The King Who Refused to Die

by Zecharia Sitchin

  A maidservant was sleeping on a mat at the doorway and there was no way of going in except to awaken her. Keeping his hand on her mouth lest she cry out, Gilgamesh nudged her awake. When her fright was over, she recognized him.

  “Is the goddess, my mother, here?” he whispered.

  She nodded.

  “Awaken her,” he said. “It is a very urgent matter!” he added when he saw that the maidservant hesitated.

  The woman let him in, and went ahead to awaken the goddess.

  It was a few minutes until Ninsun appeared at the doorway of her inner chamber. As Gilgamesh saw her in the moon’s light that shone in through apertures in the ceiling, he rushed forward, knelt, and kissed his mother’s hand. It was a hand from which the sixth finger had been surgically removed soon after birth.

  “Beloved son,” Ninsun said, “what matter brings you here at this hour of the night?”

  “It is a matter of life or death,” Gilgamesh answered.

  Ninsun pulled his hand to signal that he could get up. She waved to the maidservant to leave the room. Then she led Gilgamesh to a divan, while she sat down on her favorite armchair, facing him.

  Gilgamesh looked at his mother. “Oh my mother,” he said, “how beautiful and young you look! Like a young sister of mine, not like my mother!”

  Ninsun held out her hand and touched her son’s cheek.

  “My looks are deceiving, my son,” she said. “I look young only to Earthlings. Having been myself born on Earth, I have aged faster than those who on Nibiru were born. To transfer to Nibiru has been recommended treatment. . . . But I will not leave Earth before Ishtar uses her powers to grant you everlasting youth. Have you spoken to her of that?”

  “I did, all through the night of nuptials. But she ignored my pleas.”

  “Is that the matter of life or death that brings you here tonight?”

  “No, a far greater matter.”

  “Enkullab’s omen words?”

  “He has threatened the death of a sinner upon me . . .”

  “Indeed,” Ninsun answered. “His evil words were heard by all. He must have spoken them from the podium, where the divine words are made to be louder. Pay no attention to his words, Gilgamesh. Divine Ishtar has given her interpretation, and that is all that matters until the next New Year festival.”

  “It’s not that, my mother,” Gilgamesh said. “It’s on account of the omen Anu has sent me!”

  Ninsun looked puzzled. “Anu has sent you an omen?”

  “Here,” Gilgamesh said as he took out of his robe’s pocket the disc he had pulled from the celestial object. He put it at his mother’s feet, his right hand jerking as he did so.

  She looked at his jerking hand, then at the disc. “Great Anunnaki!” she exclaimed. “How did you come by this sacred tablet?”

  “My mother,” Gilgamesh said, “during the night, having become restless, I wandered out of the palace. In the night, omens appeared in the Heavens. A star grew larger and larger in the sky. The handiwork of Anu descended toward me!”

  Describing how he had rushed to where the object fell, the crowd, the commotion, and how he climbed down the creek’s bank to where the celestial object had imbedded itself, Gilgamesh told his mother how he tried to pry it loose.

  “I sought to lift it, but it was too heavy for me. I sought to shake it, but I could neither move nor raise it . . .”

  Then he told his mother of the miraculous way in which the mushroomlike top had come off, how he probed inside until there was a flash, like a destroying fire. “I moved my hands into the depths . . . its movable hurler I then lifted and brought to you.” His hand jerked again as he finished his story.

  “Oh my son,” Ninsun said, “your hand has touched a divine fire! Were you not two-thirds divine, your soul would have been as vapor by now.”

  She put down the disc and examined his hand. There was no scar or any other outward sign of accident. “There is nothing I can do,” she told him. “The injury should heal itself.” She bent forward and kissed him on the forehead.

  “My mother,” Gilgamesh said, “it is not my aching hand that is the matter. It is the omen of Anu that is the matter of life or death!”

  “How is that?” she asked.

  “Is the omen from the Heavens not the fulfillment of the sacred oracle?” Gilgamesh asked, his voice quivering with excitement. “Were not those the words, ‘My words are inscribed, my message is aloft, the gates shall be open, who comes shall have life’?”

  “Yes, those were the words transmitted by the High Priest.”

  “Don’t you see, then? The oracle has come true! The inscribed message of Anu—‘The gates of Heaven are open, who comes shall have Life’—I have been invited, my mother, like a god I have been invited to Nibiru, to have Everlife!”

  Ninsun, versed in much knowledge, listened attentively to her son’s agitated words. She was silent with thought for a while.

  “What you have brought and put at my feet is indeed a Tablet of Destinies,” she finally said, “a disc that bears secret knowledge, voiceless commands, perhaps even drawings concerning the ways of the Heavens. But all that, Gilgamesh, is for the gods alone, for those who are Anunnaki. Mortal man, my son, to the Earth is shackled.”

  “I am two-thirds divine!” Gilgamesh cried out. “And some like me, only partly mortal, to the Heavens were taken. Adapa whom Enki fathered, and Emneduranki the first priest, and Etana the king of yore . . . And now, it is my turn!”

  His hand jerked. She touched it to soothe the unseen pain. “They were born to mortal mothers, but were all fathered by gods,” she told him. “Your father was a mortal man . . .” She paused, but continued to stroke the hand of Gilgamesh. “Yet, let us see what message is upon the tablet.”

  “The disc is smooth, there’s no writing upon it,” Gilgamesh said. “It is, by itself, the omen.”

  “The Writing of Heaven cannot be seen as a scribe’s writing upon a clay tablet,” Ninsun told him. “Come with me and I will show you.”

  She led Gilgamesh to her inner chambers. As they entered the last one she noticed the dagger in his belt.

  “Remove it and leave it behind, for it is metal,” she said.

  As they crossed the threshold the darkened room came aglow with a bluish illumination, its source unseen. There was a stone altar in the center of the room, its top carved out. Ninsun placed the disc with the convex bottom in the curved cavity, causing a whirring sound to begin. Quickly the disc began to radiate a golden glow, such as that Gilgamesh had seen when he first discovered it.

  “Look at the heavenly tablet,” she told him.

  Gilgamesh came nearer and looked at the disc. “The tablet is glowing,” he said, “and I can see odd markings.”

  Ninsun touched a spot on the altar and a thin white stone that had the look of alabaster but was as thin as a blade of grass appeared from a side of it and moved slowly to cover the altar’s top. The design on the disc now appeared, much larger and clearer, on the white surface.

  “The symbols are strange. I’ve never seen the likes of them before,” Gilgamesh said. “Is this the Writing of Heaven?”

  Ninsun studied the symbols. “Yes, it is the writing of Nibiru,” she said, “and the tablet is indeed a Tablet of Destinies.”

  She picked up a short ivory stick that lay beside the altar and used it as a pointer.

  “I shall explain to you the hidden message,” she told him. “The tablet has eight segments. It contains all the instructions for journeying from Nibiru to Earth and back. Its first segment depicts the farthest Heavens, the route from Nibiru to Earth; it is called ‘the Journey of Enlil by the Seven Planets.’ The spacecraft, the tablet instructs, is to arrive in the northern skies of Earth, the part called the Way of Enlil. Its demarcation line is the line encircling the Earth where the three artificial mountains are raised.” She pointed out the three pyramids as she spoke. “There are technical instructions for the pilots in each segment, guiding them to the landin
g at the spaceport with its three runways. This is the Place of the Rocketships, from where they are launched skyward to reach the orbiting platforms manned by the Igigi, the first leg of the journey to Nibiru.”

  “Just technical instructions?” Gilgamesh asked. “No message, no divine words?”

  “The last segment, dealing with the liftoff, does have a command in it. . . . It says, ‘Return!’”

  “I knew it, I knew it!” Gilgamesh cried out and hugged his mother. “It is indeed my omen, the call from Anu!”

  She kissed him on the forehead. “One must be careful in divine matters,” she said. “The tablet and its meaning must be carefully considered.”

  “I cannot wait!” Gilgamesh protested. “Ishtar has turned against me. The omen now comes from Anu, the Lord of Lords. To the Place of the Rocketships I must go, at once!”

  His hand jerked again, and Ninsun put her hand on it to soothe it.

  “My beloved son,” she said, “it is indeed a call from Anu, but alas, not for you.”

  He shuddered. “Not for me? For whom, then?”

  “It is for the Lady Ishtar. This is clearly stated, here.” She pointed the ivory stick to a place on the tablet. “It is Ishtar whom Anu has called for.”

  “Great lords!” Gilgamesh cried out. “I have taken away a sacred tablet that was meant for the goddess!” He fell to his knees. “Oh my mother, what shall I do? This night I’ve taken the omen away, the night before I left Ishtar’s bed before sunrise. . . . Instead of life I have found death!”

  “You left Ishtar’s bed on the night of the Sacred Marriage? Have you lost your mind?!”

  “She ignored all my pleas. She herself was mad that night, deeming me to be her past lovers. . . . I wanted to run away . . . but I came back to her side before she had awakened.”

  “Did anyone see you leave?”

  “The guard-priests at the side gate . . .”

  She pulled his head toward her lap and stroked his curly hair.

  “My son,” she said softly, “word of your violation will reach Ishtar for sure, and that the tablet is missing from the heavenly missile will also be discovered. It is indeed a matter of life or death.”

  “What shall I do, wise mother?”

  She thought for a moment. “You must leave Erech, escape Ishtar’s dominion and her wrath,” she said. “Seek the protection of Nannar in Ur, or go to Shuruppak where my mother is mistress.”

  “And end my days in exile, a corpse to be buried by the wall?” Gilgamesh said angrily as he stood up. “I am your son, divine mother, and offspring of the great Lord Shamash! If I cannot scale the Heavens, let me die by my own dagger, seated on my kingly throne!”

  “Only the hasty defy fate with their own hand,” Ninsun said.

  “Then let me go to the Place of the Rocketships, and face my fate on the hallowed ground!”

  Ninsun contemplated her son. “That place, Gilgamesh, is distant, in the faraway prohibited region of the Anunnaki. No man can go there. . . . But there is another place, the Landing Place. It is in the Cedar Mountains. If Utu shall take you there, its Anunnaki could transport you.”

  “I know not of that place, nor do I know the way to Sippar, to my godfather, Shamash,” Gilgamesh told her.

  “Here, let me show you,” she said. She touched a spot in the altar, and its stone front vanished into the floor. There were shelves inside, and upon them were stored many discs. “These are the Me tablets that hold all knowledge. The Lord Enki, lord of wisdom, caused them to be made.”

  She took the Tablet of Destinies off the altar and put it inside on one of the shelves, replacing it with one of the other discs. She touched a spot and the altar was restored to its previous position, without a hint that it was hollow. Then she made the white sheet appear again.

  “Take a look,” she told her son.

  It was the drawing of a map.

  “This is the Land Between the Rivers,” she said, “and the West Land beyond, that ends where the Upper Sea begins. These are the two great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, that begin in the mountain-lands of Lord Adad and flow into the Lower Sea. Sippar is here, where the two rivers come closest to each other, almost touching.” She pointed out the location with the ivory stick. “That is where the Edin begins, the godly place of abundance, all the way to the Lower Sea.”

  “And where is Erech? Where are we?”

  “Here,” she said, pointing with the ivory stick, “just off the Euphrates River. To the south lies Larsa and Ur, and beyond them Eridu, which has been the Lord Enki’s abode from the time he first landed on Earth. To the north there is a long river stretch without cities, for the desert encroaches upon the river. But then there lie Borsippa and Babylon and Kish, and then Sippar.”

  “Borsippa is beholden to Lord Nabu, Babylon to his father Lord Marduk,” Gilgamesh said, “and Kish has fought Erech since kingship was transferred to my forefather. . . . It is a risky way. And what about the Landing Place? Where is it?”

  “In the West Land. The merchants’ caravans follow the Euphrates to almost where it begins its flow, then cross a desolate stretch until they reach a river that flows from two chains of mountains that face each other. The tallest cedars grow there, forming the Cedar Forest. Within it is the Landing Place, a place from before the Deluge.”

  “The mountains stretch for myriad leagues,” Gilgamesh said, studying the map. “Where exactly is the place?”

  “The place is a hidden place,” she said, “known to none but to the Anunnaki that are Eagles. But Utu, or Shamash as he is also known, is their commander. If you could reach Sippar and spread your plea before him . . .” She stopped in mid-sentence.

  “What is it, my mother?”

  “Ishtar,’’ Ninsun said. “She is his beloved twin sister. In her wrath she could put a curse upon you, barring any help from Utu!”

  Gilgamesh knelt down, taking his mother’s hand. “The wrath of the Mistress of Erech I’ve already aroused,” he said. “Shall I meekly await my fate, or boldly take the risky course in search of my destiny? If I am to die, let it be remembered that I died reaching for the stars!”

  She stroked his curly hair, then kissed him on the forehead.

  “Go,” she said, “and I shall beseech the great Anunnaki for your safety.”

  She took off her neck a cord from which hung a green-black object shaped like a midwife’s cutter for severing the umbilical cord. She put it around the neck of Gilgamesh.

  “It is a stone that whispers,” she said. “Turn it upside down and rub it, and your words will be carried to me. . . . But use it sparingly, my son, only when in real danger.”

  He kissed her hand and stood up.

  “Let me take the Tablet of Destinies with me as a talisman, as proof that it is my omen.”

  “No,” Ninsun said, “whoever can read its writing shall know you have stolen it away from Ishtar. Let me keep it here, well hidden, until you safely return.”

  “So be it,” Gilgamesh said. He bowed toward his mother, then turned to leave, but stopped and turned back.

  “By what way shall I go to Sippar, my mother?” he asked. “I’ve never undertaken such a long and distant journey.”

  “Take Enkidu along,” Ninsun said. “He shall be your guide.”

  “Enkidu?”

  “Indeed so. The Lord Enki, his creator, has endowed him not only with immense powers but also with knowledge of many mysteries. Let him be your companion and protector and the one who shows the way.”

  “I shall find Enkidu and take him along,” Gilgamesh said. He stepped forward and hugged his mother. “Shall I see you again, my holy mother?” he asked. “Will I sit once more on the throne of Erech?” There were tears in his eyes.

  “Go, my son,” she said softly, “and the great gods will be with you.”

  6

  Leaving through the secret opening in the wall through which he had come, Gilgamesh walked briskly in the direction of the harbor. This was the city’s internat
ional quarter, where caravans from near and far unloaded their merchandise, and boats plying the Euphrates River and the seas beyond docked at the city’s piers. It was the more seamy part of the city, with inns and brothels everywhere, a place peopled day and night with merchants, caravaneers, and sailors.

  Gilgamesh crossed several wider streets and followed many narrower streets and alleys, all hugging the contours of the city’s topography. He walked hurriedly, careful to avoid not only the ruffians who lurked in dark corners but also the foot patrols, lest he be recognized and his whereabouts reported later. Quickening his pace almost to a run, Gilgamesh finally turned into an alley where he had no problem locating the house he was looking for. It was one of the few two-story houses in this section, and its doorposts were painted red. The king, however, did not need these signs to recognize the place, for he had been there before, more than once, on occasions when his forays into town to seek out newlyweds had ended with no bride to initiate.

  Gilgamesh knocked lightly on the door, trying to avoid excessive noise, but getting no response, he knocked louder. Finally a woman’s voice was heard from behind the door.

  “Go away, come in the morrow! All the maidens are fast asleep now.”

  Gilgamesh could hear footsteps nearing the alley, sounding ominous in the night stillness.

  “Open up, woman!” he commanded impatiently, “I seek Enkidu!”

  “Everyone is asleep . . .” the woman behind the door began to say.

  “Open up quickly. Hurry! I am the king!”