Journeys to the Mythical Past

by Zecharia Sitchin

  Plate 35. Jacob’s well in Harran

  Plate 36. Harran temple ruins

  Plate 37. The author with Nabuna’id stela

  Plate 38. The “Candelabra” carved into a mountainside in the Bay of Paracas on Peru’s coast northwest of Tiahuanacu

  Plate 39. View of Puma Punku

  Plate 40. Precisely cut stones at Puma Punku

  Plate 41. Grooves for gold nails for gold-plated walls, Puma Punku

  Plate 42. Complex cut stones at Puma Punku

  Plate 43. Complex cut stones at Puma Punku

  Plate 44. Nazca Lines with animal figure

  Plate 45. Nazca Lines with animal figure

  Plate 46. Straight-running Nazca Lines

  Plate 47. Intriguing circular markings in the mountains not far from the Nazca Lines in Peru

  Plate 48. Intriguing circular markings in the mountains not far from the Nazca Lines

  I dare give one answer to all three questions: The gods.

  In The Stairway to Heaven I provided information about ancient Egypt’s oldest center of worship, the city of An (the biblical On), later known as Heliopolis. In its great temple, one of the “Celestial Chambers” in which the gods arrived on Earth, was kept an object called the Ben-Ben. We can surmise how the temple, called Het Ben-Ben (“Sacred House of the Ben-Ben”), looked from its hieroglyphic pictograph, which in time also served as the hieroglyphic sign for the city’s name: A rocket’s launch tower (fig. 53). We also know how the Ben-Ben itself looked, because a stone model of it was found (fig. 54a). Akin to a modern command capsule of an astronauts’ rocketship (fig. 54b), the discovered stone model even depicts its occupant peering out through an open hatch-door.

  Figure 53

  Figure 54

  In this temple the Ben-Ben and other space-travel paraphernalia were not only kept—they were displayed and opened for view, by the king, in a special annual ceremony intended to remind the people of the gods’ space origins. The Het Ben-Ben and its contents are long gone. How and when the temple was ruined and its contents gone, no one knows; but it has occurred to me that the “Flywheel” might have been one of the objects originally kept in that ancient “Smithsonian Institution.”

  Let this thought be with you if you go to Cairo and look for the enigmatic OOPs.

  6

  ENIGMAS MADE OF STONE

  Why are Earthlings fascinated by the heavens?

  I asked the question, and gave an answer, in my 1993 book When Time Began. I did so in the context of astronomical computers made of stone—the best known of which is Stonehenge in England. Found in Europe, in the Near East, in the Americas (and possibly also in the Far East), they all inexplicably linked observations of the Sun and the Moon to an artificial division of the heavens into twelve parts called the Zodiac. I suggested that the key to unlocking the secrets and enigmas they posed lay in recognizing that they were a product of the technologies of the gods, not of Man—that they were designed by a Divine Architect.

  The records of Earthlings’ fascination with the heavens permeate the halls of the British Museum in London, a modern Temple of Knowledge dedicated to Mankind’s history, civilizations, and (unavoidably) gods. During the decades of my research for my writings, there were many times when I had spent two-week stretches of stay in London (my alma mater having been the London School of Economics and Political Science), devoting daily long hours to the British Museum’s exhibits and famed round Library.

  It was there that I could study in the Library about the Mesopotamian Epic of Creation, and then see the actual seven clay tablets of Enuma elish—a text treated by scholars as an allegorical tale of celestial gods, but which in fact constitutes a sophisticated cosmogony scientifically describing our Solar System, the origins of the Earth, and of life upon it. It was there that I could read (in the Library) about the Anunnaki gods and their coming to Earth, then see (among the exhibits) an amazing circular tablet (see chapter 10) whose eight segments deal with the gods’ space journeys from their planet (Nibiru) to Earth.

  It was in the British Museum that I could read about and then see an astronomical tablet, divided into columns and filled with numbers which, when rendered into modern characters, was revealed to simulate a computer printout of data predicting lunar eclipses fifty years in advance. And it was there that I could see for myself, then peruse in voluminous writings, the evidence about the ancient zodiacal knowledge—familiarity with a phenomenon that causes one group of stars to replace another, at sunrise, once in about 2,100 years. In one Mesopotamian artifact after another, references to those twelve (fig. 55) constellations and their depictions (fig. 56) were omnipresent.

  Figure 55

  Figure 56

  But it was when I went to visit Stonehenge for the first time, and stood there inside the circle of stones that had been brought from far away (as has been the case in megalithic structures all over the world), that the question popped up in my head: WHY has Mankind, why have Earthlings, been so fascinated with the heavens—and gone to immense lengths to observe them?

  The familiar view of Stonehenge with its columns (fig. 57) is just the current stage of its varied phases, going back to the third millennium B.C. Stonehenge, all researchers agree, functioned throughout its various stages (fig. 58) as a device to determine the Zodiacal Age by observing sunrise on Summer Solstice Day, the sightline reextending from the so-called Altar Stone in the center, through two determining pillars, via the Avenue, to the so-called Heel Stone farther out (fig. 59a).

  Sir Norman Lockyer, the father of Archaeoastronomy, used Stonehenge (Stonehenge and Other British Stone Monuments) to illustrate how the solstice view line helps determine when the structure was built. This is so because the solstice point is determined by the Earth’s tilt-angle (“inclination”) relative to its orbital path (“the Ecliptic”). This tilt changes over the ages as the Earth slightly wobbles—for example, from 24.11° in 4000 B.C. to 23.92° in 2000 B.C. to about 23.5° nowadays. The original view line to the Heel Stone matched the inclination circa 2100 B.C. when the Zodiacal Age was shifting from Taurus to Aries.

  Figure 57

  Figure 58

  Figure 59

  In the four thousand years since then, this view line no longer correctly points to the then prevailing zodiacal constellations; one can indeed see that the axis is nowadays misaligned even though the Heel Stone had been moved (fig. 59b). Nevertheless, Summer Solstice Day—June 21—is a big thing at Stonehenge. Believers dressed as Druid priests perform ritual dances, and multitudes gather there to view at dawn the Sun rise between the two guiding pillars, no matter which star constellation is seen in the partly darkened horizon.

  In its heyday, some have concluded, Stonehenge also served as a predictor of lunar phenomena, as the ground markings of a rectangular arrangement suggests (fig. 60). The Boston University mathematician and astronomer Gerald Hawkins (Stonehenge Decoded), who described Stonehenge as an astronomical predictor, was fascinated by the number 19 that the stones and place-holes in the various circles expressed, and deemed it an unmistakable application of the Metonic Cycle (the cycle of 235 lunar months in the Moon-Earth-Sun orbital relationships).

  Figure 60

  Such an aspect of Stonehenge, though relating to a cycle of only 19 years (compared to the 2,100 years of the zodiacal shift), is nevertheless an indication of high astronomical sophistication, since the complex Earth-Sun-Moon relationship underlies the phenomena of not only lunar but also solar eclipses; and predicting them was of immense religious and political importance.

  The June 1999 Earth Chronicles Expedition (to England and Malta) began in London with repeat visits to the British Museum (facilitated by staying at a hotel virtually next door to it). It was a necessary prelude, I felt, to the subsequent visit to Stonehenge—a visit timed with Solstice Day in mind. By special arrangement our group was allowed into the monument’s stone circle early in the morning, before regular visiting time, to provide us with an hour by ourselves (pla
te 17). We walked about, looked for the various markers, checked the view lines. Many lay down on the ground among the monoliths, trying to get some feeling, inspiration, vibration, or whatever by the direct contact with the earth. We left with a sense of awe and wonderment: Here, without doubt, was a great monument from the past—built by men, but conceived by some greater knowing mind.

  The tour included other astronomically significant Neolithic (“New Stone Age”) sites in the area, such as Silbury Hill and the large Avebury Circle (fig. 61); a bonus was an unplanned sighting of a fresh Crop Circle that appeared nearby the night before, joining previous ones in the same vicinity (fig. 62).

  But it all took place two days ahead of Solstice Day, to avoid the crush of people; I chose to let my group witness the actual everlasting celestial phenomenon in the relatively uncrowded island of Malta, the Expedition’s next destination.

  Figure 61

  Figure 62

  The Mediterranean Sea is bounded by three continents—Europe, Asia, and Africa. The island of Malta, together with the island of Sicily and neighboring smaller islands, undoubtedly once formed a physical geographic landbridge connecting the continents. After the waters surged (was it the biblical Great Flood?) and sea level rose, Malta—now an island—has continued to serve as a cultural bridge not only between North and South, but also between East and West. Migrants, settlers, seafarers, conquerors—from the most ancient times through the Phoenicians and the Romans, Moslems and Crusaders (the famed Knights of Malta), and World War II warriors—all left their mark there.

  Nevertheless—or perhaps because of that—Malta’s enigmas remain unsolved puzzles. All those settlers, visitors, and conquerors from far larger lands (Malta and its two small satellite islands, Gozo and Comino, represent an area of just 122 square miles!) and their civilizations cannot explain Malta’s two main mysteries: Its stone “Temples” and the “Ruts.”

  “Temples” is a term applied by locals and scholars to structures when their real purpose is unknown; and in an odd way I became aware of Malta’s ones long before I ever went there. One reason was an elderly gentleman by name of Joseph Ellul, who started to write to me after he had read The 12th Planet. He claimed that his family had lived on the island for 500 years and owned the land where one of the best preserved temples was situated; he therefore knew all about the temples since childhood and wrote books in which he identified descendants of the biblical Noah as the builders of Malta’s temples. Another was the Society for the Research and Investigation of Phenomena, headquartered in Malta’s capital, Valletta, which invited me to come, give a lecture, and find out the “Maltese connection” in support of my writings.

  In 1999 I finally went to Malta. The Society no longer functioned, but Mr. Ellul was still there, eagerly awaiting my arrival. Among the advice he showered on us was one most practical: Where best to watch sunrise on Solstice Day and how to reach and enter the temple ahead of the anticipated crowd . . .

  The temples and their sites dot the two main islands, Malta and Gozo (fig. 63). They are constructed of megalithic stone boulders, and their most distinct or obvious feature is their shape (fig. 64). In all of them, the shape follows an unusual yet distinctive pattern that suggests a preconceived architectural concept (or purpose). They are neither square nor rectangular—as temples everywhere else are—but consist of a series of oval-like or elliptical chambers (“apses”), arranged as “cloverleafs,” within a larger perimeter delineated by an outer wall that also forms an oval. They occupy sizeable areas, and were sometimes built as twins—two “cloverleaf ” temples rising side by side—a feature that has led some to see therein an underlying religious concept of Duality.

  Figure 63

  Typical both of the oval shapes, cloverleaf layouts and the twinlike “duality” is the largest temple of them all, the one at Ggantija (pronounced Jeguntiya) on the island of Gozo (plate 18). Dramatically situated on a promontory overlooking the bay, its two parts or twin temples each have their separate entranceway, with one oval chamber or enclosure connected by a short passageway to another “lobed” cloverleaf enclosure; but there are no connecting corridors or other passages between the two twin parts; so why are the two adjoining?

  Figure 64

  At the nearby site of Xaghra on Gozo the cloverleaf “duality” also prevails; so do the remains of the temple at Mnajdra (pronounced Mnaidra) on Malta proper. But at the site called Tarxien (pronounced Tarshen), the temple’s remains include—in addition to the twinlike cloverleafs—a series of oval enclosures and undefined structures that might have been cloverleaf chambers. And at the best preserved site on Malta, Hagar Qim (pronounced Hajar Im) there is a series of four oval chambers arranged in a semicircle in addition to the recognizable cloverleafs.

  The number of cloverleaf chambers, it would thus appear, cannot support “duality” or such other religious theories. Yet, the proponents of “those were temples” notions hold that the inner layouts of these structures confirm their religious functions. The concave shape of the walls at the main entranceways, they say, created a forecourt for assembly and the bringing of sacrificial animals; the convex or semi-oval “lobe” chamber at the inner end, they explain, was a kind of an inner sanctum, a Holy of Holies. At least in one place that we have visited, two stone columns flanking the access to such an innermost section had cut-through holes in them which in all probability (we actually tried it!) enabled ropes to hold up a screen that could be moved up and down; so maybe the enclosure was indeed a particularly sacred section. Doorways, doorposts, niches, small raised platforms—all of stone—have been called altars, prayer alcoves, sacrifice tables, oracle posts, etc., etc., in line with the “temple” concept.

  If so, which deity was worshipped there, and by whom?

  A religious purpose in these designs, that are repeated in all of the still standing temple complexes, seems to be confirmed by the discovery (in several of them) of stone sculptures of a fat—very fat—female with exaggerated (some even use the term “elephantine” to describe the size) feminine parts (fig. 65). She is assumed to have been a goddess—a “Mother Goddess” image that was presumably worshipped as a fertility deity. The similarity of the architectural design of the temples to her rounded features (fig. 66) strikes one as soon as these statues are viewed in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta, Malta’s capital. The assumption is that the structures were shaped in the image of the goddess and served as temples where she was worshipped; but in the absence of writing of any kind, nothing about her or her cult is known.

  Who were the worshippers—the presumed builders of these temples? It is generally assumed that the first settlers in Malta arrived from the nearby island of Sicily (less than 60 miles away), in the fifth millennium B.C. In the third millennium B.C. new settlers—farmers, this time—came from the somewhat farther islands of Sardinia and Corsica, bringing with them domestic animals. Did any of them build the temples? That is a tricky question, because the answer depends on dating these structures.

  Figure 65

  Figure 66

  In spite of the similarities of the various temples, even the casual visitor can discern great differences between them. The ones deemed the earliest, on the island of Gozo, are constructed of boulders that were found in the local area. Megalithic stones, only some of them smoothed and shaped (as in the Ggantija temple) were selectively placed as gateways; otherwise, the fieldstones were just piled up to form walls and partitions. By comparison, the Hagar Qim temple on Malta proper (fig. 67) has long sections of walls constructed of immense natural boulders (plate 19) that dwarfed our group (plate 20), other walls of only dressed stone blocks, still others of mixtures of natural boulders with cut and shaped stone blocks, and partitions made of great stone blocks purposely shaped with openings cut through them. And the complex Tarxien temple—deemed the latest in the series—has almost modern-looking sections and geometric-design decorations (plate 21).

  The various temples began to be excavated in t
he 1820s and for more than a century thereafter archaeologists deemed the Temple Building Period to have run from circa 2800 B.C. (Ggantija) to 2400 B.C. (Tarxien). Later studies based on the availability of carbon dating reduced the antiquity to circa 2450 and 2100 B.C., respectively—the 2100 B.C. date being the firmest, since something unknown caused an abrupt interruption of the island’s habitation after that.

  Figure 67

  The construction of these temples even at those dates—it is estimated that there may have been about forty of them—is a great technological achievement. Although the islands’ small size rules out the hauling of the large and heavy stone boulders from very great distances (as has been the case in so many other places in both the Old and the New Worlds), just obtaining the boulders, transporting them to the site, dressing, shaping and decorating many of them, lifting them, and emplacing them in the planned positions, required substantial efforts, an organized society, architectural and structural knowledge, and some kind of technology that no one has been able to truly figure out. Although the above dates correspond not only to the Copper Age but already the Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean, no such metal tools were discovered in the Maltese sites; only flint knives and obsidian tools were found in the temples.

  The puzzle was then magnified by new claims that some of the temples were already standing and functioning before 3800 B.C.

  The claims, which in time found their way into most brochures about Malta by starting its description with the words that “its stone temples predate Stonehenge and even the pyramids of Egypt,” began in the 1970s when the archaeologist J. D. Evans (The Prehistoric Antiquities of the Maltese Islands) pointed out that the lower or southernmost temple in Mnajdra appears to have an axis oriented to the east, which would make it a Solar Temple. This was followed by the application, in the 1980s, of Lockyer’s archaeoastronomy methods to the Malta temples—specifically, to Mnajdra—by two Maltese experts, Paul Micaleff and Alfred Xuereb. Micaleff reported their findings in his 1989 book Mnajdra Prehistoric Temple. The lower temple at Mnajdra, they concluded, was “a calendar in stone,” built precisely to view the equinoxes and solstices (fig. 68).