Enuma Elish – Passing Time on Planet X

The Epic of Creation
Gods of the New Millennium
Alan Alford

Where did the Gods come from? According to the Sumerians, the Gods came to Earth from a planet called Nibiru.

Their descriptions of that planet match precisely the specification of the so-called “Planet X”, which is currently being sought by modern astronomers within our own Solar System. This planet is believed to have an elliptical orbit that takes it into the depths of space, well beyond the orbit of Pluto – hence it has not been seen in recent times.

The scientific evidence and ongoing search for Planet X will be dealt with later in this chapter, but first we must review a mass of evidence that traces the history of that planet from the early days of the Solar System right up to the legendary Flood, which I will date to 13,000 years ago. Our quest for Nibiru/Planet X begins with an extraordinary source – a 4,000 year old Babylonian text known as the Enuma Elish.

In 1876, George Smith of the British Museum published his translation of this sacred Babylonian epic, pieced together from broken clay tablets such as that shown in Figure 1. Smith had already caused international headlines with his earlier translation of a Flood text which paralleled the Biblical tale. The Enuma Elish caused an equal stir, for it appeared to represent a creation myth that was far more detailed than the brief Biblical account of Genesis 1.

Nevertheless, for one hundred years, the Enuma Elish was dismissed as mythology – an imaginative account of a cosmic battle of good against evil – and the Babylonian New Year ritual which had developed around it was similarly regarded as meaningless superstition. To the uneducated eye, the Enuma Elish is a tale of battles between one “God ” and another, the hero of which was Marduk, the chief deity of the Babylonians.

The educated scholar, however, realizes that the Babylonians were heirs to the Sumerian culture, and that the vast majority of Babylonian myths are politicized versions of Sumerian originals. The key question is this: if the very UN-Sumerian ritual and political aspects are stripped away from the Enuma Elish, does the tale indeed represent an earlier Sumerian document with valid scientific credentials?

In 1976, Zecharia Sitchin came forward with an amazing, but as yet unrefuted claim, that the Enuma Elish is a cosmological epic, accurately describing the formation of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago!

Enuma Elish – “When on High…”

Enuma Elish: “When on High . . .”
The Mesopotamian/Babylonian Creation Myth

The Enuma Elish is a Babylonian or Mesopotamian myth of creation recounting the struggle between cosmic order and chaos. It is basically a myth of the cycle of seasons. It is named after its opening words and was recited on the fourth day of the ancient Babylonian New Year’s festival. The basic story exists in various forms in the area. This version is written in Akkadian, an old Babylonian dialect, and features Marduk, the patron deity of the city of Babylon. A similar earlier version in ancient Sumerian has Anu, Enil and Ninurta as the heroes, suggesting that this version was adapted to justify the religious practices in the cult of Marduk in Babylon.

This version was written sometime in the 12th century BC in cuneiform on seven clay tablets. They were found in the middle 19th century in the ruins of the palace of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. George Smith first published these texts in 1876 as The Chaldean Genesis. Because of many parallels with the Genesis account, some historians concluded that the Genesis account was simply a rewriting of the Babylonian story. As a reaction, many who wanted to maintain the uniqueness of the Bible argued either that there were no real parallels between the accounts or that the Genesis narratives were written first and the Babylonian myth borrowed from the biblical account.

Enuma Elish – The Babylonian-Mesopotamian Epic of Creation

The Enuma Elis is the Babylonian creation myth (named for its incipit). It was recovered by Henry Layard in 1849 (in fragmentary form) in the ruined library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq), and published by George Smith in 1876.

The Enuma Elish has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on seven clay tablets, each holding between 115 and 170 lines of text. The majority of Tablet V has never been recovered, but aside from this lacuna the text is almost complete. A duplicate copy of Tablet V has been found in Sultantepe, ancient Huzirina, located near the modern town of Sanlõurfa in Turkey.

This epic is one of the most important sources for understanding the Babylonian worldview, centered on the supremacy of Marduk and the creation of mankind for the service of the gods. Its primary original purpose, however, is not an exposition of theology or theogony, but the elevation of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, above other Mesopotamian gods.

The Enuma Elish exists in various copies from Babylonia and Assyria. The version from Ashurbanipal’s library dates to the 7th century BC. The story itself probably dates to the 18th century BC, the time when the god Marduk seems to have achieved a prominent status, although some scholars give it a later date (14th to 12th centuries BC.)

Enuma Elish – Passing Time on Planet X
Gods of the New Millennium; Alan Alford

In 1976, Zecharia Sitchin came forward with an amazing, but as yet unrefuted claim, that the Enuma Elish is a cosmological epic, accurately describing the formation of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago!

Enuma Elish – “When on High…”
The Mesopotamian/Babylonian Creation Myth

The Enuma Elish is a Babylonian or Mesopotamian myth of creation recounting the struggle between cosmic order and chaos. It is basically a myth of the cycle of seasons. It is named after its opening words and was recited on the fourth day of the ancient Babylonian New Year’s festival. The basic story exists in various forms in the area. This version is written in Akkadian, an old Babylonian dialect, and features Marduk, the patron deity of the city of Babylon. A similar earlier version in ancient Sumerian has Anu, Enil and Ninurta as the heroes, suggesting that this version was adapted to justify the religious practices in the cult of Marduk in Babylon.

The Seven Tablets of Creation
Luzac’s Semitic text and translation series. vol. xii-xiii; Leonard William King

This is an etext of L.W. Kings’ authoritative work on the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth. This etext includes the complete introduction, and the English text of the Enuma Elish and other related texts, with selected footnotes. The Enuma Elish is the earliest written creation myth, in which the God Marduk battles the chaos Goddess Tiamat and her evil minions. The name ‘Enuma Elish’ is derived from the first two words of the myth, meaning ‘When in the Height’. Tiamat takes the form of a gigantic snake, and Marduk battles and defeats her using an arsenal of super-weapons. After his victory Marduk is made the leader of the Gods by acclamation. Marduk divides Tiamat’s corpse into two portions, the upper half becoming the sky and the lower half, the earth. Marduk then creates humanity from his blood and bone.

The Enuma Elish has long been considered by scholars to be primary source material for the book of Genesis. It has also been hypothesized that this is a legend about the overthrow of the matriarchy or records of some cosmic catastrophe.

The Atrahasis Epic

The Epic of Atrahasis on a tablet from the British Museum, London (Britain). © British Museum

The Atrahasis Epic, named after its human hero, is a story from Mesopotamia that includes both a creation and a flood account. It was composed as early as the nineteenth century B.C.E. In its cosmology, heaven is ruled by the god Anu, earth by Enlil, and the freshwater ocean by Enki. Enlil set the lesser gods to work farming the land and maintaining the irrigation canals. After forty years they refused to work any longer. Enki, also the wise counselor to the gods, proposed that humans be created to assume the work. The goddess Mami made humans by shaping clay mixed with saliva and the blood of the under-god We, who was slain for this purpose.

The human population worked and grew, but so did the noise they made. Because it disturbed Enlil’s sleep, he decided to destroy the human race. First he sent a plague, then a famine followed by a drought, and lastly a flood. Each time Enki forewarned Atrahasis, enabling him to survive the disaster. He gave Atrahasis seven days warning of the flood and told him to build a boat. Atrahasis loaded it with animals and birds and his own possessions. Though the rest of humanity perished, he survived. When the gods realized they had destroyed the labor force that had produced food for their offerings they regretted their actions. The story breaks off at this point, so we learn nothing of the boat’s landing or the later Atrahasis.

The account has similarities to the Primeval History, including the creation of humans out of clay (see Genesis 2:7), a flood, and boat-building hero. For the text of the Atrahasis Epic see Pritchard (1969: 104-106). For a detailed study see W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atrahasis (Oxford: Clarendon Lambert, 1969).

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Atrahasis & Human Creation
When the Gods did the work they grew weary and decided to create human beings.

This later Akkadian version of the flood story and the creation of humanity and fits between the Sumerian version and the Babylonian version in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The following excerpt is taken from Myths From Mesopotamia: Gilgamesh, The Flood, and Others, translated by Stephanie Dalley. It is related here for educational purposes only.

Planetary Discoveries: The Case of the Earthlike Planet

An exciting planetary discovery, just reported, spilled over from the scientific publications to the general media. Radio and television stations announced in headline news that “Another planet like Earth discovered”; The New York Times presented the news more accurately: SEARCH FINDS FAR-OFF PLANET AKIN TO EARTH.

Planetary Discoveries: Brother, It’s Hot Out There!

The assertion that the Anunnaki came from a planet (Nibiru) whose orbit extends far out in our solar system has repeatedly led to the question: How could life exist so far away from the Sun, where it is extremely cold and everything freezes?

My answer has been that we need not go that far out to freeze to death, just rising above Earth’s surface would do the trick. It is the planet’s atmosphere that retains the warmth, be it warmth obtained from the Sun, or from an internal source of heat. The crucial issue for the Anunnaki, I explained, was to prevent the loss of Nibiru’s atmosphere; they sought to do that with a shield of gold particles, and they came here to obtain the gold.

Planetary Discoveries: When Astronomers Need Rethinking

Two recent discoveries by astronomers in the fast-expanding field of Extrasolar Planets “challenge scientists to rethink current theories,” according to published reports.

In both instances a smiling Zecharia Sitchin says, “The Sumerians did tell you so!”

The Case of the French Astronomer

In ancient Sumer the highlight of the New Year celebration was the public reading of Enuma Elish, the “Epic of Creation.” Scholars have treated the long text (inscribed on seven clay tablets) as an allegory of a struggle between good and evil, between a benevolent celestial god and a celestial monster.

In my books I treated the ancient text as a sophisticated scientific cosmogony about the formation of our solar system, and a celestial collision in which a planet called “Tiamat” was destroyed by the invading planet “Nibiru,” bringing about the Earth and the Moon. Nibiru (renamed “Marduk” by the Babylonians) itself was caught into permanent elongated orbit around the Sun, becoming the twelfth member of our Solar System (the Sumerians counted the Sun, the Moon, and – with Nibiru – ten planets).

War Comes to the “Landing Place”

The name of an ancient site – Ba’albek in Lebanon – has now been mentioned in dispatches by war correspondents covering the latest flareup in the Middle East. Israeli planes have been dropping bombs there on training and supply encampments of Hezbollah terrorists, in a tit-for-tat for the latter’s missile attacks on Israel. Some of the dispatches refer to the town’s “Roman ruins” – remains of temples that Roman emperors erected in honor of Rome’s gods; but little, if any, mention is made of the place’s earlier and much more significant archaeological remains.

I and those who have been with me to the place several years ago can attest that the “Roman ruins” are indeed imposing remains of three magnificent temples, including the largest temple to Jupiter anywhere in the Roman empire, Rome itself included – as an artist’s reconstruction shows (Fig. 1). But the Romans came there because the place had been revered earlier by the Greeks. Pompey, Rome’s conquering general, offered there sacrifices in 60 B.C. imitating Alexander the Great who paid there homage to Zeus centuries earlier. The Greeks came because the place was deemed a unique sacred site by the Phoenicians and the Babylonians before them; and before all those generals and emperors and kings, Gilgamesh, king of Uruk in ancient Sumer, went there circa 2900 B.C. to obtain immortality from the gods.

The Case of the Lurking Planet

“Far beyond the solar system’s nine known planets, a body as massive as Mars may once have been part of our planetary system — and it might still be there…”

The lead paragraph in a science-fiction script?

The lead paragraph from an article by Zecharia Sitchin about Nibiru?

No. It is the lead paragraph in a report in Science News of April 7, 2001 headlined “A Comet’s Odd Orbit Hints At Hidden Planet”.