The Nefilim, as we have shown, used the peaks of Ararat as landmarks from the very beginning. As the highest peaks in that part of the world, they could be expected to reappear first from under the mantle of water. Since Enki, "The Wise One, the All- Knowing," certainly could figure that much out, we can surmise that he had instructed his servant to guide the ark toward Ararat, planning the encounter from the very beginning.
Berossus's version of the Flood, as reported by the Greek Abydenus, relates: "Kronos revealed to Sisithros that there would be a Deluge on the fifteenth day of Daisies [the second month], and ordered him to conceal in Sippar, the city of Shamash, every available writing. Sisithros accomplished all these things, sailed immediately to Armenia, and thereupon what the god had announced did happen."
Berossus repeats the details regarding the release of the birds. When Sisithros (which is atra-asis reversed) was taken by the gods to their abode, he explained to the other people in the ark that they were "in Armenia" and directed them back (on foot) to
Babylonia. We find in this version not only the tie-in with Sippar, the spaceport, but also confirmation that Sisithros was instructed to "sail immediately to Armenia" - to the land of Ararat.
As soon as Atra-Hasis had landed, he slaughtered some animals and roasted them on a fire. No wonder that the exhausted and hungry gods "gathered like flies over the offering." Suddenly they realized that Man and the food he grew and the cattle he raised were essential. "When at length Enlil arrived and saw the ark, he was wroth." But the logic of the situation and Enki's persuasion prevailed; Enlil made his peace with the remnants of Mankind and took Atra-Hasis/Utnapishtim in his craft up to the Eternal Abode of the Gods.
Another factor in the quick decision to make peace with Mankind may have been the progressive abatement of the Flood and the reemergence of dry land and the vegetation upon it. We have already concluded that the Nefilim became aware ahead of time of the approaching calamity; but it was so unique in their experience that they feared that Earth would become uninhabitable forever. As they landed on Ararat, they saw that this was not so. Earth was still habitable, and to live on it, they needed man.
What was this catastrophe - predictable yet unavoidable? An important key to unlocking the puzzle of the Deluge is the realization that it was not a single, sudden event, but the climax of a chain of events.
Unusual pestilences affecting man and beast and a severe drought preceded the ordeal by water - a process that lasted, according to the Mesopotamia!! sources, seven "passings," or sar's. These phenomena could be accounted for only by major climatic changes. Such changes have been associated in Earth's past with the recurring ice ages and interglacial stages that had dominated Earth's immediate past. Reduced precipitation, falling sea and lake levels, and the drying up of subterranean water sources have been the hallmarks of an approaching ice age. Since the Deluge that abruptly ended those conditions was followed by the Sumerian civilization and our own present, postglacial age, the glaciation in question could only have been the last one.
Our conclusion is that the events of the Deluge relate to Earth's last ice age and its catastrophic ending. Drilling into the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, scientists have been able to measure the oxygen trapped in the various layers, and to judge from that the climate that prevailed millennia ago. Core samples from the bottoms of the seas, such as the Gulf of Mexico, measuring the proliferation or dwindling of marine life, likewise enable them to estimate temperatures in ages past. Based on such findings, scientists are now certain that the last ice age began some 75,000 years ago and underwent a mini- warming some 40,000 years ago. Circa 38,000 years ago, a harsher, colder, and drier period ensued. And then, about 13,000 years ago, the ice age abruptly ended, and our present mild climate was ushered in.
Aligning the biblical and Sumerian information, we find that the harsh times, the "accursation of Earth," began in the time of Noah's father Lamech. His hopes that the birth of Noah ("respite") would mark the end of the hardships was fulfilled in an unexpected way, through the catastrophic Deluge.
Many scholars believe that the ten biblical pre-Diluvial patriarchs (Adam to Noah) somehow parallel the ten pre-Diluvial rulers of the Sumerian king lists. These lists do not apply to divine titles DIN.GIR or EN to the last two of the ten, and treat Ziusudra/Utnapishtim and his father Ubar-Tutu as men. The latter two parallel Noah and his father Lamech; and according to the Sumerian lists, the two reigned a combined total of 64,800 years until the Deluge occurred. The last ice age, from 75,000 to 13,000 years ago, lasted 62,000 years. Since the hardships began when Ubartutu/Lamech was already reigning, the 62,000 fit perfectly into the 64,800.
Moreover, the extremely harsh conditions lasted, according to the Atra-Hasis epic, seven shar's, or 25,200 years. The scientists discovered evidence of an extremely harsh period from circa 38,000 to 13,000 years ago - a span of 25,000 years. Once again, the Mesopotamian evidence and modern scientific findings corroborate each other.
Our endeavor to unravel the puzzle of the Deluge, then, focuses on Earth's climatic changes, and in particular the abrupt collapse of the ice age some 13,000 years ago.
What could have caused a sudden climatic change of such magnitude?
Of the many theories advanced by the scientists, we are intrigued by the one suggested by Dr. John T. Hollin of the University of Maine. He contended that the Antarctic ice sheet periodically breaks loose and slips into the sea, creating an abrupt and enormous tidal wave!
This hypothesis - accepted and elaborated upon by others - suggests that as the ice sheet grew thicker and thicker, it not only trapped more of Earth's heat beneath the ice sheet but also created (by pressure and friction) a slushy, slippery layer at its bottom. Acting as a lubricant between the thick ice sheet above and the solid earth below, this slushy layer sooner or later caused the ice sheet to slide into the surrounding ocean.
Hollin calculated that if only half the present ice sheet of Antarctica (which is, on the average, more than a mile in thickness) were to slip into the southern seas, the immense tidal wave that would follow would raise the level of all the seas around the globe by some sixty feet, inundating coastal cities and lowlands.
In 1964, A. T. Wilson of Victoria University in New Zealand offered the theory that ice ages ended abruptly in such slippages, not only in the Antarctic but also in the Arctic. We feel that the various texts and facts gathered by us justify a conclusion that the Deluge was the result of such a slippage into the Antarctic waters of billions of tons of ice, bringing an abrupt end to the last ice age.
The sudden event triggered an immense tidal wave. Starting in Antarctic waters, it spread northward toward the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. The abrupt change in temperature must have created violent storms accompanied by torrents of rain. Moving faster than the waters, the storms, clouds, and darkened skies heralded the avalanche of waters. Exactly such phenomena are described in the ancient texts.
As commanded by Enki, -Atra-Hasis sent everybody aboard the ark while he himself stayed outside to await the signal for boarding the vessel and sealing it off. Providing a "human-interest" detail, the ancient text tells us that Atra-Hasis, though ordered to stay outside the vessel, "was in and out; he could not sit, could not crouch ... his heart was broken; he was vomiting gall." But then:
. . . the Moon disappeared. . . .
The appearance of the weather changed;
The rains roared in the clouds. . . .
The winds became savage . . .
. . . the Deluge set out,
its might came upon the people like a battle;
One person did not see another,
they were not recognizable in the destruction.
The Deluge bellowed like a bull;
The winds whinnied like a wild ass.
The darkness was dense;
The Sun could not be seen.
The "Epic of Gilgamesh" is specific about the direction from which the storm came: It came from the south. Clouds,
winds, rain,
and darkness indeed preceded the tidal wave which first tore down the "posts of Nergal" in the Lower World:
With the glow of dawn
a black cloud arose from the horizon;
inside it the god of storms thundered. . . .
Everything that had been bright
turned to blackness. ...
For one day the south storm blew,
gathering speed as it blew, submerging the mountains. . . .
Six days and six nights blows the wind
as the South Storm sweeps the land.
When the seventh day arrived,
the Deluge of the South Storm subsided.
The references to the "south storm," "south wind" clearly indicate the direction from which the Deluge arrived, its clouds and winds, the "heralds of the storm," moving "over hill and plain" to reach Mesopotamia. Indeed, a storm and an avalanche of water originating in the Antarctic would reach Mesopotamia via the Indian Ocean after first engulfing the hills of Arabia, then inundating the Tigris-Euphrates plain. The "Epic of Gilgamesh" also informs us that before the people and their land were submerged, the "dams of the dry land" and its dikes were "torn out": the continental coastlines were overwhelmed and swept over.
The biblical version of the Deluge story reports that the "bursting of the fountains of the Great Deep" preceded the "opening of the sluices of heaven." First, the waters of the "Great Deep" (what a descriptive name for the southernmost, frozen Antarctic seas) broke loose out of their icy confinement; only then did the rains begin to pour from the skies. This confirmation of our understanding of the Deluge is repeated, in reverse, when the Deluge subsided. First the "Fountains of the Deep [were] dammed"; then the rain "was arrested from the skies."
After the first immense tidal wave, its waters were still "coming and going back" in huge waves. Then the waters began "going back," and "they were less" after 150 days, when the ark came to rest between the peaks of Ararat. The avalanche of water, having come from the southern seas, went back to the southern seas. How could the Nefilim predict when the Deluge would burst out of Antarctica?
The Mesopotamian texts, we know, related the Deluge and the climatic changes preceding it to seven "passings" - undoubtedly meaning the periodic passage of the Twelfth Planet in Earth's vicinity. We know that even the Moon, Earth's small satellite, exerts sufficient gravitational pull to cause the tides. Both Mesopotamian and biblical texts described how the Earth shook when the Celestial Lord passed in Earth's vicinity. Could it be that the Nefilim, observing the climatic changes and the instability of the Antarctic ice sheet, realized that the next, seventh "passing" of the Twelfth Planet would trigger the impending catastrophe? Ancient texts show that it was so.
The most remarkable of these is a text of some thirty lines inscribed in miniature cuneiform writing on both sides of a clay tablet less than one inch long. It was unearthed at Ashur, but the profusion of Sumerian words in the Akkadian text leaves no doubt as to its Sumerian origin. Dr. Erich Ebeling determined that it was a hymn recited in the House of the Dead, and he therefore included the text in his masterwork (Tod und Leben) on death and resurrection in ancient Mesopotamia.
On close examination, however, we find that the composition "called on the names" of the Celestial Lord, the Twelfth Planet. It elaborates the meaning of the various epithets by relating them to the passage of the planet at the site of the battle with Tiamat - a passage that causes the Deluge!
The text begins by announcing that, for all its might and size, the planet ("the hero") nevertheless orbits the Sun. The Deluge
was the "weapon" of this planet.
His weapon is the Deluge;
God whose Weapon brings death to the wicked.
Supreme, Supreme, Anointed . . .
Who like the Sun, the lands crosses;
The Sun, his god, he frightens.
Calling out the "first name" of the planet - which, unfortunately, is illegible - the text describes the passage near Jupiter, toward the site of the battle with Tiamat: First Name: . . .
Who the circular band hammered together; Who the Occupier split in two, poured her out. Lord, who at Akiti time Within Tiamat's battle place reposes. . . .
Whose seed are the sons of Babylon;
Who by the planet Jupiter cannot be distracted;
Who by his glow shall create.
Coming closer, the Twelfth Planet is called SHILIG. LU.DIG ("powerful leader of the joyous planets"). It is now nearest to Mars:
"By the brilliance of the god [planet] Anu god [planet] Lahmu [Mars] is clothed." Then it loosed the Deluge upon the Earth:
This is the name of the Lord
Who from the second month to the month Addar
The waters had summoned forth.
The text's elaboration of the two names offers remarkable calendarial information. The Twelfth Planet passed Jupiter and neared Earth "at Akiti time," when the Mesopotamian New Year began. By the second month it was closest to Mars. Then, "from the second month to the month Addar" (the twelfth month), it loosed the Deluge upon Earth.
This is in perfect harmony with the biblical account, which states that "the fountains of the great deep burst open" on the seventeenth day of the second month. The ark came to rest on Ararat in the seventh month; other dry land was visible in the tenth month; and the Deluge was over in the twelfth month - for it was on "the first day of the first month" of the following years that Noah opened the ark's hatch.
Shifting to the second phase of the Deluge, when the waters began to subside, the text calls the planet SHUL. PA.KUN.E.
Hero, Supervising Lord,
Who collects together the waters;
Who by gushing waters
The righteous and the wicked cleanses;
Who in the twin-peaked mountain
Arrested the. ...
. . . fish, river, river; the flooding rested. In the mountainland, on a tree, a bird rested. Day which . . . said.
In spite of the illegibility of some damaged lines, the parallels with the biblical and other Mosopotamian Deluge tales is evident: The flooding had ceased, the ark was "arrested" on the twin-peaked mountain; the rivers began to flow again from the mountaintops and carry the waters back to the oceans; fish were seen; a bird was sent out from the ark. The ordeal was over. The Twelfth Planet had passed its "crossing." It had neared Earth, and it began to move away, accompanied by its satellites: When the savant shall call out: "Flooding!" - It is the god Nibiru ["Planet of Crossing"]; It is the Hero, the planet with four heads. The god whose weapon is the Flooding Storm, shall turn back;
To his resting place he shall lower himself.
(The receding planet, the text asserts, then recrossed the path of Saturn in the month of Ululu, the sixth month of the year.)
The Old Testament frequently refers to the time when the Lord caused Earth to be covered by the waters of the deep. The
twenty-ninth Psalm describes the "calling" as well as the "return" of the "great waters" by the Lord:
Unto the Lord, ye sons of the gods,
Give glory, acknowledge might. ...
The sound of the Lord is upon the waters;
The God of glory, the Lord,
Thundereth upon the great waters. . . .
The Lord's sound is powerful,
The Lord's sound is majestic;
The Lord's sound breaketh the cedars. . . .
He makes [Mount] Lebanon dance as a calf,
[Mount] Sirion leap like a young bull.
The Lord's sound strikes fiery flames;
The Lord's sound shaketh the desert. ...
The Lord to the Deluge [said]: "Return!"
The Lord, as king, is enthroned forever.
In the magnificent Psalm 77 - "Aloud to God I Cry" - the Psalmist recalls the Lord's appearance and disappearance in earlier times:
I have calculated the Olden Days,
The years of Olam. . . .
I shall recall the Lord's deeds,
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br /> Remember thy wonders in antiquity. . . .
Thine course, O Lord, is determined;
No god is as great as the Lord. . . .
The waters saw thee, O Lord, and shuddered;
Thine splitting sparks went forth.
The sound of thine thunder was rolling;
Lightnings lit up the world;
The Earth was agitated and it quaked.
[Then] in the waters was thy course,
Thine paths in the deep waters;
And thine footsteps were gone, unknown.
Psalm 104, exalting the deeds of the Celestial Lord, recalled the time when the oceans overran the continents and were made to go back:
Thou didst fix the Earth in constancy,
For ever and ever to be unmoved.
With the oceans, as with garment, thou coveredst it;
Above the mountains did the water stand.
At thy rebuke, the waters fled;
At the sound of thine thunder, they hastened away.
They went upon the mountains, then down to the valleys
Unto the place which thou hast founded for them.
A boundary thou hast set, not to be passed over;
That they turn not again to cover the Earth.
The words of the prophet Amos are even more explicit:
Woe unto you that desire the Day of the Lord;
To what end is it for you?
For the Day of the Lord is darkness and no light. . . .
Turneth morning unto death's shadow,
Maketh the day dark as night;
Calleth forth the waters of the sea
and poureth them upon the face of the Earth.
These, then, were the events that took place "in olden days." The "Day of the Lord" was the day of the Deluge.
We have already shown that, having landed on Earth, the Nefilim associated the first reigns in the first cities with the zodiacal
The 12th Planet Page 35