The 12th Planet

by Zecharia Sitchin

  The first encounter between Marduk and Tiamat left her fissured and lifeless; but her final fate was still to be determined by future encounters between the two. Kingu, leader of Tiamat's satellites, was also to be dealt with separately. But the fate of the other ten, smaller satellites of Tiamat was determined at once.

  After he had slain Tiamat, the leader,

  Her band was shortered, her host broken up.

  The gods, her helpers who marched at her side,

  Trembling with fear,

  Turned their backs about so as to save and preserve their lives.

  Can we identify this "shortered ... broken" host that trembled and "turned their backs about"—reversed their direction?

  By doing so we offer an explanation to yet another puzzle of our solar system—the phenomenon of the comets. Tiny globes of matter, they are often referred to as the solar system's "rebellious members," for they appear to obey none of the normal rules of the road. The orbits of the planets around the Sun are (with the exception of Pluto) almost circular; the orbits of the comets are elongated, and in most instances very much so—to the extent that some of them disappear from our view for hundreds or thousands of years. The planets (with the exception of Pluto) orbit the Sun in the same general plane; the comets' orbits lie in many diverse planes. Most significant, while all the planets known to us circle the Sun in the same counterclockwise direction, many comets move in the reverse direction.

  Fig. 107. THE CELESTIAL BATTLE

  A. Marduk's "winds" colliding with Tiamat and her "host" (led by Kingu).

  Astronomers are unable to say what force, what event created the comets and threw them into their unusual orbits. Our answer: Marduk. Sweeping in the reverse direction, in an orbital plane of his own, he shortered, broke the host of Tiamat into smaller comets and affected them by his gravitational pull, his so-called net:

  Thrown into the net, they found themselves ensnared....

  The whole band of demons that had marched on her side

  He cast into fetters, their hands he bound....

  Tightly encircled, they could not escape.

  After the battle was over, Marduk took away from Kingu the Tablet of Destinies (Kingu's independent orbit) and attached it to his own (Marduk's) breast: his course was bent into permanent solar orbit. From that time on, Marduk was bound always to return to the scene of the celestial battle.

  Having "vanquished" Tiamat, Marduk sailed on in the heavens, out into space, around the Sun, and back to retrace his passage by the outer planets: Ea/Neptune, "whose desire Marduk achieved," Anshar/Saturn, "whose triumph Marduk established." Then his new orbital path returned Marduk to the scene of his triumph, "to strengthen his hold on the vanquished gods," Tiamat and Kingu.

  As the curtain is about to rise on Act V, it will be here—and only here, though this has not hitherto been realized—that the biblical tale of Genesis joins the Mesopotamian "Epic of Creation"; for it is only at this point that the tale of the Creation of Earth and Heaven really began.

  Completing his first-ever orbit around the Sun, Marduk "then returned to Tiamat, whom he had subdued."

  The Lord paused to view her lifeless body.

  To divide the monster he then artfully planned.

  Then, as a mussel, he split her into two parts.

  Marduk himself now hit the defeated planet, splitting Tiamat in two, severing her "skull," or upper part. Then another of Marduk's satellites, the one called North Wind, crashed into the separated half. The heavy blow carried this part—destined to become Earth—to an orbit where no planet had been orbiting before:

  The Lord trod upon Tiamat's hinder part;

  With his weapon the connected skull he cut loose;

  He severed the channels of her blood;

  And caused the North Wind to bear it

  To places that have been unknown.

  Earth had been created!

  The lower part had another fate: on the second orbit, Marduk himself hit it, smashing it to pieces (Fig. 108):

  The [other] half of her he set up as a screen for the skies:

  Locking them together, as watchmen he stationed them....

  He bent Tiamat's tail to form the Great Band as a bracelet.

  The pieces of this broken half were hammered to become a "bracelet" in the heavens, acting as a screen between the inner planets and the outer planets. They were stretched out into a "great band." The asteroid belt had been created.

  Fig. 108. THE CELESTIAL BATTLE

  B. Tiamat has been split: its shattered half is the Heaven—the Asteroid Belt; the other half, Earth, is thrust to a new orbit by Marduk's satellite "North Wind." Tiamat's chief satellite, Kingu, becomes Earth's Moon; her other satellites now make up the comets.

  Astronomers and physicists recognize the existence of great differences between the inner, or "terrestrial," planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and its Moon, and Mars) and the outer planets (Jupiter and beyond), two groups separated by the asteroid belt. We now find, in the Sumerian epic, ancient recognition of these phenomena.

  Moreover, we are offered—for the first time—a coherent cosmogonic-scientific explanation of the celestial events that led to the disappearance of the "missing planet" and the resultant creation of the asteroid belt (plus the comets) and of Earth. After several of his satellites and his electric bolts split Tiamat in two, another satellite of Marduk shunted her upper half to a new orbit as our planet Earth; then Marduk, on his second orbit, smashed the lower half to pieces and stretched them in a great celestial band.

  Every puzzle that we have mentioned is answered by the "Epic of Creation" as we have deciphered it. Moreover, we also have the answer to the question of why Earth's continents are concentrated on one side of it and a deep cavity (the Pacific Ocean's bed) exists on the opposite side. The constant reference to the "waters" of Tiamat is also illuminating. She was called the Watery Monster, and it stands to reason that Earth, as part of Tiamat, was equally endowed with these waters. Indeed, some modern scholars describe Earth as "Planet Ocean"—for it is the only one of the solar system's known planets that is blessed with such life-giving waters.

  New as these cosmologic theories may sound, they were accepted fact to the prophets and sages whose words fill the Old Testament. The prophet Isaiah recalled "the primeval days" when the might of the Lord "carved the Haughty One, made spin the watery monster, dried up the waters of Tehom-Raba." Calling the Lord Yahweh "my primeval king," the Psalmist rendered in a few verses the cosmogony of the epic of Creation. "By thy might, the waters thou didst disperse; the leader of the watery monsters thou didst break up." Job recalled how this celestial Lord also smote "the assistants of the Haughty One"; and with impressive astronomical sophistication exalted the Lord who:

  The hammered canopy stretched out in the place of Tehom,

  The Earth suspended in the void....

  His powers the waters did arrest,

  His energy the Haughty One did cleave;

  His Wind the Hammered Bracelet measured out;

  His hand the twisting dragon did extinguish.

  Biblical scholars now recognize that the Hebrew Tehom ("watery deep") stems from Tiamat; that Tehom-Raba means "great Tiamat," and that the biblical understanding of primeval events is based upon the Sumerian cosmologic epics. It should also be clear that first and foremost among these parallels are the opening verses of the Book of Genesis, describing how the Wind of the Lord hovered over the waters of Tehom, and how the lightning of the Lord (Marduk in the Babylonian version) lit the darkness of space as it hit and split Tiamat, creating Earth and the Rakia (literally, "the hammered bracelet"). This celestial band (hitherto translated as "firmament") is called "the Heaven."

  The Book of Genesis (1:8) explicitly states that it is this "hammered out bracelet" that the Lord had named "heaven" (shamaim). The Akkadian texts also called this celestial zone "the hammered bracelet" (rakkis), and describe how Marduk stretched out Tiamat's lower part until he brought it end to end, fast
ened into a permanent great circle. The Sumerian sources leave no doubt that the specific "heaven," as distinct from the general concept of heavens and space, was the asteroid belt.

  Our Earth and the asteroid belt are the "Heaven and Earth" of both Mesopotamian and biblical references, created when Tiamat was dismembered by the celestial Lord.

  After Marduk's North Wind had pushed Earth to its new celestial location, Earth obtained its own orbit around the Sun (resulting in our seasons) and received its axial spin (giving us day and night). The Mesopotamian texts claim that one of Marduk's tasks after he created Earth was, indeed, to have "allotted [to Earth] the days of the Sun and established the precincts of day and night." The biblical concepts are identical:

  And God said:

  "Let there be Lights in the hammered Heaven,

  to divide between the Day and the Night;

  and let them be celestial signs

  and for Seasons and for Days and for Years."

  Modern scholars believe that after Earth became a planet it was a hot ball of belching volcanoes, filling the skies with mists and clouds. As temperatures began to cool, the vapors turned to water, separating the face of Earth into dry land and oceans.

  The fifth tablet of Enuma Elish, though badly mutilated, imparts exactly the same scientific information. Describing the gushing lava as Tiamat's "spittle," the Creation epic correctly places this phenomenon before the formation of the atmosphere, the oceans of Earth, and the continents. After the "cloud waters were gathered," the oceans began to form, and the "foundations" of Earth—its continents—were raised. As "the making of cold"—a cooling off—took place, rain and mist appeared. Meanwhile, the "spittle" continued to pour forth, "laying in layers," shaping Earth's topography.

  Once again, the biblical parallel is clear:

  And God said:

  "Let the waters under the skies be gathered together,

  unto one place, and let dry land appear."

  And it was so.

  Earth, with oceans, continents, and an atmosphere, was now ready for the formation of mountains, rivers, springs, valleys. Attributing all Creation to the Lord Marduk, Enuma Elish continued the narration:

  Putting Tiamat's head [Earth] into position,

  He raised the mountains thereon.

  He opened springs, the torrents to draw off.

  Through her eyes he released the Tigris and Euphrates.

  From her teats he formed the lofty mountains,

  Drilled springs for wells, the water to carry off.

  In perfect accord with modern findings, both the Book of Genesis and Enuma Elish and other related Mesopotamian texts place the beginning of life upon Earth in the waters, followed by the "living creatures that swarm" and "fowl that fly." Not until then did "living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts" appear upon Earth, culminating with the appearance of Man—the final act of Creation.

  •

  As part of the new celestial order upon Earth, Marduk "made the divine Moon appear ... designated him to mark the night, define the days every month."

  Who was this celestial god? The text calls him SHESH.KI ("celestial god who protects Earth"). There is no mention earlier in the epic of a planet by this name; yet there he is, "within her heavenly pressure [gravitational field]." And who is meant by "her": Tiamat or Earth?

  The roles of, and references to, Tiamat and Earth appear to be interchangeable. Earth is Tiamat reincarnated. The Moon is called Earth's "protector"; that is exactly what Tiamat called Kingu, her chief satellite.

  The Creation epic specifically excludes Kingu from the "host" of Tiamat that were shortered and scattered and put into reverse motion around the Sun as comets. After Marduk completed his own first orbit and returned to the scene of the battle, he decreed Kingu's separate fate:

  And Kingu, who had become chief among them,

  He made shrink;

  As god DUG.GA.E he counted him.

  He took from him the Tablet of Destinies,

  Not rightfully his.

  Marduk, then, did not destroy Kingu. He punished him by taking away his independent orbit, which Tiamat had granted him as he grew in size. Shrunk to a smaller size, Kingu remained a "god"—a planetary member of our solar system. Without an orbit he could only become a satellite again. As Tiamat's upper part was thrown into a new orbit (as the new planet Earth), we suggest, Kingu was pulled along. Our Moon, we suggest, is Kingu, Tiamat's former satellite.

  Transformed into a celestial duggae, Kingu had been stripped of his "vital" elements—atmosphere, waters, radioactive matter; he shrank in size and became "a mass of lifeless clay." These Sumerian terms fittingly describe our lifeless Moon, its recently discovered history, and the fate that befell this satellite that started out as KIN.GU ("great emissary") and ended up as DUG.GA.E ("pot of lead").

  L. W. King (The Seven Tablets of Creation) reported the existence of three fragments of an astronomical-mythological tablet that presented another version of Marduk's battle with Tiamat, which included verses that dealt with the manner in which Marduk dispatched Kingu. "Kingu, her spouse, with a weapon not of war he cut away ... the Tablets of Destiny from Kingu he took in his hand." A further attempt, by B. Landesberger (in 1923, in the Archiv fur Keilschriftforschung), to edit and fully translate the text, demonstrated the interchangeability of the names Kingu/Ensu/Moon.

  Such texts not only confirm our conclusion that Tiamat's main satellite became our Moon; they also explain NASA's findings regarding a huge collision "when celestial bodies the size of large cities came crashing into the Moon." Both the NASA findings and the text discovered by L. W. King describe the Moon as the "planet that was laid waste."

  Cylinder seals have been found that depict the celestial battle, showing Marduk fighting a fierce female deity. One such depiction shows Marduk shooting his lightning at Tiamat, with Kingu, clearly identified as the Moon, trying to protect Tiamat, his creator. (Fig. 109)

  This pictorial evidence that Earth's Moon and Kingu were the same satellite is further enhanced by the etymological fact that the name of the god SIN, in later times associated with the Moon, derived from SU.EN ("lord of wasteland").

  Having disposed of Tiamat and Kingu, Marduk once again "crossed the heavens and surveyed the regions." This time his attention was focused on "the dwelling of Nudimmud" (Neptune), to fix a final "destiny" for Gaga, the erstwhile satellite of Anshar/Saturn who was made an "emissary" to the other planets.

  The epic informs us that as one of his final acts in the heavens, Marduk assigned this celestial god "to a hidden place," a hitherto unknown orbit facing "the deep" (outer space), and entrusted to him the "counsellorship of the Watery Deep." In line with his new position, the planet was renamed US.MI ("one who shows the way"), the outermost planet, our Pluto.

  Fig. 109

  According to the Creation epic, Marduk had at one point boasted, "The ways of the celestial gods I will artfully alter ... into two groups shall they be divided."

  Indeed he did. He eliminated from the heavens the Sun's first partner-in-Creation, Tiamat. He brought Earth into being, thrusting it into a new orbit nearer the Sun. He hammered a "bracelet" in the heavens-the asteroid belt that does separate the group of inner planets from the group of outer planets. He turned most of Tiamat's satellites into comets; her chief satellite, Kingu, he put into orbit around Earth to become the Moon. And he shifted a satellite of Saturn, Gaga, to become the planet Pluto, imparting to it some of Marduk's own orbital characteristics (such as a different orbital plane).

  The puzzles of our solar system—the oceanic cavities upon Earth, the devastation upon the Moon, the reverse orbits of the comets, the enigmatic phenomena of Pluto—all are perfectly answered by the Mesopotamian Creation epic, as deciphered by us.