Many seals similarly depict a god (and sometimes two) within such oval "divine chambers"; in most instances, these gods within their sacred ovals were depicted as objects of veneration.
Wishing to worship their gods throughout the lands, and not only at the official "house" of each deity, the ancient peoples developed the custom of setting up imitations of the god within his divine "sky chamber." Stone pillars shaped to simulate the oval vehicle were erected at selected sites, and the image of the god was carved into the stone to indicate that he was within the object.
It was only a matter of time before kings and rulers - associating these pillars (called stelae) with the ability to ascend to the Heavenly Abode - began to carve their own images upon the stelae as a way of associating themselves with the Eternal Abode. If they could not escape a physical oblivion, it was important that at least their "name" be forever commemorated. That the purpose of the commemorative stone pillars was to simulate a fiery skyship can further be gleaned from the term by which such stone stelae were known in antiquity. The Sumerians called them NA.RU ("stones that rise"). The Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians called them naru ("objects that give off light"). The Amurru called them nuras ("fiery objects" - in Hebrew, ner still means a pillar that emits light, and thus today's "candle"). In the Indo-European tongues of the Hurrians and the Hittites, the stelae were called hu-u-ashi ("fire bird of stone").
Biblical references indicate familiarity with two types of commemorative monument, a yad and a shem. The prophet Isaiah
conveyed to the suffering people of Judaea the Lord's promise of a better and safer future:
And I will give them,
In my House and within my walls,
A yad and a shem.
Literally translated, this would amount to the Lord's promise to provide his people with a "hand" and a "name." Fortunately, however, from ancient monuments called yad's that still stand in the Holy Land, we learn that they
were distinguished by tops shaped like pyramidions. The shem, on the other hand, was a memorial with an oval top. Both, it seems evident, began as simulations of the "sky chamber," the gods' vehicle for ascending to the Eternal Abode. In ancient Egypt, in fact, the devout made pilgrimages to a special temple at Heliopolis to view and worship the ben-ben - a pyramidion- shaped object in which the gods had arrived on Earth in times immemorial. Egyptian pharaohs, on their deaths, were subjected to a ceremony of "opening of the mouth," in which they were supposed to be transported by a similar yad or a shem to the divine Abode of Eternal Life.
The persistence of biblical translators to employ "name" wherever they encounter shem has ignored a 'farsighted study published more than a century ago by G. M. Redslob (in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesell-schaft) in which he correctly pointed out that the term shem and the term shamaim ("heaven") stem from the root word shamah, meaning "that which is highward." When the Old Testament reports that King David "made a shem" to mark his victory over the Aramaeans, Redslob said, he did not "make a name" but set up a monument pointing skyward.
The realization that mu rr shem in many Mesopotamian texts should be read not as "name" but as "sky vehicle" opens the way to the understanding of the true meaning of many ancient tales, including the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. The Book of Genesis, in its eleventh chapter, reports on the attempt by humans to raise up a shem. The biblical account is given in concise (and precise) language that bespeaks historical fact. Yet generations of scholars and translators have sought to impart to the tale only an allegorical meaning because - as they understood it - it was a tale concerning Mankind's desire to "make a name" for itself. Such an approach voided the tale of its factual meaning; our conclusion regarding the true meaning of shem makes the tale as meaningful as it must have been to the people of antiquity themselves.
The biblical tale of the Tower of Babel deals with events that followed the repopulation of Earth after the Deluge, when some of the people "journeyed from the east, and they found a plain in the land of Shin'ar, and they settled there." The Land of Shinar is, of course, the Land of Sumer, in the plain between the two rivers in southern Mesopotamia. And the people, already knowledgeable concerning the art of brickmaking and high-rise construction for an urban civilization, said: "Let us build us a city,
and a tower whose top shall reach the heavens; and let us make us a shem, lest we be scattered upon the face of the Earth." But this human scheme was not to God's liking.
And the Lord came down, to see the city and the tower which the Children of Adam had erected.
And he said: "Behold,
all are as one people with one language,
and this is just the beginning of their undertakings;
Now, anything which they shall scheme to do
shall no longer be impossible for them."
And the Lord said - to some colleagues whom the Old Testament does not name:
"Come, let us go down,
and there confound their language;
So that they may not understand each other's speech."
And the Lord scattered them from there
upon the face of the whole Earth,
and they ceased to build the city.
Therefore was its name called Babel,
for there did the Lord mingle the Earth's tongue.
The traditional translation of shem as "name" has kept the tale unintelligible for generations. Why did the ancient residents of Babel - Babylonia - exert themselves to "make a name," why was the "name" to be placed upon "a tower whose top shall reach the heavens," and how could the "making of a name" counteract the effects of Mankind's scattering upon Earth?
If all that those people wanted was to make (as scholars explain) a "reputation" for themselves, why did this attempt upset the Lord so much? Why was the raising of a "name" deemed by the Deity to be a feat after which "anything which they shall scheme to do shall no longer be impossible for them"? The traditional explanations certainly are insufficient to clarify why the Lord found it necessary to call upon other unnamed deities to go down and put an end to this human attempt.
We believe that the answers to all these questions become plausible - even obvious - once we read "skyborne vehicle" rather than "name" for the word shem, which is the term employed in the original Hebrew text of the Bible. The story would then deal with the concern of Mankind that, as the people spread upon Earth, they would lose contact with one another. So they decided to build a "skyborne vehicle" and to erect a launch tower for such a vehicle so that they, too, could - like the goddess Ishtar, for example - fly in a mu "over all the peopled lands."
A portion of the Babylonian text known as the "Epic of Creation" relates that the first "Gateway of the Gods" was constructed in
Babylon by the gods themselves. The Anunnaki, the rank-and-file gods, were ordered to
Construct the Gateway of the Gods. . . .
Let its brickwork be fashioned.
Its shem shall be in the designated place.
For two years, the Anunnaki toiled - "applied the implement . . . molded bricks" - until "they raised high the top of Eshagila" ("house of Great Gods") and "built the stage tower as high as High Heaven."
It was thus some cheek on the part of Mankind to establish its own launch tower on a site originally used for the purpose by the gods, for the name of the place - Babili - literally meant "Gateway of the Gods." Is there any other evidence to corroborate the biblical tale and our interpretation of it?
The Babylonian historian-priest Berossus, who in the third century B.C. compiled a history of Mankind, reported that the "first inhabitants of the land, glorying in their own strength . . . undertook to raise a tower whose 'top' should reach the sky." But the tower was overturned by the gods and heavy winds, "and the gods introduced a diversity of tongues among men, who till that time had all spoken the same language."
George Smith (The Chaldean Account of Genesis) found in the writings of the Greek historian Hestaeus a report that, in ac
cordance with "olden traditions," the people who had escaped the Deluge came to Senaar in Babylonia but were driven away from there by a diversity of tongues. The historian Alexander Polyhistor (first century B.C.) wrote that all men formerly spoke the same language. Then some undertook to erect a large and lofty tower so that they might "climb up to heaven." But the chief god confounded their design by sending a whirlwind; each tribe was given a different language. "The city where it happened was Babylon."
There is little doubt by now that the biblical tales, as well as the reports of the Greek historians of 2,000 years ago and of their predecessor Berossus, all stem from earlier - Sumerian - origins. A. H. Sayce (The Religion of the Babylonians) reported reading on a fragmentary tablet in the British Museum "the Babylonian version of the building of the Tower of Babel." In all instances, the attempt to reach the heavens and the ensuing confusion of tongues are basic elements of the version. There are other Sumerian texts that record the deliberate confusion of Man's tongue by an irate god.
Mankind, presumably, did not possess at that time the technology required for such an aerospace project; the guidance and collaboration of a knowledgeable god was essential. Did such a god defy the others to help Mankind? A Sumerian seal depicts a confrontation between armed gods, apparently over the disputed construction by men of a stage tower.
A Sumerian stela now on view in Paris in the Louvre may well depict the incident reported in the Book of Genesis. It was put up
circa 2300 B.C. by Naram-Sin, king of Akkad, and scholars have assumed that it depicts the king victorious over his enemies.
But the large central figure is that of a deity and not of the human king, for the person is wearing a helmet adorned with horns -
the identifying mark exclusive to the gods. Furthermore, this central figure does not appear to be the leader of the smaller-sized
humans, but to be trampling upon them. These humans, in turn, do not seem to be engaged in any warlike activities, but to be
marching toward, and standing in adoration of, the same large conical object on which the deity's attention is also focused.
Armed with a bow and lance, the deity seems to view the object menacingly rather than with adoration.
The conical object is shown reaching toward three celestial bodies. If its size, shape, and purpose indicate that it was a shem,
then the scene depicted an angry and fully armed god trampling upon people celebrating the raising of a shem,
Both the Mesopotamia!! texts and the biblical account impart the same moral: The flying machines were meant for the gods and
not for Mankind.
Men - assert both Mesopotamian and biblical texts - could ascend to the Heavenly Abode only upon the express wish of the gods. And therein lie more tales of ascents to the heavens and even of space flights. The Old Testament records the ascent to the heavens of several mortal beings.
The first was Enoch, a pre-Diluvial patriarch whom God befriended and who "walked with the Lord." He was the seventh patriarch in the line of Adam and the greatgrandfather of Noah, hero of the Deluge. The fifth chapter of the Book of Genesis lists the genealogies of all these patriarchs and the ages at which they died - except for Enoch, "who was gone, for the Lord had taken him." By implication and tradition, it was heavenward, to escape mortality on Earth, that God took Enoch. The other mortal was the prophet Elijah, who was lifted off Earth and taken heavenward in a "whirlwind."
A little-known reference to a third mortal who visited the Divine Abode and was endowed there with great wisdom is provided in
the Old Testament, and it concerns the ruler of Tyre (a Phoenician center on the eastern Mediterranean coast). We read in
Chapter 28 of the Book of Ezekiel that the Lord commanded the prophet to remind the king how, perfect and wise, he was
enabled by the Deity to visit with the gods:
Thou art molded by a plan,
full of wisdom, perfect in beauty.
Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God;
every precious stone was thy thicket. ...
Thou art an anointed Cherub, protected;
and I have placed thee in the sacred mountain;
as a god werest thou, moving within the Fiery Stones.
Predicting that the ruler of Tyre should die a death "of the uncircumcised" by the hand of strangers even if he called out to them "I am a Deity," the Lord then told Ezekiel the reason: After the king was taken to the Divine Abode and given access to all wisdom and riches, his heart "grew haughty," he misused his wisdom, and he defiled the temples. Because thine heart is haughty, saying "A god am I;
in the Abode of the Deity I sat, in the midst of the Waters"; Though thou art a Man, not a god, thou set thy heart as that of a Deity.
The Sumerian texts also speak of several men who were privileged to ascend to the heavens. One was Adapa, the "model man" created by Ea. To him Ea "had given wisdom; eternal life he had not given him." As the years went by, Ea decided to avert Adapa's mortal end by providing him with a shem with which he was to reach the Heavenly Abode of Anu, there to partake of the Bread of Life and the Water of Life. When Adapa arrived at Anu's Celestial Abode, Anu demanded to know who had provided Adapa with a shem with which to reach the heavenly location.
There are several important clues to be found in both the biblical and the Mesopotamia!! tales of the rare ascents of mortals to the Abode of the Gods. Adapa, too, like the king of Tyre, was made of a perfect "mold." All had to reach and employ a shem - "fiery stone" - to reach the celestial "Eden." Some had gone up and returned to Earth; others, like the Mesopotamian hero of the Deluge, stayed there to enjoy the company of the gods. It was to find this Mesopotamian "Noah" and obtain from him the secret of the Tree of Life, that the Sumerian Gilgamesh set out.
The futile search by mortal Man for the Tree of Life is the subject of one of the longest, most powerful epic texts bequeathed to human culture by the Sumerian civilization. Named by modern scholars "The Epic of Gilgamesh," the moving tale concerns the ruler of Uruk who was born to a mortal father and a divine mother. As a result, Gilgamesh was considered to be "two-thirds of him god, one-third of him human," a circumstance that prompted him to seek escape from the death that was the fate of mortals. Tradition had informed him that one of his forefathers, Utnapishtirn - the hero of the Deluge - had escaped death, having been taken to the Heavenly Abode together with his spouse. Gilgamesh therefore decided to reach that place •and obtain from his ancestor the secret of eternal life.
What prompted him to go was what he took to be an invitation from Anu. The verses read like a description of the sighting of the falling back to Earth of a spent rocket. Gilgamesh described it thus to his mother, the goddess NIN.SUN: My mother,
During the night I felt joyful
and I walked about among my nobles.
The stars assembled in the Heavens.
The handiwork of Anu descended toward me.
I sought to lift it; it was too heavy.
I sought to move it; move it I could not!
The people of Uruk gathered about it,
While the nobles kissed its legs.
As I set my forehead, they gave me support.
I raised it. I brought it to thee.
The interpretation of the incident by Gilgarnesh's mother is mutilated in the text, and is thus unclear. But obviously Gilgamesh
was encouraged by the sighting of the falling object - "the handiwork of Anu" - to embark on his adventure. In the introduction to
the epic, the ancient reporter called Gilgamesh "the wise one, he who has experienced everything":
Secret things he has seen, what is hidden to Man he knows; He even brought tidings of a time before the Deluge.
He also took the distant journey, wearisome and under difficulties; He returned, and engraved all his toil upon a stone pillar.
The "distant journey" Gilgamesh undertook was, of course, his journey to the Abode of the Gods; he was accompanied by his
&
nbsp; comrade Enkidu. Their target was the Land of Tilmun, for there Gilgamesh could raise a shem for himself. The current
translations employ the expected "name" where the Sumerian mu or the Akkadian shumu appear in the ancient texts; we shall,
however, employ shem instead so that the term's true meaning - a "skyborne vehicle" - will come through:
The ruler Gilgamesh
toward the Land of Tilmun set his mind.
He says to his companion Enkidu:
"O Enkidu . . .
I would enter the Land, set up my shem. In the places where the shem's were raised up I would raise my shem."
Unable to dissuade him, both the elders of Uruk and the gods whom Gilgamesh consulted advised him to first obtain the
consent and assistance of Utu/Shamash. "If thou wouldst enter the Land - inform Utu," they cautioned him. "The Land, it is in
Utu's charge," they stressed and re-stressed to him. Thus forewarned and advised, Gilgamesh appealed to Utu for permission:
Let me enter the Land,
Let me set up my shem.
In the places where the shem's are raised up,
let me raise my shem. ...
Bring me to the landing place at. ...
Establish over me thy protection!
An unfortunate break in the tablet leaves us ignorant regarding the location of "the landing place." But, wherever it was, Gilgamesh and his companion finally reached its outskirts. It was a "restricted zone," protected by awesome guards. Weary and sleepy, the two friends decided to rest overnight before continuing.
No sooner had sleep overcome them than something shook them up and awoke them. "Didst thou arouse me?" Gilgamesh
asked his comrade. "Am I awake?" he wondered, for he was witnessing unusual sights, so awesome that he wondered whether
he was awake or dreaming. He told Enkidu:
In my dream, my friend, the high ground toppled.
It laid me low, trapped my feet. ...
The glare was overpowering!
A man appeared;
the fairest in the land was he.
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