The 12th Planet

by Zacharia Sitchin

  Intrigued by the unexpected antiquity of the finds, the team extended its area of search. At the base of a cliff face on the precipitous western slopes of Lion Peak, a five-ton slab of hematite stone blocked access to a cavern. Charcoal remains dated the mining operations within the cavern at 20,000 to 26,000 B.C.

  Was mining for metals possible during the Old Stone Age? Incredulous, the scholars dug a shaft at a point where, apparently, the ancient miners had begun their operations. A charcoal sample found there was sent to the Groningen laboratory. The result was a dating of 41,250 B.C., give or take 1,600 years!

  South African scientists then probed prehistoric mine sites in southern Swaziland. Within the uncovered mine caverns, they found twigs, leaves, and grass, even feathers - all, presumably, brought in by the ancient miners as bedding. At the 35,000 B.C. level, they found notched bones, which "indicate man's ability to count at that remote period." Other remains advanced the age of the artifacts to about 50,000 B.C.

  Believing that the "true age of the onset of mining in Swaziland is more likely to be in the order of 70,000-80,000 B.C.," the two scientists suggested that "southern Africa . . . could well have been in the forefront of technological invention and innovation during much of the period subsequent to 100,000 B.C."

  Commenting on the discoveries, Dr. Kenneth Oakley, former head anthropologist of the Natural History Museum in London, saw quite a different significance to the finds. "It throws important light on the origins of Man ... it is now possible that southern Africa was the evolutionary home of Man," the "birthplace" of Homo sapiens.

  As we shall show, it was indeed there that modern Man appeared on Earth, through a chain of events triggered by the gods' search for metals.

  Both serious scientists and science-fiction writers have suggested that a good reason for us to establish settlements on other planets or asteroids might be the availability of rare minerals on those celestial bodies, minerals that might he too scarce or too costly to mine on Earth. Could this have been the Nefilim's purpose in colonizing Earth?

  Modern scholars divide Man's activities on Earth into the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and so on; in ancient times, however, the Greek poet Hesiod, for example, listed five ages - Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron. Except for the Heroic Age, all ancient traditions accepted the sequence of gold-silver-copper - iron. The prophet Daniel had a vision in which he saw "a great image" with a head of fine gold, breast and arms of silver, belly of brass, legs of iron, and extremities, or feet, of clay. Myth and folklore abound with hazy memories of a Golden Age, mostly associated with the time when gods roamed Earth, followed by a Silver Age, and then the ages when gods and men shared Earth - the Age of Heroes, of Copper, Bronze, and Iron. Are these legends in fact vague recollections of actual events on Earth?

  Gold, silver, and copper are all native elements of the gold group. They fall into the same family in the periodic classification by atomic weight and number; they have similar crystallographic, chemical, and physical properties - all are soft, malleable, and ductile. Of all known elements, these are the best conductors of heat and electricity.

  Of the three, gold is the most durable, virtually indestructible. Though best known for its use as money and in jewelry or fine artifacts, it is almost invaluable in the electronics industry. A sophisticated society requires gold for microelectronic assemblies, guidance circuitry, and computer "brains."

  Man's infatuation with gold is traceable to the beginnings of his civilization and religion - to his contacts with the

  ancient gods. The gods of Sumer required that they be served food from golden trays, water and wine from golden vessels, that

  they be clad in golden garments. Though the Israelites left Egypt in such a hurry that there was no time for them to let their

  bread leaven, they were ordered to ask the Egyptians for all available silver and gold objects. This command, as we shall find

  out later, anticipated the need for such materials to construct the Tabernacle and its electronic accoutrements.

  Gold, which we call the royal metal, was in fact the metal of the gods. Speaking to the prophet Haggai, the Lord made it clear, in

  connection with his return to judge the nations: "The silver is mine and the gold is mine."

  The evidence suggests that Man's own infatuation with these metals has its roots in the great need of the Nefilim for gold. The Nefilim, it appears, came to Earth for gold and its related metals. They may also have come for other rare metals - such as platinum (abundant in southern Africa), which can power fuel cells in an extraordinary manner. And the possibility should not be ruled out that they came to Earth for sources of radioactive minerals, such as uranium or cobalt - the Lower World's "blue stones that cause ill," which some texts mention. Many depictions show Ea - as the God of Mining - emitting such powerful rays as he exits from a mine that the gods attending him have to use screening shields; in all these depictions, Ea is shown holding a miner's rock saw.

  Though Enki was in charge of the first landing party and the development of the Abzu, credit for what was accomplished - as the case should be with all generals - should not go to him alone. Those who actually did the work, day in, day out, were the lesser members of the landing party, the Anunnaki.

  A Sumerian text describes the construction of Enlil's center in Nippur. "The Annuna, gods of heaven and earth, are working. The axe and the carrying-basket, with which they laid foundation of the cities, in their hands they held."

  The ancient texts described the Anunnaki as the rank-and-file gods who had been involved in the settlement of Earth - the gods

  "who performed the tasks." The Babylonian "Epic of Creation" credited Marduk with giving the Anunnaki their assignments. (The

  Sumerian original, we can safely assume, named Enlil as the god who commanded these astronauts.)

  Assigned to Anu, to heed his instructions,

  Three hundred in the heavens he stationed as a guard;

  the ways of Earth to define from the Heaven;

  And on Earth,

  Six hundred he made reside. After he all their instructions had ordered, to the Anunnaki of Heaven and of Earth he allotted their assignments.

  The texts reveal that three hundred of them - the "Anunnaki of Heaven," or Igigi - were true astronauts who stayed aboard the spacecraft without actually landing on Earth. Orbiting Earth, these spacecraft launched and received the shuttlecraft to and from Earth.

  As chief of the "Eagles," Shamash was a welcome and heroic guest aboard the "mighty great chamber in heaven" of the Igigi. A "Hymn to Shamash" describes how the Igigi observed Shamash approaching in his shuttlecraft:

  At thy appearances, all the princes are glad; All the Igigi rejoice over thee. . . . In the brilliance of thy light, their path. . . . They constantly look for thy radiance. . . . Opened wide is the doorway, entirely. . . . The bread offerings of all the Igigi [await thee].

  Staying aloft, the Igigi were apparently never encountered by Mankind. Several texts say that they were "too high up for Mankind," as a consequence of which "they were not concerned with the people." The Anunnaki, on the other hand, who landed and stayed on Earth, were known and revered by Mankind. The texts that state that "the Anunnaki of Heaven . . . are 300" also state that "the Anunnaki of Earth . . . are 600."

  Still, many texts persist in referring to the Anunnaki as the "fifty great princes." A common spelling of their name in Akkadian, An- nun-na-ki, readily yields the meaning "the fifty who went from Heaven to Earth." Is there a way to bridge the seeming contradiction?

  We recall the text relating how Marduk rushed to his father Ea to report the loss of a spacecraft carrying "the Anunnaki who are fifty" as it passed near Saturn. An exorcism text from the time of the third dynasty of Ur speaks of the anunna eridu ninnubi ("the fifty Anunnaki of the city Eridu"). This strongly suggests that the group of Nefilim who founded Eridu under the command of Enki numbered fifty. Could it be that fifty was the number of Nefilim in each land
ing party?

  It is, we believe, quite conceivable that the Nefilim arrived on Earth in groups of fifty. As the visits to Earth became regular, coinciding with the opportune launching times from the Twelfth Planet, more Nefilim would arrive. Each time, some of the earlier arrivals would ascend in an Earth module and rejoin the spaceship for a trip home. But, each time, more Nefilim would stay on Earth, and the number of Twelfth Planet astronauts who stayed to colonize Earth grew from the initial landing party of fifty to the "600 who on Earth settled."

  How did the Nefilim expect to achieve their mission - to mine on Earth its desired minerals, and ship the ingots back to the Twelfth Planet - with such a small number of hands?

  Undoubtedly, they relied on their scientific knowledge. It was there that Enki's full value becomes clear - the reason for his, rather than Enlil's, being the first to land, the reason for his assignment to the Abzu.

  A famous seal now on exhibit at the Louvre Museum shows Ea with his familiar flowing waters, except that the waters seem to emanate from, or be filtered through, a series of laboratory flasks. Such an ancient interpretation of Ea's association with waters raises the possibility that the original hope of the Nefilim was to obtain their minerals from the sea. The oceans' waters do contain vast quantities of gold and other vital minerals, but so greatly diluted that highly sophisticated and cheap techniques are needed to justify such "water mining." It is also known that the sea beds contain immense quantities of minerals in the form of plum-sized nodules - available if only one could reach deep down and scoop them up.

  The ancient texts refer repeatedly to a type of ship used by the gods called elippu tebiti ("sunken ship" - what we now call a submarine). We have seen the "fish-men" that were assigned to Ea. Is this evidence of efforts to dive to the depths of the oceans and retrieve their mineral riches? The Land of the Mines, we have noted, was earlier called A.RA.LI. - "place of the waters of the shiny lodes." This could mean a land where gold could be river-panned; it could also refer to efforts to obtain gold from the seas.

  If these were the plans of the Nefilim, they apparently came to naught. For, soon after they had established their first settlements, the few hundred Anunnaki were given an unexpected and most arduous task: to go down into the depths of the African soil and mine the needed minerals there.

  Depictions that have been found on cylinder seals show gods at what appear to be mine entrances or mine shafts; one shows Ea in a land where Gibil is aboveground and another god toils underground, on his hands and knees.

  In later times, Babylonian and Assyrian texts disclose, men - young and old - were sentenced to hard labor in the mines of the Lower World. Working in darkness and eating dust as food, they were doomed never to return to their homeland. This is why the Sumerian epithet for the land - KUR.NU.GI.A - acquired the interpretation "land of no return"; its literal meaning was "land where gods-who-work, in deep tunnels pile up [the ores]." For the time when the Nefilim settled Earth, all the ancient sources attest, was a time when Man was not yet on Earth; and in the absence of Mankind, the few Anunnaki had to toil in the mines. Ishtar, on her descent to the Lower World, described the toiling Anunnaki as eating food mixed with clay and drinking water fouled with dust.

  Against this background, we can fully understand a long epic text named (after its opening verse, as was the custom), "When the gods, like men, bore the work."

  Piecing together many fragments of both Babylonian and Assyrian versions, W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard (Atra-Hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood) were able to present a continuous text. They reached the conclusion that it was based on earlier Sumerian versions, and possibly on even earlier oral traditions about the arrival of the gods on Earth, the creation of Man, and his destruction by the Deluge.

  While many of the verses hold only literary value to their translators, we find them highly significant, for they corroborate our

  findings and conclusions in the preceding chapters. They also explain the circumstances that led to the mutiny of the Anunnaki.

  The story begins in the time when only the gods lived on Earth:

  When the gods, like men,

  bore the work and suffered the toil -

  the toil of the gods was great,

  the work was heavy,

  the distress was much.

  At that time, the epic relates, the chief deities had already divided the commands among themselves.

  Anu, father of the Anunnaki, was their Heavenly King;

  Their Lord Chancellor was the warrior Enlil.

  Their Chief Officer was Ninurta,

  And their Sheriff was Ennugi.

  The gods had clasped hands together,

  Had cast lots and divided.

  Anu had gone up to heaven,

  [Left] the earth to his subjects.

  The seas, enclosed as with a loop,

  They had given to Enki, the prince.

  Seven cities were established, and the text refers to seven Anunnaki who were city commanders. Discipline must have been strict, for the text tells us "The seven Great Anunnaki were making the lesser gods suffer the work."

  Of all their chores, it seems, digging was the most common, the most arduous, and the most abhorred. The lesser gods dug up the river beds to make them navigable; they dug canals for irrigation; and they dug in the Apsu to bring up the minerals of Earth. Though they undoubtedly had some sophisticated tools - the texts spoke of the "silver axe which shines as the day," even underground - the work was too exacting. For a long time - for forty "periods," to be exact - the Anunnaki "suffered the toil"; and then they cried: No more!

  They were complaining, backbiting, Grumbling in the excavations.

  The occasion for the mutiny appears to have been a visit by Enlil to the mining area. Seizing the opportunity, the Anunnaki said to one another:

  Let us confront our . . . the Chief Officer, That he may relieve us of our heavy work. The king of the gods, the hero Enlil, Let us unnerve him in his dwelling!

  A leader or organizer of the mutiny was soon found. He was the "chief officer of old time," who must have held a grudge against

  the current chief officer. His name, regrettably, is broken off; but his inciting address is quite clear:

  "Now, proclaim war;

  Let us combine hostilities and battle."

  The description of the mutiny is so vivid that scenes of the storming of the Bastille come to mind:

  The gods heeded his words.

  They set fire to their tools;

  Fire to their axes they put;

  They troubled the god of mining in the tunnels;

  They held [him] as they went

  to the gate of the hero Enlil.

  The drama and tension of the unfolding events are brought to life by the ancient poet:

  It was night, half-way through the watch.

  His house was surrounded -

  but the god, Enlil, did not know.

  Kalkal [then] observed it, was disturbed.

  He slid the bolt and watched. . . .

  Kalkal roused Nusku;

  they listened to the noise of. ...

  Nusku roused his lord -

  he got him out of his bed, [saying]:

  "My lord, your house is surrounded,

  battle has come right up to your gate."

  Enlil's first reaction was to take up arms against the mutineers. But Nusku, his chancellor, advised a Council of the Gods:

  "Transmit a message that Anu come down;

  Have Enki brought to your presence."

  He transmitted and Anu was carried down;

  Enki was also brought to his presence.

  With the great Anunnaki present,

  Enlil arose . . . opened his mouth

  And addressed the great gods.

  Taking the mutiny personally, Enlil demanded to know:

  "Is it against me that this is being done?

  Must I engage in hostilities . . . ?

  What did my very own eyes see?<
br />
  That battle has come right up to my gate!"

  Anu suggested that an inquiry be undertaken. Armed with the authority of Anu and the other commanders, Nusku went to the encamped mutineers. "Who is the instigator of battle?" he asked. "Who is the provoker of hostilities?"

  The Anunnaki stood together: "Every single one of us gods has war declared! We have our ... in the excavations; Excessive toil has killed us, Our work was heavy, the distress much."

  When Enlil heard Nusku's report of these grievances, "his tears flowed." He presented an ultimatum: either the leader of the

  mutineers be executed or he would resign. "Take the office away, take back your power," he told Anu, "and I will to you in

  heaven ascend." But Ami, who came down from Heaven, sided with the Anunnaki:

  "What are we accusing them of?

  Their work was heavy, their distress was much!

  Every day . . .

  The lamentation was heavy, we could hear the complaint."

  Encouraged by his father's words, Ea also "opened his mouth" and repeated Anu's summation. But he had a solution to offer: Let a lulu, a "Primitive Worker," be created!

  "While the Birth Goddess is present, Let her create a Primitive Worker; Let him bear the yoke. . . . Let him carry the toil of the gods!"

  The suggestion that a "Primitive Worker" be created so that he could take over the burden of work of the Anunnaki was readily

  accepted. Unanimously, the gods voted to create "The Worker.Man shall be his name," they said:

  They summoned and asked the goddess, The midwife of the gods, the wise Mami, [and said to her:]

  "You are the Birth Goddess, create Workers!

  Create a Primitive Worker,

  That he may bear the yoke!

  Let him bear the yoke assigned by Enlil,

  Let The Worker carry the toil of the gods!"

  Mami, the Mother of the Gods, said she would need the help of Ea, "with whom skill lies." In the House of Shimti, ;i hospital-like place, the gods were waiting. Ea helped prepare the mixture from which the Mother Goddess proceeded to fashion "Man." Birth