The King Who Refused to Die

by Zecharia Sitchin

  “Anu hath spoken!” shouted other priests, who also fell to their knees, and the Elders, repeating the shouts, did likewise.

  The seated gods looked at each other in puzzlement. Ishtar, hiding her own bafflement, began to come down the stairway. Hurriedly priests rose and rushed behind her, dragging the litter on which she ought to have been carried back to her abode. The other gods too, ignoring their litter carriers, also began to rush down. And, seeing the gods depart and the priests rushing after them in confusion, the Elders took off down the stairway too, muttering to each other their astonishment at the odd behavior of the High Priest and wondering what the meaning was of the enigmatic oracle and the celestial disruption of the proceedings.

  And so it was that soon there was no one atop the platform save for Gilgamesh and the royal group. Suddenly a loud voice rang out, “Gilgamesh! Gilgamesh!”

  There was general confusion at this, but then all saw the lonely figure upon the podium: a man as broad-shouldered as Gilgamesh and almost as tall. His crimson robe shimmered like red blood in the torches’ flickering lights. It was Enkullab, the High Priest.

  Gilgamesh stepped forward toward the podium. “You have found your tongue, my brother?”

  Upon the podium, Enkullab raised his staff.

  “Hear me, Gilgamesh, king sworn to righteousness!” the High Priest’s voice rang out for all upon the platform and in the courtyards below to hear. “Once there were two men in the land, one a shepherd of many flocks and one who had but a little ewe lamb, and when the powerful shepherd desired a meal of roast meat, he took the poor man’s lamb to satisfy himself. . . . What, oh king sworn to uphold the laws of Enlil, is the judgment of that man?”

  “A punishment most severe, for great was the evil done,” Gilgamesh answered. “Who is the man?”

  “Thou art the man,” the High Priest’s voice boomed across the Sacred Precinct. “Thou art a shepherd of people, not of sheep, and the precious possession is not the man’s lamb but his bride. Thou art a sinner, Gilgamesh, and thy punishment shall be most severe!”

  “I am the king!” Gilgamesh shouted back. “I am two-thirds divine! My coming unto the maidens is an honor, not a sin!”

  “Anu hath held back a fate determining for thee, Gilgamesh,” Enkullab said calmly. “Thy fate is still in the scales, thy kingship is still in the balance, numbered are thy days!”

  Gilgamesh stepped forward and stood before his half-brother, looking straight into his eyes. “The Water of Life was sprinkled over me!” he shouted, and now his voice roared too. “The cone of fecundity was touched to my scepter and mace! At the Tree of Life I was blessed. I am the king and shall be king, Enkullab!”

  “The tree of Anu, Gilgamesh, is the tree of knowing truth,” Enkullab said, raising the staff in his hand. “The divine words cannot be twisted. The omen shall come true!”

  And, having thus spoken he turned and went down the stairway.

  Niglugal came and stood beside the silent Gilgamesh. “He is after your kingship, my lord,” he said, “invoking alleged transgressions as his ploy.”

  Gilgamesh put his hand on Niglugal’s shoulder. “Oh my faithful chamberlain,” he said, sadness in his voice. “Oracles, omens . . . the words of Heaven or the words of man? What does it all mean, Niglugal? What am I to do?”

  5

  It had not been the intention of Gilgamesh to roam the streets of Erech that night. But the events of the preceding night and day had upset and confounded the king greatly, and sleep evaded him completely. Enkidu, his comrade, was nowhere on the palace grounds to be spoken to and to hear soothing words from. Thus, Gilgamesh’s thoughts turned to his mother, the goddess Ninsun. It was she who had advised him to press with Ishtar the issue of his mortality, and now that all his hopes seemed to crumble, his mother was the only one who was his link with the gods’ longevity, the only one who could interpret the divine omens.

  As one who had been residing in Erech, she could leave the Sacred Precinct after nightfall, without awaiting daylight as the other, nonresident gods, were bound to do. Had she stayed in the Sacred Precinct, or had she used her privilege to go to her favorite place in town? Gilgamesh did not know.

  Attired in a simple robe and armed with only a dagger in his girdle, he left his chambers in the middle of the night and stepped briskly toward the palace gates. The guards, not expecting the king to take his leave this night, needed longer than usual to unlock and open the gates. Gilgamesh noticed their puzzlement.

  “There was that thunder and lightning, with hardly a cloud in the skies,” he told them. “I couldn’t sleep, wondering whether the rains will come early this year. . . . What say the skies?”

  “Everyone asks the same question, Your Majesty,” one of the guards replied. “We all hope it was an omen of plentiful rains, but the skies have been cloudless.”

  “But it has been a night of falling stars,” another guard said as he helped heave open the gate.

  “How’s that?” Gilgamesh asked.

  “Indeed so,” the other guard said. “We’ve seen one falling star cross the skies, then another. It is a night full of omens, Lord Gilgamesh.”

  They looked up at the skies, and Gilgamesh did too. The skies were cloudless and the moon, almost full, was shining brightly.

  “There!” a guard shouted suddenly. “There’s another one!”

  He pointed to a spot in the skies, and Gilgamesh and the other guards looked up in that direction. Indeed, against the background of a skyful of shimmering stars, one seemed to be moving—making a grand arc along the Celestial Circle. From moment to moment it loomed larger and larger, displaying a reddish tail as it came closer. Instinctively the guards shielded their eyes. Only Gilgamesh stood immobilized, watching the bright reddish star falling toward the Earth.

  “It’s falling on the palace!” one of the guards shouted, and they all fell to the ground.

  For a moment Gilgamesh thought that it was coming directly at him, and he raised his hand defensively to shield his face. A moment later, however, the shooting star seemed to be falling toward the Sacred Precinct. And then it disappeared from view beyond the palace walls, somewhat to the north.

  “It’s an omen, a sign from the Heavens—for me!” Gilgamesh cried out, and before the guards could even get up and ask the king whether he wished to be accompanied, Gilgamesh rushed out of the gate.

  Half running, half walking fast, he set his course toward the direction in which the falling star had disappeared from view. The street leading down from the palace was empty and no sound came from the houses that stood on the side opposite the palace—a quarter of the city inhabited by court officials, scribes, judges, and others of the city’s nobility and high lay hierarchy. He reached the intersection of Palace Street and Merchants Street, the latter leading south to the port area and the marketplaces, but Gilgamesh took it north, toward the Garrison Quarter. There one had to cross a short bridge over a creek that dried up in summer but filled up with water in winter, when the sluices connecting it with the canal were opened.

  As he neared the bridge he could hear voices, excited voices, and as he approached the creek he could see people rushing toward the bridge. They too, he realized, must have seen the falling star.

  Some had crossed the bridge and some had come from the other side. By the time Gilgamesh had reached the spot where the falling star appeared to land, there was a small crowd on both banks of the creek as well as on the bridge. When the crowds recognized the king, they parted to let him get closer to the creek’s bank.

  “It’s there! It’s there!” they shouted, pointing to a reddish object half-buried in the bank. But all Gilgamesh could make out was the object’s elongated shape, which seemed to turn blacker as the moments passed.

  As the crowd grew larger, some foot soldiers who were patrolling the streets arrived on the scene, and as the pushing, shoving, and jostling for position intensified, the soldiers formed a protective guard around the king lest he be trampled or push
ed down into the creek. The growing commotion soon attracted a platoon of soldiers, headed by a captain from the Garrison Quarter across the bridge. Some noblemen also appeared, awakened and attracted by the crowd’s din.

  Under the king’s instructions, the captain ordered some of the soldiers to climb down the creek’s bank for a close look at the object, which by then had assumed a shiny black color. Even as some obeyed him, they stood away from the thing. The crowd shouted words of advice, how to grab hold of it or how to pull it up, and admonitions not to dare touch the divine handiwork or the fallen star—if that’s what it actually was.

  Finally, disgusted with the chaos, Gilgamesh ordered the soldiers to push the crowd away from the banks of the creek. From the bridge and accompanied by several daring noblemen, he climbed down the creek’s bank toward the fallen object.

  For sure, he had never seen the likes of it before. Made of a shiny material now completely black in color, its portion that protruded from the ground had the appearance of a mushroom—a thick, round, elongated stem capped by a wider, flatter, circular top. The object might have been likened to a heavenly fish, for it also had fins protruding from its observable portion. The object’s stem, cylindrical in shape, was of such girth that one man could not have embraced it with his arms.

  Courageously, one of the noblemen touched the object with his sword, and as nothing happened, banged on it. There was a muffled, hollow sound from inside, but there was no clang as when metal strikes metal. Then another nobleman, encouraged, touched the object with his hand. It felt warm.

  “There’s life in it!” he cried out as he jumped back. But the object remained motionless, soundless.

  Prompted by Gilgamesh, the noblemen tried to grab hold of the object. But try as they would, it proved too slippery to hold on to. They put their shoulders to it to shove it, but it was firmly imbedded in the soil and would not budge. Giving up, the noblemen stood gathered about the object, touching its smoothness, admiring the shiny surface. Amazed by the object’s shape and awed by its celestial origin, they began to debate its meaning and purpose.

  “It’s the handiwork of Anu,” concluded one of them, and they all readily agreed, for the object had indeed come from the Heavens, the abode of Anu. With that realized, the noblemen fell to their knees and, bowing to the ground, began to kiss the celestial object. Some murmured prayers, and as the reverence grew in fervor, one after the other, the noblemen began to distance themselves from the sacred object.

  It was then that a group of priests reached the site, having come from the Sacred Precinct. The crowd parted for them, their shouts briefing the priests as to what had happened and where the object lay.

  “It is an omen from the Heavens,” said the leading priest as he looked down from the creek’s bank. “An omen sent by Anu as the New Year festival is about to end.”

  The crowd began to shout amens. “It is an omen the likes of which has never been seen before,” the priest continued. “It is truly the handiwork of Anu, for the great gods alone to touch and accept. . . . Woe unto the man who violates this sanctity. . . . Within the year, surely he will die!”

  With fear thus instilled in their hearts, the people distanced themselves, pushing and shoving as they moved back. The noblemen too quickly climbed up and away, wishing they had never touched the object. Only the priests remained standing at the creek’s bank, and Gilgamesh, alone, stood down by the celestial omen.

  “Great king,” said the leading priest, “get thee back from the handiwork of Anu! It is an omen for the gods, not for mortal man!”

  “I am no mere mortal,” Gilgamesh retorted. “Two-thirds of me are divine! This is the omen spoken of in the Oracle of Destinies. It is an omen for me!”

  Without waiting for the priest to respond, Gilgamesh again neared the fallen object. First he felt it cautiously with his hands. It was almost cool by now, its life, if indeed it had one, gone. He put his ear to its smooth surface and listened; he could hear a peculiar hum. Using his dagger he began to strike the object gently; there did not appear to be any effect. He hit it harder, and there was a muted thud, like the sound of a belly struck after much drinking of beer. He walked around the object, striking it with his dagger here and there, hoping it would recoil if life it had. Then, suddenly, as he hit one spot, there was a hissing sound.

  “It’s a serpent, a heavenly serpent!” Gilgamesh cried out and stepped back. Then, to his utter amazement, he saw that while the imbedded object remained stationary, the upper part began to rotate, rising slowly as it rotated. Then it stopped, as did the hissing sound.

  For a few moments Gilgamesh stood still, watching the mute object. Then, his courage regained, he stepped to it and grabbed its upper raised part. He had only intended to examine it, but his pulling caused the upper section to come off the embedded stem.

  Not expecting this to happen, Gilgamesh let the section go, and it fell to the ground with a dull thud. An opening in the section that was still stuck in the ground could now be seen, and Gilgamesh cautiously went down to take a look. Though the round opening was wide—wide enough for a man to pass through—it was too dark inside for him to see any of the inner details. But he could hear a whirring sound, and after pushing his head in and probing with his hands, he established that the sound’s source was a protrusion shaped like a ball, about an arm’s length inside the object. He put both his hands in to grab hold of the ball and pull it up.

  At first nothing happened as he pulled, tilted, and tried to budge the protrusion. Then there was a sudden flash of light; his hands felt scorched as though he had thrust them into a fire, and his whole body jerked. But whatever he was holding on to now came loose, and Gilgamesh saw that he could lift off a kind of a cover that shielded something behind it. He put the cover on the ground and looked in again. The whirring sound was stronger, and its source was an object that emitted a dull, golden radiance. Like the whole contraption, this object was unlike anything that Gilgamesh had ever seen before, nor even heard described in the olden tales. But he was convinced that it was an omen from Anu directed to him, and the thought gave him courage to continue risking the unknown.

  “What have you come up with, Lord Gilgamesh?” asked the leading priest, anxious to know what was happening down in the creek. He repeated the question, shouting it in case Gilgamesh had not heard him the first time.

  “It’s a puzzle, truly it is,” Gilgamesh answered.

  He put both his hands in and, uttering a prayer to Anu, grabbed the whirling, radiant thing. To his great surprise, it could be easily lifted. Though it felt metallic, it seemed to have little weight. But the minute he had lifted it, its radiance vanished and the whirring sound stopped. He took it out, and in the moon’s light could see that he was holding a smooth disc, flat on top but slightly convex on the bottom. Quickly he put the disc into the inside pocket of his robe.

  No sooner had he done so than there were footsteps behind him. He turned and saw the priests. Overcome by curiosity, they had finally gathered the courage to come down and take a closer look.

  “Wonder of wonders it is,” Gilgamesh exclaimed, “truly the handiwork of Anu!”

  The priests looked at the uncovered stem and saw the parts lying on the ground.

  “It’s an opening within an opening,” Gilgamesh said, “but it’s empty inside. I have probed with my hands, and there’s nothing there.”

  He held out his hands, palms up, for the priests to see that he held nothing. His right hand jerked involuntarily.

  “It is an omen, an omen from Anu,” said the leading priest.

  “If there is one, I don’t see it,” Gilgamesh answered. “Perhaps it’s a secret for a priest to unlock. . . . Go ahead, look for it.”

  He motioned to the priest to get closer, as he himself stepped back. The leading priest took up the challenge, and in a moment the object was surrounded by the group of priests. Gilgamesh, ignored by the priests, climbed up the creek’s bank.

  The crowd, no longer held
back by the soldiers and eager to see what the priests would discover, pushed forward on the bridge and along the banks. With everyone thus preoccupied with what was going on below, Gilgamesh moved back, ignored by the crowd. And then, unobserved, he quickened his steps and was gone from the scene.

  Following the curving street, he quickly distanced himself from the palace area and its adjacent affluent quarter. Winding his way through narrow streets and alleys, stopping to hide in the shadows whenever he heard nearing footsteps, he made his way to the Craftsmen’s Quarter, the area where the city’s many craftsmen and artisans lived, worked, and sold their wares. As a goddess, Ninsun had her own chapel and living quarters in the great Irigal temple within the Sacred Precinct.

  But after the death of her latest husband, the High Priest who was the father of Gilgamesh, she began to spend more and more of her time—including the nights—at her favorite place of work: the House of Resuscitation in the Craftsmen’s Quarter. As one of the Healers, she devoted herself after the Deluge to helping ward off the diseases that had spread among the Earthlings, caused by the Deluge’s polluted waters and the ensuing proliferation of insects and reptiles. It was to the House of Resuscitation that Gilgamesh now hurried. When he reached it, he avoided the main gate. Instead he turned the corner into a side street. Reaching a certain spot along the wall, he looked for a particular brick and moved it. Magically, a part of the wall swung open to reveal a low opening.

  It was a secret entrance by which Ninsun could come and go without being mobbed by the multitudes that always filled the courtyard, day and night. Gilgamesh bent over and went in and moved the brick again as he passed. In a moment the wall closed up, bricks and all, and there was no trace of the opening.

  The compound’s wall enclosed a rectangular area, most of which was taken up by a large courtyard where those who had come for healing encamped, waiting for their turn to be treated. A large house divided into several rooms served as the hospital and clinic. Several smaller buildings served as storage houses for cereals and water and beer, and one for the handling of the dead. There were two small houses in which the workers of the House of Resuscitation lived. And then there was the more solidly built, neatly whitewashed house that was the private residence of Ninsun, and the place where she kept the magical instruments with which she diagnosed and cured.