There Were Giants Upon the Earth

by Zechariah Sitchin

  As the Anunnaki miners "toiled deep in the mountains, they counted the periods of the toil." "For 10 periods they suffered the toil, for 20 periods they suffered the toil, for 30 periods they suffered the toil, for 40 periods they suffered the toil":

  Excessive was their toil for 40 periods,

  [ . . . ] they suffered the work night and day.

  They were complaining, backbiting.

  Grumbling in the excavations (they said):

  "Let us confront [...], the Commander,

  that he may relieve us of our heavy work.

  Let us break the yoke!"

  The occasion for the mutiny was a visit by Enlil to the mining area. "Come, let us unnerve him in his dwelling!" a ringleader (whose name is illegible in the tablet) urged the angry miners. "Let us proclaim a mutiny, let us adopt hostilities and battle!"

  The gods heeded his words.

  They set fire to their tools,

  put flame to their earthcutters

  and fire to their grinders.

  Throwing them away, they went

  to the gate of the hero Enlil.

  It was nighttime. As the mutineers reached the place where Enlil was staying, the gatekeeper Kalkal barred the gate and alerted Enlil's aide Nusku, who awakened his master. Hearing the shouting—which included calls to "kill Enlil!"—Enlil was incredulous: "Is it against me that it is being done? What do my own eyes see?" Through Nusku he demanded to know "Who is the instigator of this conflict?" The mutineers responded by shouting, "Every single one of us has declared battle . . . Our work is heavy, distress is great—excessive toil is killing us!"

  "When Enlil heard those words, his tears flowed." Contacting Anu, he offered to resign his command and return to Nibiru, but demanded that the instigator of the mutiny be "done to death." Anu summoned the Council of State. They found that the Anunnaki's complaints were justified; but how could the vital gold-supply mission be abandoned?

  It was then that "Enki opened his mouth and addressed the gods his brethren." There is a way out of the dilemma, he said. We have with us Ninmah; she is Belet-ili, 'a Birth-Giving goddess'—

  Let her fashion a Lulu,

  Let an Amelu bear the toil of the gods!

  Let her create a Lulu Amelu,

  Let him bear the yoke!

  He was suggesting to create a Lulu—a "Mixed One," a hybrid— to be an Amelu, a workman, to take over the Anunnaki's toil.

  And when the other gods asked how such a Lulu Amelu could be created, Enki answered: "The creature whose name you uttered—it exists!" All we need to do is "bind on it the image of the gods."

  Therein, in this response, lies the answer to the enigma of 'The

  Missing Link'—how could Homo sapiens, modern man, appear in southeast Africa some 300,000 years ago overnight (in anthropological terms) when the evolutionary advances from apes to hominids, and in hominid species from Australopithecus to Homo habilis to Homo erectus, etc., took millions upon millions of years?

  A Being, akin to the Anunnaki in many respects, Enki told the astounded gods, already exists in the wilds of the Abzu. "All we need to do is bind on it the image the gods"—to upgrade it with some Anunnaki genes—and create a Lulu (= A Mixed One') who could take over the mining work.

  What Enki had discovered at his headquarters in southeast Africa was a hominid so akin genetically to the Anunnaki, that with some genetic tinkering—adding to the genome of the hominid (say a Homo erectus) some Anunnaki genes—could upgrade the hominid to the status of an understanding, speaking, tool-handling Homo sapiens. And it was all possible because the DNA on Earth was that of Nibiru, transferred—the reader will recall—when Nibiru itself smashed into Tiamat!

  Enki then outlined to the assembled leaders how it could be done with the help of Ninmah and her biomedical expertise. Hearing that,

  In the Assembly,

  the Great Anunnaki

  who administer destinies,

  declared: "YES!"

  That fatal decision to create Man is echoed in the Bible. Identifying the assembled Great Anunnaki as the Elohim, the 'Lofty Ones', Genesis 1:26 states:

  And Elohim said:

  "Let us make an Adam

  in our image

  and after our likeness."

  There is no doubting the plural in the biblical statement, starting with the plural Elohim (the singular is El, Elo'ha) through "Let us make"—"in our image"—"and our likeness." It happened "40 periods"—40 Shars— after the arrival of the Anunnaki. If the Arrival (see previous chapters) took place some 445,000 years ago, the creation of Adamu took place 300,000 years ago (445,000—144,000)—exactly when Homo erectus suddenly changed to Homo sapiens.

  * * *

  The process by which the fashioning of the "Primitive Worker" was achieved is then described in the Atra-Hasis Epic, as well as in several other texts. It involved obtaining from the blood of a god his Te'ema—a term scholars translate as 'Personality' or 'Life's Essence'—and mixing it with the "Ti-it of the Abzu." The term Ti-it has been presumed to come from the Akkadian word Tit = clay, hence the notion (echoed in the Bible) that 'The Adam' was fashioned from clay or 'dust' of the Earth. But read in its Sumerian origin, Ti-it means "That which is with life"—the 'essence' of a living being.

  The Te'ema—the 'Life's Essence' or 'Personality' of a god—what we would now define as his genetic DNA—was "mixed" with the 'essence' of an existing Being found (the text states) in the area "just above the Abzu." By mixing genes extracted from the blood of a god with the 1essence' of an existing earthly being, 'The Adam' was genetically i engineered.

  There was no 'Missing Link' in our jump from Homo erectus to Hoifto sapiens, because the Anunnaki jumped the gun on Evolution through genetic engineering.

  The task described by Enki was easier said than done. In addition to the Atra-Hasis epic, other texts detail the creation process. Extensively rendered in both The 12th Planet and Genesis Revisited, they describe considerable trial and error, resulting in beings missing limbs, with defective or odd organs, or with flawed eyesight or other senses. As the experiments continued, Ninmah figured out which genes affect what, and declared that she now could deliberately produce—"as my heart desires"—beings with or without this or that defect. ..

  Enki, a text states, "prepared a purifying bath" into which "one god was bled." Ninmah "mixed blood and flesh" in order to "fix upon the newborn the image of the gods." Enki "was seated before her; he was prompting her" with instructions and advice. The genetic endeavor was conducted in Bit Shimti, a laboratory-like place whose Sumerian name Sbi.im.ti literally meant "Place where the Wind of Life is blown in"—a detail from which the biblical verse about "blowing the Breath of Life" into The Adam's nostrils (Genesis 2:7) was in all probability taken.

  Ninmah was handling the mixing; "reciting the incantations," Ninmah was listening for an Uppu—a heartbeat. When the "Perfect Model" was finally attained, Ninmah lifted him and shouted, "I have created! My hands have made it!" (Fig. 66).

  Announcing the feat to the great gods, here is what she said:

  You commanded me a task;

  I have completed it. . .

  I have removed your heavy work.

  I have imposed your toil on Awilum ('Work-man').

  You raised a cry for Awiluti ('Mankind')—

  I took off your yoke, I established your freedom!

  "When the gods heard this speech of hers, they ran together and kissed her feet." They called her Mami (= 'The Mother'), and renamed her Nin.ti (= 'Lady of Life'). The solution suggested by Ea was achieved.

  Figure 66

  The genes we got were those of a male Anunnaki (lately discovered Atra-Hasis tablets reveal that he was the leader of the mutiny); but with all due respect to a male God or god, it was a female goddess who had actually created us.

  * * *

  It required additional genetic engineering—even some surgery under anesthesia (reported both in a Sumerian text and in the Bible)—to fashion a female count
erpart; but like hybrids to this day (such as a mule, the 'mixed' product of a horse and a donkey), they could not procreate. To make 'copies' of the Perfect Model of the Lulu Amelu, difficult and time-consuming reproduction by young "birth goddesses" was required. The next step of genetic engineering—enabling the Lulus to procreate on their own—was undertaken by Enki, the 'Serpent' in the biblical Garden of Eden version.

  As the biblical tale has it, The Adam who was placed in the orchard of the gods to till it and to tend it, was warned by God (the Hebrew term is actually Yahweh Elohim) not to eat of the Tree of Knowing, "for on the day you eat thereof surely you shall die." Put into deep sleep, the Adam is operated upon, and a counterpart female is fashioned from his rib. The Adam and "the woman" (she is not yet named!) go about naked "and are not ashamed."

  The wiley Serpent now approaches the woman regarding the prohibited tree, and she confirms that that is what Elohim had said. But "the"Serpent said to the woman: No, you will not die!" So the woman, seeing that the Tree's fruit was edible, "took of its fruit, and ate, and also gave to her mate, and he ate." And right away they became aware of their sexuality; realizing that they were naked, they made themselves aprons out of fig leaves.

  It was those aprons that gave them away; for the next time Yahweh Elohim saw them, he noticed that they were no longer naked; questioning The Adam about it, he found out what had happened. Angered, "What have you done!" God shouted at the woman—because of that, "in pain and suffering you will bear children." Alarmed, God said to unnamed colleagues: "Behold, The Adam has become as one of us to know good and evil; what if he put forth his hand and took also of the Tree of Life, and ate, and lived forever?" And God expelled The Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

  The tale, without doubt, explains how Adam and Eve were enabled to procreate—a development blamed, in the Bible on the 'Serpent,' the Hebrew word for which, Nachash, could also mean "He who solves puzzles." Not surprisingly, the Sumerian parallel for these varied meanings also comes from a single term—Buzur—which was an epithet of Enki meaning "He who solves secrets." The hieroglyph for Ptah, his Egyptian name, was an Entwined Serpent. In the Mesopotamian texts, Enki was assisted in this secret knowledge by his son Nin.gish.zidda (= 'Princely Lord of the Tree of Life') whose emblem—Entwined Serpents—has remained the symbol of medicine to this day. Without doubt, these name meanings and Entwined-Serpent emblems are echoed in the biblical tale of the Serpent and the two special Trees in the Garden of Eden. And now that modern science has discovered the structure of DNA strands, it is possible to realize that Ningishzidda's emblem of two entwined serpents is in fact a rendering of the two-stranded, entwined double-helix DNA. We demonstrate their similarities in Fig. 67.

  "Out of the god's blood they fashioned Mankind," the texts reiterate; "they imposed on it the tasks, to let free the gods; it was a work beyond

  Figure 67

  comprehension." Indeed it was; and it happened some 300,000 years ago—just when Homo sapiens suddenly apeared in southeast Africa. It was then that the Anunnaki 'jumped the gun' on Evolution and, using genetic engineering, upgraded a hominid—say Homo erectus—to an intelligent, tool-handling Homo sapiens (= 'Wise Man') to be their serf. It happened in the area "above the Abzu"—exactly where fossil remains indicate: In the Great Rift Valley zone of southeast Africa, just north of the gold-mining land.

  * * *

  We know from the continuing Atra-Hasis text and from other detailed texts that no time was lost in putting the Primitive Workers to work in the mines, and that Anunnaki from the settlements in the Edin raided the mines and forcefully brought some of those workers to serve them in the Edin, where "with picks and spades they built the shrines, they built the canal banks, they grew food for the people and for the sustenance of the gods."

  The Bible, though more briefly, reports the same: "And Yahweh Elohim took The Adam"—from where he had been created—"and placed him in the garden of Eden, to till it and to tend it." (The Bible specifically precedes here 'Adam'—'He of Earth', an Earthling—with the definitive article 'The', making clear it is a species that is written « about, as distinct from a person named 'Adam', husband of Eve, whose tale starts only in chapter 4 of Genesis.)

  "To till it and to tend it," to be an Amelu, a workman. The Bible has similarly stated: 'Adam le amalyulad"—'Adam to toil was created'. And the Hebrew term Avod, translated 'worship', in truth means 'To work'.

  Man was fashioned by the gods to be their serf.

  * * *

  Time passed; "the [settled] land extended and the people multiplied." Thus does the Atra-Hasis epic start the next phase of the events that followed the Mutiny and the Creation of The Adam, and that finally led to the Deluge.

  The people, in fact, multiplied so much (the text reports) that "the land was bellowing like a bull." Enlil was not happy: "the god was disturbed by their commotion." He made his displeasure known: "Enlil heard their bellowing and said to the great gods: 'The bellowing of Mankind has become too intense for me; by their commotion, I am deprived of sleep." Of the damaged lines that follow, only Enlil's words "let there be a plague" are legible; but we know from the parallel biblical narrative that "Yahweh repented that He had made The Adam on Earth . . . and said: I will wipe The Adam that I have created off the face of the Earth" (Genesis 6:6-7).

  The tale of the Deluge and its hero (Noah/Utnapishtim/Ziusudra) is told in both sources along similar lines, except that unlike the monotheistic Bible where the same God first decides to destroy Mankind and then saves it through Noah, the Mesopotamian version clearly identifies Enlil as the angry deity—while it is Enki, defying Enlil, who saves the "Seed of Mankind." On the other hand, the biblical narrative (which compresses all the deities into a sole God) provides a more profound reason than 'bellowing' or 'commotion' for the dissatisfaction with Mankind. In the words of chapter 6 of Genesis, it came to pass that

  When The Adam began to multiply

  on the face of the Earth

  and daughters were born unto them,

  that the sons of the Elohim

  saw the daughters of men

  that they were suitable,

  and they took them as wives

  of all which they chose.

  Yahweh, Genesis tells us, was angered by what was going on: "Yahweh saw that the Wickedness of Man was great upon the Earth ... and Yahweh repented that He had made The Adam on Earth, and it grieved His heart; and He said: I will wipe The Adam that I have created off the face of the Earth." The instrument of destruction was the coming Deluge.

  This, then, was the "Wickedness" that troubled Enlil: The intermarriage between the sons of the gods and female Earthlings—an intermarriage not between different races of the same species, but between two different planetary species—a practice that Enlil, a by-the-book disciplinarian, considered an absolute taboo. He was angered by the fact that it was none other than Enki who was first to break the taboo by having sex with female Earthlings; and he was especially infuriated by the fact that Enki's son Marduk went ahead and actually took as a wife one such Earthling—setting (in Enlil's opinion) a perverted example to the rank and file Anunnaki.

  There was more to it: The forbidden liaisons produced children. We continue to read in Genesis 6:

  The Nefilim were upon the Earth

  in those days and also after that,

  When the sons of the Elohim

  came unto the daughters of The Adam,

  and they bore children to them.

  No wonder that the Great Disciplinarian said: "I will wipe The Adam that I had created off the face of the Earth."

  * * *

  Setting aside the morals or rules that should govern interplanetary visi- * tations, the basic problem raised by these Mesopotamian/biblical tales of our origins is this: How could the intermarried Anunnaki males and Earthling females have children—a result from mating that requires astounding genomic comparability, especially in the X (female) and Y (male) chromosomes? Indeed, taking the puzzle
to its beginnings— how could the wild hominid of the Abzu have the same DNA that the Anunnaki had, similar enough so that just a little genetic mixing produced a Being that, according to the Sumerians and the Bible, was akin to the 'gods' both inwardly and outwardly except for their longevity?

  The puzzle deepens by the fact that not only human, not only mammalian, not only all animal—but all life on Earth, from birds to fishes, flora to algae, and down to bacteria and viruses—all have the very same

  DNA, the four nucleic acid 'letters' from which all genes and genomes are made up. That means that the DNA of the Anunnaki matched the DNA of all life on Earth. And if—as should be assumed—the DNA of the Anunnaki was the same as the DNA of all life on Nibiru, then we must conclude that the DNA on Planet Earth and the DNA on Planet Nibiru were the same.

  How could that be, if according to the dominant modern scientific theory the Earth's seas served as a mixing bowl in which basic chemical molecules, bumping into each other and heated by geysers, somehow combined into living cells. The nucleic acids that combined to form DNA—modern scientists explain—had come about as a result of random bumping of chemical molecules in some random primordial watery 'soup' until the first living random cell happened. But if so, then the random result here had to be different from the random result elsewhere, for no two planets or even moons in our own one solar system are identical, and the odds that the random outcome would nevertheless be identical are virtually nil. So how did Life on Earth begin if it is so similar to Nibiru's?