The 12th Planet

by Zacharia Sitchin

  His grace . . .

  From under the toppled ground he pulled me out. He gave me water to drink; my heart quieted.

  Who was this man, "the fairest in the land," who pulled Gilgamesh from under the landslide, gave him water, "quieted his heart"?

  And what was the "overpowering glare" that accompanied the unexplained landslide?

  Unsure, troubled, Gilgamesh fell asleep again - but not for long.

  In the middle of the watch his sleep was ended.

  He started up, saying to his friend:

  "My friend, didst thou call me?

  Why am I awake?

  Didst thou not touch me?

  Why am I startled?

  Did not some god go by?

  Why is my flesh numb?"

  Thus mysteriously reawakened, Gilgamesh wondered who had touched him. If it was not his comrade, was it "some god" who went by? Once more, Gilgamesh dozed off, only to be awakened a third time. He described the awesome occurrence to his friend.

  The vision that I saw was wholly awesome! The heavens shrieked, the earth boomed; Daylight failed, darkness came. Lightning flashed, a flame shot up. The clouds swelled, it rained death! Then the glow vanished; the fire went out. And all that had fallen had turned to ashes.

  One needs little imagination to see in these few verses an ancient account of the witnessing of the launching of a rocket ship. First the tremendous thud as the rocket engines ignited ("the heavens shrieked"), accompanied by a marked shaking of the ground ("the earth boomed"). Clouds of smoke and dust enveloped the launching site ("daylight failed, darkness came"). Then the brilliance of the ignited engines showed through ("lightning flashed"); as the rocket ship began to climb skyward, "a flame shot up." The cloud of dust and debris "swelled" in all directions; then, as it began to fall down, "it rained death!" Now the rocket ship was high in the sky, streaking heavenward ("the glow vanished; the fire went out"). The rocket ship was gone from sight; and the debris "that had fallen had turned to ashes."

  Awed by what he saw, yet as determined as ever to reach his destination, Gilgamesh once more appealed to Shamash for protection and support. Overcoming a "monstrous guard," he reached the mountain of Mashu, where one could see Shamash "rise up to the vault of Heaven."

  He was now near his first objective - the "place where the shem's are raised up." But the entrance to the site, apparently cut into the mountain, was guarded by fierce guards:

  Their terror is awesome, their glance is death. Their shimmering spotlight sweeps the mountains. They watch over Shamash, As he ascends and descends.

  A seal depiction showing Gilgamesh (second from left) and his companion Enkidu (far right) may well depict the intercession of a god with one of the robot-like guards who could sweep the area with spotlights and emit

  death rays. The description brings to mind the statement in the Book of Genesis that God placed "the revolving sword" at the entrance to the Garden of Eden, to block its access to humans.

  When Gilgamesh explained his partly divine origins, the purpose of his trip ("About death and life I wish to ask Utnapishtim") and the fact that he was on his way with the consent of Utu/Shamash, the guards allowed him to go ahead. Proceeding "along the route of Shamash," Gilgamesh found himself in utter darkness; "seeing nothing ahead or behind," he cried out in fright. Traveling for many beru (a unit of time, distance, or the arc of the heavens), he was still engulfed by darkness. Finally, "it had grown bright when twelve beru he attained."

  The damaged and blurred text then has Gilgamesh arriving at a magnificent garden where the fruits and trees were carved of semi-precious stones. It was there that Utnapishtim resided. Posing his problem to his ancestor, Gilgamesh encountered a disappointing answer: Man, Utnapishtim said, cannot escape his mortal fate. However, he offered Gilgamesh a way to postpone death, revealing to him the location of the Plant of Youth - "Man becomes young in old age," it was called. Triumphant, Gilgamesh obtained the plant. But, as fate would have it, he foolishly lost it on his way back, and returned to Uruk empty- handed.

  Putting aside the literary and philosophic values of the epic tale, the story of Gilgamesh interests us here primarily for its "aerospace" aspects. The shem that Gilgamesh required in order to reach the Abode of the Gods was undoubtedly a rocket ship, the launching of one of which he had witnessed as he neared the "landing place." The rockets, it would seem, were located inside a mountain, and the area was a well-guarded, restricted zone.

  No pictorial depiction of what Gilgamesh saw has so far come to light. But a drawing found in the tomb of an Egyptian governor of a far land shows a rockethead above-ground in a place where date trees grow. The shaft of the rocket is clearly stored underground, in a man-made silo constructed of tubular segments and decorated with leopard skins.

  Very much in the manner of modern draftsmen, the ancient artists showed a cross-section of the underground silo. We can see that the rocket contained a number of compartments. The lower one shows two men surrounded by curving tubes. Above them there are three circular panels. Comparing the size of the rockethead - the ben-ben - to the size of the two men inside the rocket, and the people above the ground, it is evident that the rockethead - equivalent to the Sumerian mu, the "celestial chamber" - could easily hold one or two operators or passengers.

  TIL.MUN was the name of the land to which Gilgamesh set his course. The name literally meant "land of the missiles." It was the land where the shem's were raised, a land under the authority of Utu/Shamash, a place where on e could see this god "rise up to the vault of heavens."

  And though the celestial counterpart of this member of the Pantheon of Twelve was the Sun, we suggest that his name did not mean "Sun" but was an epithet describing his functions and responsibilities. His Sumerian name Utu meant "he who brilliantly goes in." His derivate Akkadian name - Shem-Esh - was more explicit: Esh means "fire," and we now know what shem originally meant.

  Utu/Shamash was "he of the fiery rocket ships." He was, we suggest, the commander of the spaceport of the gods. The commanding role of Utu/Shamash in matters of travel to the Heavenly Abode of the Gods, and the functions performed by his subordinates in this connection, are brought out in even greater detail in yet another Sumerian tale of a heavenward journey by a mortal.

  The Sumerian king lists inform us that the thirteenth ruler of Kish was Etana, "the one who to Heaven ascended." This brief statement needed no elaboration, for the tale of the mortal king who journeyed up to the highest heavens was well known throughout the ancient Near East, and was the subject of numerous seal depictions.

  Etana, we are told, was designated by the gods to bring Mankind the security and prosperity that Kingship - an organized civilization - was intended to provide. But Etana, it seems, could not father a son who would continue the dynasty. The only known remedy was a certain Plant of Birth that Etana could obtain only by fetching it down from the heavens. Like Gilgamesh at a later time, Etana turned to Shamash for permission and assistance. As the epic unfolds, it becomes clear that Etana was asking Shamash for a shem!

  O Lord, may it issue from thy mouth! Grant thou me the Plant of Birth! Show me the Plant of Birth! Remove my handicap! Produce for me a shem!

  Flattered by prayer and fattened by sacrificial sheep, Shamash agreed to grant Etana's request to provide him with a shem. But instead of speaking of a shem. Shamash told Etana that an "eagle" would take him to the desired heavenly place. Directing Etana to the pit where the Eagle had been placed, Shamash also informed the Eagle ahead of time of the intended mission. Exchanging cryptic messages with "Shamash, his lord," the Eagle was told: "A man I will send to thee; he will take thy hand . . . lead him hither . . . do whatever he says ... do as I say."

  Arriving at the mountain indicated to him by Shamash, "Etana saw the pit," and, inside it, "there the Eagle was." "At the

  command of valiant Shamash," the Eagle entered into communication with Etana. Once more, Etana explained his purpose and

  destination; whereupon the
Eagle began to instruct Etana on the procedure for "raising the Eagle from its pit." The first two

  attempts failed, but on the third one the Eagle was properly raised. At daybreak, the Eagle announced to Etana: "My friend ... up

  to the Heaven of Anu I will bear thee!" Instructing him how to hold on, the Eagle took off - and they were aloft, rising fast.

  As though reported by a modem astronaut watching Earth recede as his rocket ship rises, the ancient storyteller describes how

  Earth appeared smaller and smaller to Etana:

  When he had borne him aloft one beru,

  the Eagle says to him, to Etana:

  "See, my friend, how the land appears!

  Peer at the sea at the sides of the Mountain House:

  The land has indeed become a mere hill,

  The wide sea is just like a tub."

  Higher and higher the Eagle rose; smaller and smaller Earth appeared. When he had borne him aloft a second beru, the Eagle said:

  "My friend,

  Cast a glance at how the land appears! The land has turned into a furrow. . . . The wide sea is just like a bread-basket." . . .

  When he had borne him aloft a third beru,

  The Eagle says to him, to Etana:

  "See, my friend, how the land appears!

  The land has turned into a gardener's ditch!"

  And then, as they continued to ascend, Earth was suddenly out of sight. As I glanced around, the land had disappeared, and upon the wide sea mine eyes could not feast.

  According to one version of this tale, the Eagle and Etana did reach the Heaven of Anu. But another version states that Etana got cold feet when he could no longer see Earth, and ordered the Eagle to reverse course and "plunge down" to Earth.

  Once again, we find a biblical parallel to such an unusual report of seeing Earth from a great distance above it. Exalting the Lord Yahweh, the prophet Isaiah said of him: "It is he who sitteth upon the circle of the Earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as insects."

  The tale of Etana informs us that, seeking a shem, Etana had to communicate with an Eagle inside a pit. A seal depiction shows a winged, tall structure (a launch tower?) above which an eagle flies off. What or who was the Eagle who took Etana to the distant heavens?

  We cannot help associating the ancient text with the message beamed to Earth in July 1969 by Neil Armstrong, commander of the Apollo 11 spacecraft: "Houston! Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed!"

  He was reporting the first landing by Man on the Moon. "Tranquility Base" was the site of the landing; Eagle was the name of the lunar module that separated from the spacecraft and took the two astronauts inside it to the Moon (and then back to their mother craft). When the lunar module first separated to start its own flight in Moon orbit, the astronauts told Mission Control in Houston: "The Eagle has wings."

  But "Eagle" could also denote the astronauts who manned the spacecraft. On the Apollo 11 mission, "Eagle" was also the symbol of the astronauts themselves, worn as an emblem on their suits. Just as in the Etana tale, they, too, were "Eagles" who could fly, speak, and communicate.

  How would an ancient artist have depicted the pilots of the skyships of the gods? Would he have depicted them, by some chance, as eagles?

  That is exactly what we have found. An Assyrian seal engraving from circa 1500 B.C. shows two "eagle-men" saluting a shem! Numerous depictions of such "Eagles" - the scholars call them "bird-men" - have been found. Most depictions show them flanking the Tree of Life, as if to stress that they, in their shem's, provided the link with the Heavenly Abode where the Bread of Life and Water of Life were to be found. Indeed, the usual depiction of the Eagles showed them holding in one hand the Fruit of Life and in the other the Water of Life, in full conformity with the tales of Adapa, Etana, and Gilgamesh.

  The many depictions of the Eagles clearly show that they were not monstrous "bird-men," but anthropomorphic beings wearing costumes or uniforms that gave them the appearance of eagles.

  The Hittite tale concerning the god Telepinu, who had vanished, reported that "the great gods and the lesser gods began to search for Telepinu" and "Shamash sent out a swift Eagle" to find him.

  In the Book of Exodus, God is reported to have reminded the Children of Israel, "I have carried you upon the wings of Eagles, and have brought you unto me," confirming, it seems, that the way to reach the Divine Abode was upon the wings of Eagles - just as the tale of Etana relates. Numerous biblical verses, as a matter of fact, describe the Deity as a winged being. Boaz welcomed Ruth into the Judaean community as "coming under the wings" of the God Yahweh. The Psalmist sought security "under the shadow of thy wings" and described the descent of the Lord from the heavens. "He mounted a Cherub and went flying; He soared upon windy wings." Analyzing the similarities between the biblical El (employed as a title or generic term for the Deity) and the Canaanite El, S. Langdon (Semitic Mythology) showed that both were depicted, in text and on coins, as winged gods.

  The Mesopotamian texts invariably present Utu/Shamash as the god in charge of the landing place of the shem's and of the Eagles. And like his subordinates he was sometimes shown wearing the full regalia of an Eagle's costume. In such a capacity, he could grant to kings the privilege of "flying on the wings of birds" and of "rising from the lower heavens to the lofty ones." And when he was launched aloft in a fiery rocket, it was he "who stretched over unknown distances, for countless hours." Appro­priately, "his net was the Earth, his trap the distant skies."

  The Sumerian terminology for objects connected with celestial travel was not limited to the me's that the gods put on or the mus that were their cone-shaped "chariots."

  Sumerian texts describing Sippar relate that it had a central part, hidden and protected by mighty walls. Within those walls stood the Temple of Utu, "a house which is like a house of the Heavens." In an inner courtyard of the temple, also protected by high walls, stood "erected upwards, the mighty APIN" ("an object that plows through," according to the translators). A drawing found at the temple mound of Anu at Uruk depicts such an object. We would have been hard put a few decades ago to guess what this object was; but it is a multistage space rocket at the top of which rests the conical mu, or command cabin. The evidence that the gods of Sumer possessed not just "flying chambers" for roaming Earth's skies but space-going multistage rocket ships also emerges from the examination of texts describing the sacred objects at Utu's temple at Sippar. We are told that witnesses at Burner's supreme court were required to take the oath in an inner courtyard, standing by a gateway through which they could see and face three "divine objects." These were named "the golden sphere" (the crew's cabin?), the GIR, and the alikmahrati - a term that literally meant "advancer that makes vessel go," or what we would call a motor, an engine. What emerges here is a reference to a three-part rocket ship, with the cabin or command module at the top end, the engines at the bottom end, and the gir in the center. The latter is a term that has been used extensively in connection with space flight. The guards Gilgamesh encountered at the entrance to the landing place of Shamash were called gir-men. In the temple of Ninurta, the sacred or most guarded inner area was called the GlR.SU ("where the gir is sprung up").

  Gir, it is generally acknowledged, was a term used to describe a sharp-edged object. A close look at the pictorial sign for gir provides a better understanding of the term's "divine" nature; for what we see is a long, arrow-shaped object, divided into several parts or compartments:

  That the mu could hover in Earth's skies on its own, or fly over Earth's lands when attached to a gir, or become the command

  module atop a multistage apin is testimony to the engineering ingenuity of the gods of Sumer, the Gods of Heaven and Earth.

  A review of the Sumerian pictographs and ideograms leaves no doubt that whoever drew those signs was familiar with the

  shapes and purposes of rockets with tails of billowing fire, missile-like vehicles, and celestial "cabins."

  KA.GIR ("rocket's mouth") showed
a fin-equipped gir, or rocket, inside a shaftlike underground enclosure.

  ESH ("Divine Abode"), the chamber or command module of a space vehicle.

  ZIK ("ascend"), a command module taking off?

  Finally, let us look at the pictographic sign for "gods" in Sumerian. The term was a two-syllable word: DIN.GIR. We have already seen what the symbol for GIR was: a two-stage rocket with fins. DIN, the first syllable, meant "righteous," "pure," "bright." Put together, then, DIN.GIR as "gods" or "divine beings" conveyed the meaning "the righteous ones of the bright, pointed objects" or, more explicitly, "the pure ones of the blazing rockets."

  The pictographic sign can easily bringing to mind a powerful jet engine spewing flames from the end part, and a front part that is puzzlingly open. But the puzzle turns to amazement if we "spell" dingir by combining the two pictographs. The tail of the finlike gir fits perfectly into the opening in the front of din!

  The astounding result is a picture of a rocket-propelled spaceship, with a landing craft docked into it perfectly - just as the lunar module was docked with the Apollo 11 spaceship! It is indeed a three-stage vehicle, with each part fitting neatly into the other: the thrust portion containing the engines, the midsection containing supplies and equipment, and the cylindrical "sky chamber" housing the people named dingir - the gods of antiquity, the astronauts of millennia ago.

  Can there be any doubt that the ancient peoples, in calling their deities "Gods of Heaven and Earth," meant literally that they were people from elsewhere who had come to Earth from the heavens?

  The evidence thus far submitted regarding the ancient gods and their vehicles should leave no further doubt that they were once indeed living beings of flesh and blood, people who literally came down to Earth from the heavens.

  Even the ancient compilers of the Old Testament - who dedicated the Bible to a single God - found it necessary to acknowledge the presence upon Earth in early times of such divine beings.

  The enigmatic section - a horror of translators and theologians alike - forms the beginning of Chapter 6 of Genesis. It is interposed between the review of the spread of Mankind through the generations following Adam and the story of the divine disenchantment with Mankind that preceded the Deluge. It states - unequivocally - that, at that time, the sons of the gods