The King Who Refused to Die

by Zecharia Sitchin

  His abrupt move did not escape Adadel. He looked at Enkidu and caught his gaze alternating between Gilgamesh and the oncoming guard post.

  “Whereto?” the captain of the guard shouted to the boat.

  “To Mari,” Adadel answered.

  “May the gods be with you,” the captain of the guard shouted, and waved the boat through.

  They passed under the arched opening in the wall, flanked by two watchtowers. Here the canal widened. They were in open country.

  Enkidu came and sat behind Gilgamesh. “We are safely out of the city,” he whispered.

  The sun was up in the eastern skies when they reached the wide, majestic river. There was an autumn breeze and Adadel ordered the sail to be raised on the mast. Soon the boat was sailing smoothly, rapidly upstream, in a northerly direction, propelled by the rhythmic rowing of the crew as well as by the wind.

  Gilgamesh looked back at Enkidu. “Ishtar’s wrath is behind me,” he whispered. “I’m on my way to find Everlife!”

  “Our journey has just begun, our perils are just starting,” Enkidu whispered back.

  From the deck above the crew deck, Adadel watched the twosome. “These are not two ordinary sailors,” he murmured to the crewmaster. “We must learn more during the night . . .”

  7

  After Gilgamesh had left her, Ninsun could find no rest. She tried to lie down and catch some sleep, but sleep evaded her. She sat for a while in her armchair, pondering. There was no doubt that once the king’s departure was found out, and the news of the celestial missive reached Ishtar, bedlam would break out. And what would Ishtar do when her wrath was unleashed? What would Enkullab do?

  Ninsun went up, as she did often when her thoughts overtook her, to the flat roof of the house. To the northwest she could see the promontory, flattened and filled to form a vast platform on which the Sacred Precinct stood, the Eanna ziggurat rising above the skyline delineated by the massive wall surrounding the precinct. Shifting her gaze eastward, she could see the smaller promontory on which the king’s palace stood. Aye, she thought, there was a happier time when temple and palace were as one, when the Anunnaki, though loftier, were also less domineering over mankind.

  Way out there, beyond the line of sight to the palace, lay Shuruppak, her mother’s abode. Absentmindedly, out of habit, Ninsun put her hand to her throat, to take and rub the Whispering Stone, to let her mother hear her speak. Only when she touched her naked throat did she recall that she had given the stone to her son. Still, she faced toward Shuruppak and uttered her thoughts. Oh my mother, did I advise Gilgamesh right? Would he indeed leave Erech? When? How? And how should I deal with Ishtar’s wrath?

  She could hear no answers. The moon, which had thrown its silvery beams into her chambers when Gilgamesh was there, was gone in the west. There was a darkness about, one that fills the time between the end of the night and the oncoming of dawn, a bad time for all who have had that watch as their duty. The cool breeze was unpleasant. She went down and called her handmaiden.

  “Awaken the attendants, I wish to wash and dress and leave before sun-up,” she said. “I am returning to the Sacred Precinct.”

  “Yes, great lady,” the handmaiden said. “Shall I alert the charioteers or the litter-bearers?”

  “Neither,” Ninsun said. “I wish to leave unobtrusively. I will ride the he-ass. Now rush to the palace and give word to the chamberlain to come to me.”

  It was almost daybreak when Ninsun left her House of Resuscitation through the secret side gate, with one attendant leading the he-ass by a rope and two quick-stepping behind her. She instructed them to reach the Sacred Precinct through the side gate of the Gipar. “I don’t think Ishtar is spending the night there this time,” she said, sarcasm in her voice.

  The guard-priests, though surprised, recognized her and let her through. She dismissed the attendants and briskly walked toward the Irigal, the Great Temple where the divine residences were. In the great courtyard in front of the temple there was considerable commotion, for the attending priests were preparing the departure of the non-resident gods. Chariots were being brought out and arranged for the procession; he-asses, specially bred for the task, were being harnessed. There was a lot of shouting and braying in the process. In all the commotion, Ninsun, arriving on foot, was hardly noticed. Quickly she entered the Irigal and hurried to her chambers.

  It was soon thereafter that the visiting gods, each wearing his favorite colors and the conical, horned divine headdress, started to leave the temple and alight their assigned chariots. They were all young—third and fourth generations of the Olden Gods who had actually come from Nibiru—and their jovial manner revealed their eagerness to leave the regimented, rite-filled confines of the Sacred Precinct for their rural, small-town abodes where they could freely roam.

  But their banter was abruptly muted when a hue and cry arose in the courtyard, and shouts were repeated, “The great Lady Ishtar is coming!”

  Her arrival thus heralded, Ishtar, Mistress of Erech, drove into the courtyard in her own gold-inlaid chariot. She was standing, holding the reins of two fierce lions harnessed to her chariot. She was dressed in her hunting garb—the skins of two leopards—and was armed with a long bow, a quiver of arrows strapped to her shoulder. Attending priests were quick-stepping in front of the chariot, and others were running behind.

  “The great lady will accompany the departing gods to the city gates, leading the procession!” the lead priest in her entourage announced.

  “I will arrange the chariots accordingly,” the chief of the chariots replied. Then, turning to one of his aides, he murmured, “Pity the townspeople . . . Ishtar is in her hunting mood. . . . She will rush down the promontory, sweep through the streets of Erech, sowing panic in front and leaving havoc behind. . . . Then she’ll ride as a lightning out to the steppe outside the city to hunt gazelles or, with luck, fiercer animals.”

  The chariots were lined up and the departing gods were beginning to move their assigned chariots when there was a disturbance at the precinct’s main gate and there appeared an odd procession. Two priests were leading a bull-drawn wagon with the High Priest behind it and more priests following him. They reached the middle of the courtyard and stopped. A large cylindrical object, black in color, was upon the wagon.

  “What is this all about?” Ishtar demanded to know.

  The High Priest stepped forward. “Great lady, Queen of Heaven, Queen of Earth,” he said, bowing to the ground, “there has been a sign from the Heavens.”

  “Speak to the point!” Ishtar commanded. “What is that object in the wagon?”

  “Great lady, great gods,” Enkullab said, “it is the handiwork of Anu, from Heaven to Earth come. It is a heavenly sign, worthy of your might!”

  He prostrated himself before the goddess. The other priests fell to their knees. Ishtar dismounted her chariot, giving the reins to two trained attendants, and with a wave of her hand gestured them to drive the chariot away. Then she walked over to the wagon to take a look at the strange object. First she circled the wagon to see the object from all sides, then she touched it. The disclike top that was separated from the object’s main stem was also in the wagon. She could see the gaping opening in the cylindrical part, and put her hand in but could not feel anything inside.

  “Tell me all,” she said to Enkullab.

  He stood up and told her what he knew, speaking loudly so that the other gods, and all others gathered in the great courtyard, should also hear. He described how some priests, stationed on the ramparts, had seen falling stars streak the skies. How one of them grew larger in size as it neared Earth. How it was falling toward the Sacred Precinct but missed it and fell to the north. How a group of priests rushed to the site, only to find the king there, probing the object. How they took charge, ordering the king to step back. How, when informed of the miraculous occurrence in the middle of the night, he, the High Priest, ordered that the celestial object be extracted from the canal’s bed and brough
t to the Sacred Precinct in the bull-drawn wagon, to be presented to Ishtar, the Queen of Heaven and of Earth.

  “It is an omen, fulfilling the oracle,” Enkullab concluded. “Great events are coming! Evil shall cease and righteousness shall prevail, by the word of Anu!”

  “The omen is for the gods, not for mortals,” Ishtar said. “If a message it bears, it is for the gods alone to comprehend. Now, tell me, where is the king?” The priests who were at the site admitted that as they had become preoccupied with the object, they had lost sight of the king and knew not his whereabouts.

  “He must have gone back to the palace,” Enkullab suggested.

  “Bring this handiwork of Anu to my temple and summon the king!” Ishtar ordered.

  Unseen by others, Ninsun was observing and overhearing the goings on from a window in the Great Temple, the Irigal. At the words of Ishtar, she brought her hands to her mouth to stifle a cry, for at that moment she could see Niglugal entering the courtyard through the main gate. He evidently did not expect the assemblage that he came upon, for as he realized who was in the great courtyard he stopped short and began to retract his steps. However, he had already been spotted by Enkullab.

  “Ah, the king’s chamberlain is come to join us!” Enkullab said in a raised voice. “The commands of Ishtar must have been heard in the palace.”

  Niglugal fell to his knees and bowed to the ground. “Great lady, divine gods,” he said. “I humbly prostrate myself before you. I am Niglugal, your servant.”

  “What is the king’s business in the Sacred Precinct?” Enkullab asked. Niglugal remained prostrate.

  “Arise and speak!” Ishtar commanded.

  “I have come to speak to the great Lady Ninsun,” he said as he stood up.

  “Has she summoned you? And for what purpose?”

  “It is about the king,” Niglugal began to say. He stopped and looked about him, uneasy. “The king has left the palace in the midst of the night and has not returned.”

  “The priests have seen the king at the site of the fallen handiwork of Anu,” Ishtar said, pointing her whip at the object on the cart.

  Niglugal looked at the direction she was pointing and went down to his knees. “Anu be blessed,” he said. “May we all be blessed by this omen.”

  “It is a sign from Heaven!” Enkullab shouted. “The king’s fate is sealed!”

  “Hold back your words!” Ishtar said angrily. “Let’s hear more from the chamberlain. . . . Now, tell us about the king.”

  “The soldiers who rushed to the site of the falling star had indeed seen the king there,” Niglugal said, “but none has seen him thereafter. Palace guards were about to start a citywide search when I received word from the great Lady Ninsun to come here at once . . .”

  “Did you hear that?” Ishtar shouted toward the assembled gods. “The king has vanished and Ninsun is in the know! The mother is in a conspiracy with the son!”

  “I fear the worst, oh Queen of Heaven,” Niglugal said. “Let my soldiers search the city for the king . . .”

  “The worst is yet to come if your king is not found!” Ishtar retorted. “Go, search the city, search every corner of it and bring Gilgamesh to me by evetime, be he alive or dead!”

  “You are merciful, great lady,” Niglugal said, standing up. Bowing toward the other gods, he stepped back and departed quickly, followed by his guards.

  “The oracle is coming true! A new year to Gilgamesh has not been granted!” the High Priest said as he stepped forward and fell to his knees before Ishtar. “Oh Mistress of Erech, proclaim his reign ended this day!” He waved his hand toward the perplexed gods. “The divine witnesses are all here!”

  Ishtar surveyed the assembled gods. “I do not see Ninsun. Without her the twelve are incomplete . . .”

  “End the sinner’s reign,” Enkullab pleaded. “It is the wish of great Anu!” There were murmurs of consent among the gods, but none spoke up.

  “Now hear this!” Ishtar said, raising her voice so that all—gods and priests alike—could hear her. “We shall wait until evetime. If the king is not found or is dead, with the blessing of the Lord Enlil, the lord of kingship, a new king shall ascend the throne of Erech!”

  “And who shall it be?” Enkullab inquired, humility in his voice.

  “Let the gods who have been with us stay on in their chambers,” Ishtar said to them. “If a new king is to be crowned, my choice I will discuss with you.”

  She turned to Enkullab. “Summon Ninsun to my temple. I wish to know more of her son’s scheming.”

  “Like mother, like son,” Enkullab said. “I shall find her and bring her to you.”

  The gods and priests, the latter bowing to the ground, waited for Ishtar to leave the courtyard before they too could begin to disperse. But Ishtar was hardly a hundred paces away when a voice rang out from above.

  “The king has life! The omens are blessings! Gilgamesh is king!”

  The loud words startled everyone. Their suddenness obscured their source for a minute. But it took just moments to realize that they came from the direction of the sacred mound of Anu. As they all looked up toward the White Temple, they could clearly see the silhouette of a goddess, recognizable by the horned headdress she was wearing. She was standing atop the podium.

  It took Ishtar but a moment to realize who it was.

  “Great Anu!” she exclaimed. “It’s Ninsun. . . . How dare she ascend the sacred mound when no rites are being held, when the great Anu has not been summoned!” She pulled her bow off her shoulder and grabbed an arrow from the quiver. Angered, she ran back to a spot from which she could have an unimpaired view of the White Temple. She put the arrow in her bow and aimed it at the silhouette.

  “No!” shouted one of the gods standing near her. “You will be buried alive, as was done to Marduk, if you kill her!”

  Hesitating a moment, Ishtar lowered her aim and shot at the ground. The arrow struck with a great thud, and half of it disappeared into the soil.

  “There are other ways to deal with sacrilege,” Ishtar said as she put the bow back on her shoulder. “Now go—go as ordered!” she shouted to all who were in the courtyard.

  The High Priest did not move. “Sacrilege and treason, too,” he said with his head bowed.

  “Treason?” Ishtar repeated his word. “Yes, I have been blind. This daughter of Ninharsag whom I have replaced in the Celestial Circle has been scheming to replace me as goddess of Erech! By Anu, you are right, Enkullab.”

  “She and her son, my half-brother . . .” Enkullab added.

  “By my word, Enkullab,” Ishtar said loudly, “if a king is to be chosen, you shall be the one!”

  And before he could utter his wordy thanks, she left with quick steps to the Eanna.

  The attendant priests and priestesses were hard put to catch up with her as she mounted the ziggurat’s stairway. On the second stage she pulled upon a brick, and a wall turned to reveal a large opening.

  “Bring out my skyship! Hurry!” she commanded.

  The priests on duty hauled out a wooden platform on which rested a large object shaped like a ball and supported by three extended legs. A priestess brought Ishtar her pilot’s helmet, and the goddess quickly put it on. Then, pulling a lever at one of the extended legs, Ishtar caused part of the sphere’s surface to open up, and from this doorway a flight of stairs noiselessly began to extend down. Moving gingerly Ishtar mounted the stairs and entered the sphere. In a moment the flight of stairs was retracted as though swallowed by the sphere. The doorway closed and the sphere’s skin was as smooth as it had been before, like a wound healed by the Healers that leaves no scar.

  A whirring sound began, its source unseen. A bulbous protrusion at the bottom of the sphere, located between the extended legs, began to glow. Bright whitish lines appeared, encircling the sphere in two rows. Their glow became stronger from moment to moment, then they changed color, the upper row emitting a red hue and the lower a bluish one. Two portholes, like big eyes, w
ere opened in the upper part of the sphere. And, as the priests scurried away, Ishtar’s globelike skyship rose off its platform. It hovered a few moments as its extended legs retracted and disappeared into the sphere. And then the skyship, airborne, was aloft and away.

  * * *

  No sooner had Ishtar left the courtyard than the High Priest began to repeat to the other priests Ishtar’s words of promise to make him king instead of Gilgamesh. The news swept the Sacred Precinct like a brush fire in the midst of summer, first whispered, then told aloud, then shouted from priest to priest on the ramparts. Soon it seemed that the whole precinct was shouting, “Enkullab shall be crowned king!”

  The shouts reached Ninsun on her perch. First the ominous news was heard from one direction then from another, “Enkullab shall be crowned king! Enkullab shall be crowned king!”

  She looked down, surveying the Sacred Precinct. She could not see Ishtar; she could not see any of the other gods. All she could see were priests in their varied robes, scurrying about like loathsome rodents, about to devour her in the service of their evil chief.

  She looked around her. With the absence of the large assemblage that had been gathered the day before, the place looked more awesome in its silence. The White Temple, without its attending priests and their fear-inspiring costumes, was majestic in its serenity. The wind whistled as its drafts were caught in the temples’ many apertures. When Ninsun closed her eyes she imagined she heard a divine melody, like the whistles of the Tablets of Destinies when disc communicated with disc.

  No one entered the White Temple unless it was so required during the rites. But now, all alone on the hallowed ground where her grandfather, the Lord Anu, had given his blessing to Earth and its people, Ninsun felt invited . . .

  She entered the temple through the doorway behind the sacred tree. Through the ceiling apertures, rays of sunlight threw odd patterns on the floor and walls. Passing between two external chambers she reached the large, elongated front hall. Toward its western end there stood the seat of Anu, a thronelike structure of stone. Ninsun walked toward it and, reaching the throne, fell to her knees and bowed three times. Then, as she stood up, she touched the stone seat with her hand. The thought that a thousand Earth-years earlier the great Lord Anu had actually sat on this throne made her feel a warmth emanating from it, an inner radiation.