There Were Giants Upon the Earth

by Zechariah Sitchin

The land has turned into a furrow . . .

  The wide sea is just like a bread basket!"

  "After the Eagle had carried him aloft a third beru," the land "turned into a gardener's ditch." And then, as they continued to ascend, the Earth suddenly disappeared from view; and—as the frightened Etana later said: "As I glanced around, the land had disappeared!"

  According to one version of the tale, Etana and the Eagle "passed through the gate of Anu." According to another version, Etana became alarmed and cried out to the Eagle: "I am looking for the Earth, but I cannot see it!" Frightened, he shouted to the Eagle: "I cannot go on to the heavens! Take the road back!"

  Heeding the cries of Etana, who was "laying slumped on the Eagle's wings," the Eagle fell back to Earth; but (according to this version), Etana and the Eagle made a second attempt. It was apparently successful, for the next king in Kish, Balih, is identified as "son of Etana." He reigned a mere 400 (or 410) years.

  The tale of Etana was depicted by ancient artists on cylinder seals (Fig. 82), one that starts with the 'Eagle' in its 'pit', and another that shows Etana hovering between the Earth (= 7 dots) and the Moon (identified by its crescent). The tale is instructive in several respects: It describes realistically a flight out to space with a diminishing Earth in sight; it also corroborates what many other texts suggest—that comings and goings between Earth and Nibiru were more frequent than once in 3,600 years. The tale does leave Etana's mortal vs. demigod status unstated; but one can only surmise that Etana would not have been allowed the space flights, nor would have reigned a purported millennium and a half, were he not a demigod.

  The fact that a later inscription prefixes Etana's name with the 'Dingir' determinative reinforces a conclusion that Etana indeed was divinely engendered; and a notation in another text that Etana was of

  Figure 82

  the same "Pure Seed" of which Adapa had been, can serve as a clue to who the father was.

  The possibility that the 23 kings who reigned in Kish alternated between demigods and their mortal offspring comes especially to mind as we reach the 16 th king, En.me.nunna, who ruled for 1,200 years and was followed by his two sons with mortal-like reigns of 140 and 305 years. There followed kings reigning 900 and 1,200 years; and then En.me.bara.ge.si, "who carried away as spoil the weapons of Elam, became king and ruled 900 years."

  Though the Shar counts are gone, the two theophoric names sound familiar; they place these post-Diluvial kings in the same names category as the pre-Diluvial ones (of the WB tablets and the Berossus list) who had gods as parents. They also provide a historical dimension to the Kish list, for the name Enmenbaragesi was found inscribed on an archaeological artifact—a stone vase now in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad; Elam (whose weapons he took as spoils) was an historically verified kingdom.

  Aka, son of Enmebaragesi, who reigned for 629 years, completed the list of 23 kings of Kish who "reigned a total of 24,510 years, 3 months, and three and a half days"—some four millennia if divided by 6, only four centuries if reduced by 60. And then Kingship in Sumer was transferred to Uruk.

  * * *

  The seat of central Kingship was transferred from Kish to Uruk some time circa 3000 B.C.; and right off, we need guess no more who had reigned there, for this is what the King List states about the first king of Uruk:

  In Uruk,

  Mes.kiag.gasher, son of dUtu,

  became high priest and king

  and reigned 324 years.

  Mes.kiag.gasher

  went into the sea

  (and) came out to the mountains.

  Though obviously a demigod, fathered by the god Utu/Shamash, no more than 324 years (also a number, please note, divisible by 6) are assigned to him; and no explanation is offered for such a short reign by a full-fledged demigod. His name conveyed the meaning 'Handy, dexterous'. And since no other text about Meskiaggasher has been found, we can only guess that the sea he crossed to reach a mountainland—a voyage that merited its quoted mention—were the Persian Gulf ("Lower Sea") and the land Elam, respectively.

  Uruk (the biblical Erech) was established not as a city but as a rest- place for Anu and Antu when they came to Earth for a state visit circa 4000 B.C. When they left, Anu gave it as a gift to his great-granddaughter Irninni, nicknamed and better known thereafter as In.Anna (= 'Anu's Beloved'), alias Ishtar. Ambitious and enterprising—the Great God List records more than one hundred epithets for her!—Inanna, outsmarting the womanizing Enki, managed to obtain from him more than a hundred Me ('Divine Formulas') needed to make Uruk a principal city.

  The task of actually reshaping Uruk into major city status was carried out by the next king of Uruk, Enmerkar. According to the Sumerian King List, he was "the one who built Uruk." Archaeological evidence suggests that it was he who built the city's first protective walls, and expanded the E.Anna temple into a sacred precinct worthy of a great goddess, the goddess Inanna. An exquisitely carved alabaster vase from Uruk—one of the most prized objects in the Iraq Museum an Baghdad—depicted a procession of worshippers, led by a giantlike naked king, bringing offerings to the the 'Mistress of Uruk'.

  Called in the King List "son of Mes.kiag.gasher," Enmerkar reigned 420 years—almost a century longer than his demigod father. Much more is known of him, for he was the subject of several epic tales, the longest and most historical of which is known as the tale of Enmerkar And The Lord ofAratta—one of whose revelations, most clearly and repeatedly stated, is that Enmerkar's real father was the god Utu/Shamash. This made him a direct relative, and not just a worshipper, of Utu's sister Inanna; and therein one finds an explanation for enigmatic journeys to a distant kingdom.

  The establishment of Four Regions was intended as a way to restore peace among the Anunnaki clans by a 'let each one have his own' arrangement (the Tigris-Euphrates Plain, under the Enlilites, was the First Region; Africa, under the Enki'ites, was the Second Region). Another idea was to enhance peace through intermarriage; and chosen for the purpose was Enlil's granddaughter Inanna/Ishtar and the shepherd god Dumuzi—Enki's youngest son (but only a half-brother of Marduk). References in varied texts suggest that the unassigned Third Region, the Indus River valley, was intended as a dowry for the young couple. (The Fourth Region, from which Mankind was excluded, was the Spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula.)

  Arranged marriages were part of the Anunnaki record, both on Nibiru and on Earth; one of the earliest Earth-instances is recorded in a tale of Enki and Ninharsag: Their lovemaking resulted in the birth of females only, and the two then spent time matching them with spouses. As it happened, the young Inanna and Dumuzi not only liked each other, but fell in love. Engaged to be married, their torrid love and lovemaking is described in long and detailed poems, mostly composed by Inanna, giving her a reputation as Goddess of Love (Fig. 83a). The poems also revealed Inanna's ambition to become, through the marriage, Mistress

  Figure 83

  of Egypt, and this alarmed Enki's son Marduk/Ra; his efforts to disrupt the marriage led—unintentionally, he claimed—to the death by drowning of Dumuzi.

  Lamenting and enraged, Inanna launched fierce battles against Marduk/Ra, establishing her record as a Goddess of War (Fig. 83b). Dubbed by us 'The Pyramid Wars' in The Wars of Gods and Men, they lasted several years and ended only with the imprisonment and then exile of Marduk. The great gods tried to console Inanna by granting her sole dominion of the faraway Kingdom of Aratta, situated farther east of Elam/Iran and beyond seven mountain ranges.

  In The Stairway to Heaven I suggested that the Kingdom of Aratta was the Third Region—what is nowadays described as the Indus Valley Civilization (with its center, called Harappa by archaeologists, on the significant 30th parallel north). Thus, it was the destination of the Meskiaggasher voyage and the locale of the significant events that followed.

  The context for the Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta tale was the odd situation that the City of Uruk and the Kingdom of Aratta shared the same goddess, Inanna. Moreover, the unnamed king of Aratta is
repeatedly identified as "seed implanted in the womb by Dumuzi"—an enigmatic statement that leaves one guessing not only who the mother was, but also whether post-mortem artificial insemination was involved. (An instance of such artificial insemination is recorded in Egyptian tales of the gods, when the god Thoth extracted semen from the phallus of the dead and dismembered Osiris and impregnated with it Isis, the wife of Osiris, who then gave birth to the god Horus.)

  Calling himself "Sumer's Junior Enlil," Enmerkar sought to establish superiority for Uruk by refurbishing and enlarging the olden temple of Anu, the E.anna, as Inanna's principal shrine, and by placing Aratta in second-class status by forcing it to send to Uruk 'contributions' of precious stones, lapis lazuli and carnelian, gold and silver, bronze and lead. When Aratta, described in the text as "a highland place of silver and lapis lazuli," delivered the tribute, Enmerkar's heart grew hauty and

  Figure 84

  he sent his ambassador to Aratta with a new demand: "Let Aratta submit to Uruk!" or else, there will be war!

  But the king of Aratta—who might have looked like this statue, found in Harappa, Fig. 84—speaking in a strange language, indicated that he cannot understand what the emissary was saying. Undeterred, Enmerkar sought the help of Nidaba, goddess of writing, in inscribing on a clay tablet a written message to Aratta in a language its king would understand, and sent it with another special emissary (the text suggests here that this emissary flew over to Aratta: "The herald flapped his wings," and in no time crossed the mountains and reached Aratta).

  The inscribed clay tablet—a novelty for the king of Aratta—and

  Figure 85

  the emissary's gestures, conveyed Uruk's threat. But the king of Aratta put his faith in Inanna: "Inanna, mistress of lands, has not abandoned her House in Aratta, has not handed over Aratta to Uruk!" he said; and the faceoff continued unresolved.

  For some time thereafter Inanna shared her presence with both places, commuting between them in her "Boat of Heaven." Sometimes she piloted herself, dressed as a pilot (Fig. 85), sometimes her aircraft was piloted by her personal pilot, Nungal. But prolonged droughts that devastated the grain-based economy of Aratta, and the centrality of Sumer, made Uruk the ultimate winner.

  * * *

  Several other heroic tales concerning Enmerkar bring into focus the next king of Uruk, Lugal.banda. The King List states laconically, "Divine Lugalbanda, a shepherd, reigned 1,200 years." But considerably more information is provided about him in such texts as Lugalbanda and Enmerkar, Lugalbanda and Mount Hurum, and Lugalbanda in the Mountain Darkness—texts that describe different heroic episodes that could have been segments of an encompassing text—an Epic of Lugalbanda, on the pattern of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

  In one of the tales, Lugalbanda is one of several commanders accompanying Enmerkar on a military campaign against Aratta. As they arrive at Mount Hurum on their way, Lugalbanda falls sick. His companions' efforts to help him fail, and they leave him to die, planning to pick up his body on their return. But the gods of Uruk, led by Inanna, hear Lugalbanda's prayers; using "stones that emit light" and "stones that make strong," Inanna restores his vitality and he does not die. He wanders off alone in the wilderness, fighting off howling wild animals, pythons, and scorpions. Finally (presumably, for the tablet is damaged here) he makes his way back to Uruk.

  In another tale, he is on a mission from Enmerkar in Uruk to Inanna in Aratta, to seek her help for a water-short Uruk. But in the most interesting version segment, Lugalbanda is depicted as a special emissary of Enmerkar to the king of Aratta. Sent alone on a hush- hush mission with a secret message that he had to memorize, his way is blocked at a vital mountain pass by the "Anzu Mushena monster bird whose "teeth are like those of a sharkfish and its claws like a lion's" and who can hunt down and carry a bull. Consistently defined in the textby the determinative mushen, which means 'Bird', the "Anzu Bird" claims that Enlil placed him there as Gatekeeper, and he challenges Lugalbanda to verify his identity:

  If a god you be,

  the (pass)-word to you I will tell,

  in friendship will I let you enter.

  If a Lul.lu you are,

  your fate will I determine—(for)

  no adversary into the Mountainland is allowed.

  Bemused, perhaps, by the use of a pre-Diluvial term, Lu.lu, for 'Man',

  Lugalbanda answered with his own play of words. Referring to the sacred precinct of Uruk, he said:

  Mushen, in the Lal.u I was born;

  Anzu, in the 'Great Precinct' I was born.

  Then "Lugalbanda, he of beloved seed, stretched out his hand" and said:

  Like divine Shara am I,

  the beloved son of Inanna.

  The god Shara is mentioned in various texts as a son of Inanna, though never with any indication of who his father was. One guess has been that he was conceived during Anu's visit to Earth; the Tale of Zu identifies Shara as "the firstborn of Ishtar"—admitting the existence of unnamed others. There is no mention that Inanna's love sessions with Dumuzi produced a child, and it is known that after the death of Dumuzi, Inanna'introduced the rite of a "Sacred Marriage" in which a male of her choosing (as often as not the king) would spend a 'betrothal night' with her on the anniversary of Dumuzi's death; but no offspring of record has been listed as a result. That leaves unknown the identity

  Figure 86

  of Lugalbanda's father, though the inclusion of the term lugal as part of his name suggests a royal lineage.

  It is noteworthy that the meaning of the name Lugal.banda can best be conveyed by the nickname 'Shorty', for that is what his name literally meant: Lugal = King, banda = 'Of lesser/shorter [stature]'. Missing the great size of other demigods, he seems to have been more like his mother in this respect: When a life-size statue of Inanna was discovered at a site called Mari, the archaeologists took a picture of themselves with the statue (Fig. 86); and indeed, Inanna looked the shortest in the group.

  Whoever Lugalbanda's father was, the fact that a goddess— Inanna—was his mother earned him the determinative Dingir before his name, and qualified him to be chosen to become the consort of a goddess named Ninsun. His name, with the Dingir determinative, concludes the Inanna listings on Tablet IV in the Great God List and is granted the honor of starting Tablet V, followed by dNinsun dam bi sal—'divine Ninsun, female, his spouse'—and by the names of their children and varied court attendants.

  Which brings us to the greatest epic tale of demigods and the Search For Immortality—and the existence of physical evidence that might prove it all.

  ------------------------- +-------------------------

  THE CONFUSION OF LANGUAGES

  According to the Bible, when people began to resettle the Earth after the Deluge, all of Mankind spoke one language (Genesis 11:1):

  The whole Earth was of one language and of one kind of words.

  It was so when the people "journeying from the east, found a plain in the land of Shine'ar, and they settled there." But then they started to "build a city and a tower whose head will reach heaven." It was to stop such ambitions on the part of Mankind that Yahweh, having "come down to see the city and the Tower," got concerned and said: "Let us come down and confound there their language, so that they may not understand each other's speech." It was the building of the Tower of Babel' that made Yahweh "confuse Mankind's language," and "scatter them from there over the face of the whole Earth."

  Then, using a play of words—the similarity of the Hebrew verb BLL (= 'confuse, mix up') with the name of the city ('Babel' = Babylon)— the Bible explained: "Therefore is the name of it Babel, for there did Yahweh BLL (= 'confuse') the language of the Earth." The Greek historian Alexander Polyhistor, quoting Berossus and other sources, also tells that before building a large and lofty tower, Mankind "was of one language."

  That all of Mankind—stemming from three sons of Noah—would have spoken one language right after the Deluge is a plausible assertion. Indeed, it might explain why the earlies
t terms and names in Egyptian sound like Hebrew: The word for 'gods' was Neteru, "guardians," which matches the Hebrew NTR (= 'To guard, to watch'). The name of the chief deity, Ptah meaning 'He who develops/creates', is akin to the Hebrew verb PTH with a similar meaning. The same goes for Nut (= 'Sky') from NTH—to spread a canopy; Geb ('He who heaps up') comes from GBB ('to heap up'), etc.

  The Bible then states that the Confusion of Languages was a deliberate divine act. Imagine finding corroboration for that in the Enmerkar texts!

  Reporting the inability of Enmerkar's emissaries and the king of Aratta to understand each other, the Sumerian text noted that "once upon a time—

  The whole Earth, all the people in unison.

  To Enlil in one language gave praise.

  But then Enki, pitting king against king, prince against prince, "put in their mouths a confused tongue, and the language of Mankind was confounded."

  According to the Enmerkar epics, Enki did it . . .

  XII

  Immortality: The Grand Illusion

  Once upon a time the whole of Mankind lived in Paradise—satiated from eating the Fruit of Knowledge, but forbidden from reaching for the fruit of the Tree of Life. Then God, mistrusting his own creation, said to unnamed colleagues: The Adam, having eaten of the Tree of Knowing, "has become as one of us; what if he put forth his hand and took also of the Tree of Life, and ate, and lived forever?" And to prevent that, God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.