and even (some suggest) a sea dragon (upper lefthand corner); in these graffiti, yellow and brown of various shades appear in addition to the colors already mentioned.

Of particular interest are two shapes in which large twin “eyes” are prominent. We have a better knowledge of what they depicted, for such shapes were found painted, on a much larger scale and with greater detail, on the walls of other houses. The objects were depicted as spherical or oval in shape, their upper part layered and painted in black and white. The center was dominated by the two large “eyes,” perfect black disks within white circles. The bottom part showed in red two (or four?) extended supports; between these mechanical legs there protruded from the object’s main body a bulbous contraption (Fig. 61).

What were these objects? Were they the “Whirlwinds” of the Near Eastern texts (including the Old Testament), the “Flying Saucers” of the Anunnaki? The murals, the circular pits, the bands of ashes, the strewn, blackened pebbles, the location of the placeall that was uncovered and probably much that was not—bespeak Tell Ghassul as a stronghold and supply depot for the patrol aircraft of the Anunnaki.

The Tell Ghassul/Jericho crossing point played important and miraculous roles in several biblical events, a fact that may have enhanced the Vatican’s interest 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.

Fig. 61

The crossing itself, under the leadership of Joshua, entailed the miraculous backing up of the Jordan’s waters, under the influence of the Holy Ark and its contents. It was then, “when Joshua was by Jericho, that he raised his eyes and lo and behold, there stood a man opposite him and his drawn sword in his hand; and Joshua went unto him and said unto him: “Art thou with us or with our enemies’?’ and he said: ‘Neither; a captain of the host of the Lord am I.’ And Joshua fell on his face to the ground and bowed, and said unto him: ‘What sayeth my lord unto his servant?’ and the captain of the host of Yahweh said unto Joshua: ‘Remove thy shoe off thy foot, for the place where thou standeth is restricted.’

Then the captain of the troops of Yahweh divulged to him the Lord’s plan for the conquest of Jericho. Do not attempt to storm its walls by force, he said. Instead, carry the Ark of the Covenant around its walls seven times. And on the seventh day the priests sounded the trumpets, and the people let out a great cry, as they were commanded. “And the walls of Jericho came tumbling down.” Jacob, too, crossing the Jordan at night on his return to Canaan from Harran, ran into “a man” and the two wrestled till dawn: only then did Jacob realize that his opponent was a deity; “and Jacob called the place Peni-El (“The Face of God’) for I had seen a god face to face and have survived.” 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 “demi-gods” who belonged to the dynasty of Thoth. We, however, find the figure highly significant, for it differs but by 50 years from the 3.600-year orbit of Nibiru. the home planet of the Anunnaki. It was no accident, we have maintained, that mankind’s advancement from the Stone Age to the high civilization of Sumer occurred in 3,600-year intervals—circa 11,000, 7400, and 3800 B.C.

It was as though “a mysterious hand” had each time “picked Man out of his decline and raised him to an even higher level of culture, knowledge and civilization.” we wrote in The 12th Planet: each instance, we hold, coincided with the recurrence of the time when the Anunnaki could come and go between Earth and Nibiru.

These advances spread from the Mesopotamian nucleus throughout the ancient world; and the Egyptian “Age of the demigods” (offspring of the cohabitation of gods and humans)—from circa 7100 B.C. to 3450 B.C. per Manetho—unquestionably coincides with the Neolithic period in Egypt.

We can assume that at each of these intervals the fate of mankind and the gods’ 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 reestablished was Eridu. Having been Enki’s first settlement on Earth, it was given to him anew in perpetuity. His initial shrine there (Fig. 62)—a marvel of architecture in those early days—was in time raised and expanded to a magnificent templeabode, the E.EN.GUR.RA (“House of the Lord Whose Return Is Triumphant”), adorned with gold, silver, and precious metals from the Lower World and protected by the “Bull of Heaven.” For Enlil and Ninlil Nippur was reestablished; there they raised a new Ekur (“Mountain House”—Fig. 63), 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.”

Fig. 62

A “Hymn to Eridu” edited and translated by A. Falkenstein (Sumer, vol. VII) describes how Enki traveled to attend a gathering of all the great gods; the occasion was a visit by Anu to Earth, for one of those deliberations that determined the fate of gods and men on Earth every 3.600 years. After some celebrating, when “the gods the intoxicating beverage had drunk, the wine prepared by men,” it was time for solemn decisions. “Anu sat on the seat of honor; near him sat Enlil; Ninharsag sat on an arm chair.” Anu called the meeting to order, “and to the Anunnaki thus said”:

Great gods who had hither come, Annuna-gods, who to the Court of Assembly had come! My son had for himself a House built; The lord Enki Eridu like the mountain on Earth he raised; His House, in a beautiful place he built. To the place, Eridu, no one uninvited can enter . . . In its sanctuary, from the Abzu the Divine Formulas Enki had deposited. This brought the deliberations to the main item on the agenda:

Fig. 63

Enlil’s complaint that Enki was withholding from the other gods the “Divine Formulas”—the knowledge of more than one hundred aspects of civilization—confining advancement to Eridu and its people only. (It is an archaeologically confirmed fact that Eridu was Sumer’s oldest post-Diluvial city, the fountainhead of Sumerian civilization.) It was then decided that Enki must share the Divine Formulas with the other gods, so that they, too, could establish and reestablish their urban centers: civilization was to be granted to the whole of Sumer. When the official part of the deliberations was over, the gods who were on Earth had a surprise for the celestial visitors: midway between Nippur and Eridu they had built a sacred precinct in honor of Anu; an abode appropriately named E.ANNA—“House of Anu.”

Before they left Earth back for the Home Planet, Anu and Antu his spouse paid an overnight visit to their Earthly temple; it was an occasion marked by pomp and circumstance. As the divine couple reached the new town—later to be known as Uruk (the biblical Erech)—the gods accompanied them in a procession to the temple’s courtyard. While a sumptuous evening meal was prepared. Anu, seated on a throne, chatted with the male gods; Antu, accompanied by the female goddesses, changed her clothes in the temple’s section called “House of the Golden Bed.” Priests and other temple attendants served “wine and good oil” and slaughtered in sacrifice “a bull and a ram for Anu, Antu and all the gods.” But the banquet was delayed until it was dark enough to see the planets: “Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Mars and the Moon—as soon as they shall appear.” With this, and after a ceremonial washing of the hands, the first part of the meal was served: “Bull meat, ram meat, fowl . . . as well as prime beer and pressed wine.”

A pause was then made for the highlight of the evening. While one group of priests began to chant the hymn “Kakkab Anu etellu shamame, " “The Planet of Anu Rises in the Skies,” a priest went up to the “topmost stage of the tower of the temple” to watch the skies for the appearance of the Planet of Anu, Nibiru. At the expected moment and in the predetermined spot in the heavens, the planet was sighted. Thereupon the priests broke out in singing the compositions “To the One Who Grows Bright, the Heavenly Planet of the Lord Anu” and “The Creator’s Image Has Arisen.” A bonfire was lit in signal, and as the news spread from one observation post to another, bonfires were lit in one place after another. Before the night was over, the whole land was alight.

In the morning, prayers of thanksgiving were offered in the temple’s chapel, and in a sequence filled with ceremony and symbolism, the celestial visitors began their departure. “Anu is leaving,” the priests chanted; “Anu, great king of Heaven and Earth, we ask for your blessing,” they intoned. After Anu gave the asked-for blessings, the procession wound its way down the “Street of the Gods” to the “Place of the barque of Anu.” There were more prayers and hymn singing at a chapel called “Build Life on Earth.” Now it was time for those remaining behind to bless the departing couple, and the following verses were recited:

Great Anu, may Heaven and Earth bless you! May the gods Enlil, Ea and Ninmah bless you! May the gods Sin and Shamash bless you . . . May the gods Nergal and Ninurta bless you . . . May the Igigi who are in heaven and the Anunnaki who are on Earth, bless you! May the gods of the Abzu and the gods of the holy land bless you! And then Anu and Antu took off to the Spaceport. It was the seventeenth day of their visit to Earth, a tablet found in the archives of Uruk states. The momentous visit was over.

Its decisions opened the way for the establishment of new cities besides the Olden Ones. First and foremost among them was Kish. It was put under the control of Ninurta. “Enlil’s Foremost Son”; he turned it into Sumer’s first administrative capital. For Nannar/Sin, “Enlil’s Firstborn,” the new urban center of Ur (“The City”) was established—a place that was to become Sumer’s economic heart. There were additional decisions concerning the new era in mankind’s advancement and its relations with the Anunnaki. We read in the Sumerian texts, concerning the crucial conclave that launched Sumer’s great civilization, that “the great Anunnaki who decree the fate” decided that the gods “were too lofty for Mankind.” The term used—elu in Akkadian—means exactly that: “Lofty Ones”; from it comes the Babylonian, Assyrian, Hebrew, and Ugaritic El— the term to which the Greeks gave the connotation “god.”

There was a need, the Anunnaki decided, to give mankind “Kingship” as an intermediary between themselves and the human citizenry. All the Sumerian records attest that this major decision was taken during Anu’s visit, at a Council of the Great Gods. One Akkadian text (the Fable of the Tamarisk and the Datepalm) describes thus the meeting that had taken place “in long ago days, in far off times”:

The gods of the land, Anu, Enlil and Enki, convened an assembly. Enlil and the gods took counsel; Among them was seated Shamash; Among them was seated Ninmah.

At that time “there was not yet kingship in the land; the rule was held by the gods.” But the Great Council resolved to change that and to grant kingship to mankind. All the Sumerian sources agree that the first royal city was Kish. The men who were appointed by Enlil to be kings were called LU.GAL. “Mighty Man.” We find the same record in the Old Testament (Genesis chapter 10): when mankind was establishing its kingdoms: Kish begot Nimrod; He was the first to be a Mighty Man in the Land . . . And the beginning of his kingship: Babel and Erech and Akkad, all in the land of Shin’ar [Sumer].

While the biblical text names the first three capitals as Kish, Babylon, and Erech, the Sumerian King Lists assert that Kingship moved from Kish to Erech and then to Ur, omitting any mention of Babylon. The apparent discrepancy has a reason: We believe it has to do with the incident of the Towerof Babel (Babylon), which the Old Testament records in no small detail. It was an incident, we believe, that had to do with Marduk’s insistence that he, rather than Nannar, should possess Sumer’s next capital. The time was clearly during the resettlement of the plain of Sumer(the biblical Shin’ar), when new urban centers were being built: And as they travelled from the east, they found a valley in the Land of Shin’ar and settled there.

And they said unto one another: “Let us make bricks, and burn them by fire”; and the brick served them as stone, and the bitumen served them as mortar. It was then that the scheme which caused the incident was suggested by an unnamed instigator: “Come, let us build us a city, and a tower whose head shall reach the heavens.” “And Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower which the humans were building”; and he said to unnamed colleagues: “This is just the beginning of their undertakings; from now on. anything that they shall scheme to do shall no longer be impossible for them.” And Yahweh said to his colleagues: “Come, let us go down and confuse their language, so that they would not understand each other’s speech.” Then the Lord “scattered them from there all over the face of the Earth, and they ceased to build the city.”

That there was initially a time when mankind “spoke in unison” is a tenet of Sumerian historical recollections. These also assert that the confusion of languages, accompanying the dispersion of mankind, was a deliberate act of the gods. Like the Old Testament, the writings of Berossus reported that “the gods introduced a diversity of tongues among men, who until that time had all spoken the same language.” Like the biblical tale, the histories of Berossus connect the diversification of languages and the dispersion of mankind to the incident of the Tower of Babel: “When all men formerly spoke the same language, some among them undertook to erect a large and lofty tower, that they might climb up to heaven. But the Lord, sending forth a whirlwind, confounded their design, and gave to each tribe a particular language of its own.”

The conformity of the tales suggests the existence of a common, older source from which both the compilers of the Old Testament and Berossus had obtained their information. Although it is generally assumed that such an original text has not yet been found, the fact is that George Smith, in his very first publication in 1876, reported discovering at Ashurbanipal’s library in Nineveh “a mutilated account of part of the story of the Tower.’’ The tale, he concluded, was originally written on two tablets; on the one he had found (K-3657), there had been six columns of cuneiform text; but he could piece together only fragments of four columns. 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 pieced together by George Smith, and retranslated by W. S. C. Boscawen in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology (vol. V), the tale began with the identification of the instigator; damage to the lines, however, obliterated the name. “The thoughts” of this god’s heart “were evil; against the Father of the Gods [Enlil] he was wicked.” To achieve his evil purpose “the people of Babylon he corrupted to sin,” inducing “small and great to mingle on the mound.”

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 and 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. But Damkina stood by his side: “With my son I rise . . . " she said. The incomplete verse that follows has her stating that “his number”—his numerical rank-status?—was at issue.

The legible portion of column III then deals with Enid’s efforts to talk the rebellious group out of their plans. Taking himself up in a Whirlwind, “Nunamnir [Enlil] from the heaven to earth spoke; [but] by his path they did not go; violently they fronted against him.” When Enlil “saw this, to earth he descended.” But even his very presence on the site did not make a difference. We read in the last column that “when a stop he did not make of the gods,” he had no choice but to resort to force: To their stronghold tower, in the night, a complete end he made.

In his anger, a command he also poured out: To scatter abroad was his decision. He gave a command their counsels to confuse. . . . their course he stopped. 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-IIi—it meant “Gateway of the Gods,” the place by which the gods were to enter and leave Sumer.

It was there, the biblical narrative states, that the perpetrators planned to construct “a tower whose head shall reach unto the heavens.” The words are identical to the actual name of the ziggurat (seven-stage pyramid) which was the dominant feature of ancient Babylon (Fig. 64): E.SAG.ILA, “House Whose Head is Lofty.” The biblical and the 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 chain of events replete with tragedies.

Fig. 64