ALSO BY ZECHARIA SITCHIN
The Earth Chronicles
The 12th Planet The Stairway to Heaven The Wars of Gods and Men The Lost Realms When Time Began The Cosmic Code The End of Days The Earth Chronicles Handbook
Companion Books
Genesis Revisited Divine Encounters The Lost Book ofEnki
Autobiographical Books
The Earth Chronicles Expeditions Journeys to the Mythical Past
Cover illustration: Victory stela of king Naram-Sin, ca. 2250 B.C., now in the Louvre Museum, Paris.
There Were Giants Upon the Earth
Gods, Demigods, and Human Ancestry: The Evidence of Alien DNA
ZECHARIA SITCHIN
Bear & Company
Rochester, Vermont • Toronto, Canada
Bear & Company One Park Street Rochester, Vermont 05767 www.BearandCompanyBooks.com
Bear & Company is a division of Inner Traditions International Copyright © 2010 by Zecharia Sitchin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sitchin, Zecharia.
There were giants upon the Earth : gods, demigods, and human ancestry : the evidence of alien DNA / Zecharia Sitchin. p. cm. — (Earth chronicles) Summary: "The crowning work of the best-selling Earth chronicles series"— Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-1-59143-121-3 (hardcover)
1. Civilization, Ancient—Extraterrestrial influences. 2. Extraterrestrial beings. 3. DNA. 4. Heredity. 5. Gods—History. 6. Goddesses—History. I. Title. CB156.S585 2010 930—dc22
2010012959
Printed and bound in the United States by Lake Book Manufacturing
10 98765432
Text design and layout by Priscilla Baker
This book was typeset in Garamond Premier Pro, with Impact and Gill Sans used as display typefaces
Royal Tombs of Ur illustrations courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Philadelphia, and the Trustees of the British Museum, London
To send correspondence to the author of this book, mail a first-class letter to P.O. Box 577, New York, NY 10185 or visit his website at www.Sitchin.com.
Contents
Introduction: And It Came to Pass 1
I Alexander's Quest for Immortality 4
II In the Days before the Flood 21
III In Search of Noah 37
IV Sumer: Where Civilization Began 58
V When Kingship Was Brought Down from Heaven 83
VI A Planet Called 'Nibiru' 101
VII Of Anunnaki and Igigi 124
VIII A Serf Made to Order 145
IX Gods and Other Ancestors 164
X Of Patriarchs and Demigods 178
XI There Were Giants Upon the Earth 198
XII Immortality: The Grand Illusion 224
XIII Dawn of the Goddess 248
XIV Glory of Empire, Winds of Doom 266
XV Buried in Grandeur 294
XVI The Goddess Who Never Left 328 Postscript: Mankind's Alien Origins—The Evidence 343
INTRODUCTION
And It Came to Pass
And it came to pass,
When men began to multiply on the face of the Earth
and daughters were born unto them,
that the sons of God saw the daughters of men
that they were fair, and they took them wives
of all which they chose.
There were giants upon the Earth
in those days and also thereafter too,
When the sons of God
came in unto the daughters of men
and they bare children to them—
the same Mighty Men of old,
Men of Renown.
The reader, if familiar with the King James English version of the Bible, will recognize these verses in chapter 6 of Genesis as the preamble to the story of the Deluge, the Great Flood in which Noah, huddled in an ark, was saved to repopulate the Earth.
The reader, if familiar with my writings, will also recognize these verses as the reason why many decades ago, a schoolboy was prompted to ask his teacher why it is "giants" who are the subject of these verses, when the word in the original Hebrew text is Nefilim—which, stemming from
the Hebrew verb NaFoL, means to fall down, to be downed, to come down—and in no way 'giants'.
The schoolboy was I. Instead of being congratulated on my linguistic acumen, I was harshly reprimanded. "Sitchin, sit down!" the teacher hissed with repressed anger; "you don't question the Bible!" I was deeply hurt that day, for I was not questioning the Bible—on the contrary, I was pointing out the need to understand it accurately. And that was what changed my life's direction to pursue the Nefilim. Who were they, and who were their "Mighty Men" descendants?
The search for answers started with linguistic questions. The Hebrew text does not speak of "Men" who began to multiply, but of Ha'Adam—"The Adam," a generic term, a human species. It does not speak of the sons of "God," but uses the term Bnei Ha-Elohim—the sons (in the plural) of The Elohim, a plural term taken to mean "gods" but literally meaning "The Lofty Ones." The "Daughters of The Adam" were not "fair," but Tovoth—good, compatible . . . And unavoidably we find ourselves confronting issues of origins. How did Mankind happen to be on this planet, and whose genetic code do we carry?
In just three verses and a few words—forty-nine words in the original Hebrew of Genesis—the Bible describes the creation of Heaven and Earth, then records an actual prehistoric time of early Mankind and a series of amazing events, including a global Flood, the presence on Earth of gods and their sons, inter-species intermarriage, and demigod offspring. . .
And so, starting with one word {Nefilim), I told the tale of the Anunnaki, "Those who from Heaven to Earth came"—space travelers and interplanetary settlers who came from their troubled planet to Earth in need of gold, and ended up fashioning The Adam in their image. In doing so I brought them to life—recognizing them individually, unraveling their tangled relationships, describing their tasks, loves, ambitions, and wars—and identifying their inter-species offspring, the 'demigods'.
I have been asked at times where my interests would have taken me were the teacher to compliment rather than reprimand me. In truth,
I have asked myself a different question: What if indeed "there were giants upon the Earth, in those days and thereafter too"i The cultural, scientific, and religious implications are awesome; they lead to the next unavoidable questions: Why did the compilers of the Hebrew Bible, which is totally devoted to monotheism, include the bombshell verses in the prehistoric record—and what were their sources?
I believe that I have found the answer. Deciphering the enigma of the demigods (the famed Gilgamesh among them), I conclude in this book—my crowning oeuvre—that compelling physical evidence for past alien presence on Earth has been buried in an ancient tomb. It is a tale that has immense implications for our genetic origins—a key to unlocking the secrets of health, longevity, life, and death; it is a mystery whose unraveling will take the reader on a unique adventure and finally reveal what was held back from Adam in the Garden of Eden.
Zecharia Sitchin
I
Alexander's Quest for Immortality
In the spring of 334 B.C., Alexander of Macedon led a massive Greek army across the Hellespont, a narrow straits of water separating Europe from Asia (now called the Dardanelles), and launched the first known armed invasion of Asia from Europe. His military force
s, with some 15,000 elite foot soldiers and cavalry, represented an alliance of Greek states formed in response to repeated invasions of Greece by the Asiatic Persians: First, in 490 B.C. (when the invasion was repulsed at Marathon) and then in 480/479 B.C., when the Persians humiliated the Greeks by occupying and sacking Athens.
The two sides have been warring since then over Asia Minor, where Greek settlements (of which Troy had been the most storied) were proliferating, and clashed over the lucrative sea lanes in the eastern Mediterranean. While the Persians were organized in a mighty empire ruled by a succession of "King of Kings," the Greeks were fragmented into quarreling city-states; the devastating and humiliating Persian invasions coupled with the continuing clashes on land and sea finally served as an impetus to form a League under the leadership of Macedonia; and the task of leading the counterattack was entrusted to Alexander.
He chose to cross from Europe to Asia at Hellespont ('A' on map, Fig. 1), the same narrows that the Persians had crossed for their invasions westward. In times past the narrows were dominated on the Asian side by the fortified city of Troy—the epicenter of the Trojan War that had raged there, according to Homer's Iliad, many centuries before. Carrying a copy of the epic tale given him by his tutor Aristotle, Alexander made it a point to stop at the ruins of Troy to offer sacrifices to the goddess Athena and pay homage at the tomb of Achilles (whose courage and heroism Alexander admired).
The crossing by the army of thousands was uneventful. The Persians, rather than ward off the invaders at the beach, saw a chance to annihilate the Greek force by luring it inland. A Persian army, led by one of their best generals, was waiting for Alexander and his army along
Figure 1
a river, forming a battle line somewhat inland; but though the Persians had the advantage of positions and numbers, the Greeks broke through. Falling back, the Persians assembled another army and even planned a counterinvasion of Greece; but in the meantime, their retreat enabled the Greeks to advance freely in Asia Minor, all the way to what is now the Turkish-Syrian border ('B' on map, Fig. 1).
In the fall of 333 B.C., the Persian Shah-in-Shah ("King of Kings") himself, Darius III, led a cavalry charge against Alexander's advancing troops; the battle, known as the battle of Issus (and much depicted by Greek artists, Fig. 2), ended with the capture of Darius's royal tent, but not of Darius himself. The Persian king, beaten but not defeated, retreated to Babylon ('C' on map, Fig. 1) the western headquarters of an empire that stretched from Asia Minor (where Alexander had invaded) all the way to India.
Incomprehensively, Alexander gave up the opportunity to crush the Persian enemy once and for all. Instead of pursuing the Persian remnants and their humbled king, he let Darius retreat eastward to Babylon and rouse the empire to continue the war. Giving up the chance for a decisive victory, Alexander instead set his course southward . . . The
Figure 2
defeat of the Persians to avenge their previous attacks on Greece—the reason for the Greek states' alliance under Alexander—was deferred to a later time. It was Egypt, not Persia, the astounded Greek generals discovered, that was the real pressing destination for Alexander.
What was on Alexander's mind, it was later revealed, was his own rather than Greece's destiny, for he was driven by persistent rumors in the Macedonian court that his real father was not King Philip, but a mysterious Egyptian. As related in various accounts, the court of King Philip was once visited by an Egyptian Pharaoh whom the Greeks called Nectanebus. He was a master magician, a diviner, and he secretly seduced Queen Olympias, Philip's wife; thus, though it was assumed when she gave birth to Alexander that it was King Philip who was the father, Alexander's true father was an Egyptian visitor.
These persistent rumors, which soured the relations between King Philip and the queen, gained credibility when Philip—some said in order to clear his way to marry a young daughter of a Macedonian nobleman—publicly accused Olympias of adultery, a step that cast doubt on Alexander's status as Crown Prince. It was perhaps then, but certainly not later than when the king's new wife was with child, that the story took another twist: The mysterious visitor who had presumably fathered Alexander was not a mere Egyptian—he was a god in disguise: the Egyptian god Amon (also spelled Ammon, Amun, Amen). According to this version, Alexander was more than a royal prince (the queen's son)—he was a demigod.
The issue of royal succession in Macedonia was settled when King Philip, reveling in the birth of a son by his new wife, was assassinated, and Alexander, at age 20, acceded to the throne. But the issue of his true parentage continued to engage Alexander; for if true, he was entitled to something more important than inheriting a royal throne—he was entitled to inherit the immortality of the gods!
With his accession to Macedonia's throne, Alexander replaced Philip as commander of the alliance of Greek states in their invasion project. But before embarking on the march to Asia, he made his way to Delphi, a distant sacred site all the way in southern Greece. It was the location of ancient Greece's most famed oracle to which kings and heroes went to consult about their future. There, in the temple to the god Apollo, a legendary priestess, the Sibyl, would go into a trance and, speaking for the god, would answer the visitor's question.
Was he a demigod; will he gain immortality? Alexander wanted to know. The Sibyl's response—as always—was laconic, a riddle subject to interpretation. What was clear, though, was the indication that Alexander would find the answer in Egypt—at that country's most famous oracle site: The oasis of Siwa ('D' on map, Fig 1).
* * *
The suggestion was not as odd as it may seem. The two oracle sites were linked by legend and history. The one at Delphi—a name that meant "womb" in Greek—was said to have been chosen by Zeus, head of the Greek pantheon, after two birds he had sent from two opposite places on Earth met there. Declaring the site to be a "navel of the Earth," Zeus placed there an oval-shaped stone called an Omphalus—Greek for "navel." It was a Whispering Stone by which the gods communicated, and according to ancient traditions it was the most sacred object in Apollo's temple, and the Delphic Sybil sat on it when she pronounced her oracular responses. (That original Omphalus stone was replaced in Roman times by a replica, Fig. 3a, which visitors to Delphi can still see.)
The oracle site of Siwa—an oasis in the Western Desert some three hundred miles west of the Nile delta—was likewise chosen after a flight by two black birds (believed to have been priestesses of the god Amon in disguise). The main temple there was dedicated to the Egyptian god Amon, whom the Greeks considered to be the Egyptian 'Zeus'. It too had a Whispering Stone, an Egyptian omphalus (Fig. 3b); and it assumed a sacred place in Greek myth-cum-history because the god Dionysus, once lost in the Western Desert, was saved by being miraculously guided to the oasis. Dionysus was a half-brother of Apollo, and used to fill in for him in Delphi when Apollo was away. Moreover— especially from Alexander's viewpoint—Dionysus attained the status
Figure 3
of a god although he was in reality a demigod—the son of Zeus who, disguised as a man, had seduced a princess named Selene. It was, in essence, an earlier occurrence akin to Alexander's—a god in disguise fathering a son by a royal human female; and if Dionysus could be deified and become one of the Immortals—why not Alexander?
Previous seekers of Siwa's oracular pronouncements included two famous generals, Cimon of Athens and Lysander of Sparta; even more » significant for Alexander was the demigod Perseus, another love child of Zeus, who managed to slay the monstrous Meduza without turning into . stone. The legendary hero Hercules, famed for his challenging Twelve Labors, was also said to have consulted the Siwa oracle; not surprisingly, he too was a demigod, son of Zeus who had impregnated the wise and beautiful Alcmena, having disguised himself as her husband, the king of an island. The precedents clearly fitted Alexander's own quest.
And so it was that instead of pursuing the Persian king and his disarrayed army, Alexander set his course southward. Leaving behind some
troops to garrison conquered territory, he marched along the Mediterranean Sea's coastal region. Except for the Phoenician stronghold of Tyre, whose navy participated in the war as Persia's allies, the Greeks' advance was hardly resisted: Alexander, by and large, was welcomed as a liberator from a detested Persian rule.
In Egypt, the Persian garrison surrendered without a fight, and Alexander was given more than a liberator's welcome by the Egyptians themselves. In Memphis, the capital, the Egyptian priests were ready to accept Alexander's rumored divine parentage by the Egyptian god Amon, and they suggested that Alexander travel to Thebes (today's Karnak and Luxor) in Upper Egypt, the site of ancient Egypt's immense temple of Amon, to pay homage to the god and to be crowned a Pharaoh. But Alexander insisted on fulfilling the directive of the Delphi oracle and embarked on the dangerous three-week desert trek to Siwa: He needed to hear the verdict about his immortality.
What had transpired at Siwa during the strictly private oracular session, no one really knows. One version is that when it was over, Alexander said to his companions that he "received the answer that his heart desired," and that "he had learned secret things that he would have not known otherwise." Another version reported that his divine parentage, though not a physical immortality, was confirmed—leading Alexander to henceforth pay his troops with silver coins bearing his image with horns (Fig. 4a), in the likeness of the horned god Amon (Fig. 4b). A third version, supported by what Alexander did there-
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