The area of southern Iraq in those days was as beautiful as the great valley of California. The point here is that THERE ARE NO WINNERS IN A NUCLEAR CONFLICT!!! This was not the first time that these weapons have been used on Earth the aftermath is ALWAYS HORRIBLE BEYOND DESCRIPTION.
CHAPTER TEN
NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE 2024 BC
Sumer’s Sudden Downfall
The mysterious beginning of civilization in Sumer, nearly six thousand years ago, was matched by its equally sudden and mysterious demise.
The circumstances behind this demise are generally brushed over by the general history books. They tell us that this magnificent civilization beget a rival in the neighbouring and equally mysterious Akkadian empire, and that around 2000 BC both the Sumerians and the Akkadians disappeared for no particular reason.
We are then told that two new civilizations, the Babylonians and the Assyrians, arose as if from nowhere to dominate Mesopotamia. With this huge over-simplification, the matter is left to rest. And yet a mass of evidence does exist, describing the downfall of Sumer, so why does this evidence not appear in the history books?
The answer is that the nature of the final disaster which struck the Sumerians mystified them as much as it mystifies scholars today. The Sumerians’ description of the disaster is so strange that it is conveniently regarded as mythology and brushed to one side. It is archaeological fact, however, that Sumer’s demise came suddenly. In 1985, Zecharia Sitchin put forward a credible scenario for the use of nuclear weapons to the west of Sumer, at a date which coincided with its mysterious downfall.
We will deal with that scenario in due course, but meanwhile let us consider Sitchin’s claim that the Sumerians were decimated by the nuclear fall-out. The evidence is contained in various texts, known as “lamentations” over the destruction of various Sumerian cities.
The following translations have been published by the foremost expert on Sumer, Professor Samuel Kramer.
On the land [Sumer] fell a calamity, one unknown to man;
one that had never been seen before,
one which could not be withstood.
A great storm from heaven…
A land-annihilating storm…
An evil wind, like a rushing torrent…
A battling storm joined by a scorching heat…
By day it deprived the land of thebright sun, in the evening the stars did not shine…
The people, terrified, could hardly breathe;
the evil wind clutched them, does not grant them another day…
Mouths were drenched with blood, heads wallowed in blood…
The face was made pale by the Evil Wind.
It caused cities to be desolated, houses to become desolate;
stalls to become desolate, the sheepfolds to be emptied…
Sumer’s rivers it made flow with water that is bitter;
its cultivated fields grow weeds, its pastures grow withering plants.
The nature of the disaster was such that even the Gods were powerless to resist it. A tablet named The Uruk Lament states:
Thus all its Gods evacuated Uruk; they kept away from it; they hid in the mountains, they escaped to the distant plains.
In another text, named The Eridu Lament, Enki and his wife Ninki also fled their city of Eridu:
Ninki its great lady, flying like a bird, left her city… Father Enki stayed outside the city… For the fate of his harmed city he wept with bitter tears.
Numerous Sumerian lamentation tablets have been found and translated in the last hundred years, covering Uruk, Eridu, Ur and Nippur. These tablets suggest that all of the cities simultaneously experienced the same phenomenon. However, there is no mention of warfare – a subject with which the Sumerian chroniclers were quite familiar. On the contrary, the disaster appeared not as a destruction but as a desolation.
One scholar, Thorkild Jacobsen, concluded that Sumer had been struck not by invaders, but by “dire catastrophe” which was “really quite puzzling”. As cited above, what struck the Sumerian cities was an “evil wind” that brought death like an invisible “ghost” that had “never been seen before”.
No wonder that nuclear fall-out has been suggested as the cause. What are the alternatives? Could it simply have been an unprecedented killer disease? Whilst this must remain as a possibility, the Sumerians’ detailed descriptions of water turning bitter, people retching blood, and the effect on animals as well as humans, suggest that this was not any type of disease known to us today. Furthermore, several lamentation texts, such as the one cited above, refer to a “storm” which accompanied the invisible “ghost”.
Those who have experienced the unseen radioactive fall-out of a nuclear explosion could surely find no better terms to describe it. Let us now review the evidence of that explosion.
Sodom and Gomorrah The Biblical tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone is familiar to most of us.
But how many of us take it literally? Like many other important events in human history, the story has been relegated to “myth” or religious symbolism.
However, the Biblical account in Genesis 18-19 describes a premeditated, controllable act, by a God who did not differentiate between the people and the vegetation of the plain. This was a real event, as evidenced by the description of dense smoke rising from the land the following morning.
If we accept the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as an eye witness account, there occurred an explosion so powerful that it can be compared to the use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. This story is treated as myth because our paradigms do not allow the existence of nuclear weapons four thousand years ago. It is also tempting to dismiss the tale on account of the reference to Lot’ s wife, who turned back and became “a pillar of salt”.
However, it does not sound so ridiculous when we learn that several studies have suggested the term “salt” to be a mistranslation. If we were able to read an original Sumerian version of the event, we would find the word NIMUR, meaning both salt and vapour.
Thus Lot’s wife may have become “a pillar of vapour”. Several ancient texts have now been discovered, paralleling the Biblical narrative, but predating it. These accounts provide additional background details which are lacking in the Old Testament.
One of the earliest Sumerian texts clearly parallels the Biblical destruction of the evil cities by fire and brimstone:
Lord, bearer of the Scorcher that burnt up the adversary;
who obliterated the disobedient land;
who withered the life of the Evil Word’s followers;
who rained stones and fire upon the adversaries.
Who were the “disobedient adversaries”, and what was the “Evil Word” that they followed?
The full significance of the Sodom and Gomorrah incident was revealed in a detailed study by Zecharia Sitchin in 1985. The background to Sodom and Gomorrah was a heated argument concerning the right of the God Marduk to return to his city, Babylon, and assume supremacy over the Gods.
Whilst Marduk’s father, Enki, defended the rights of his first-born son, the other Gods were bitterly opposed, for reasons which will become clear in due course. One God, named Erra, vowed to use force against Marduk.
A long text known as the Erra Epic, describes what happened next, as a furious Erra exited from the council of Gods with a defiant promise:
“The lands I will destroy, to a dust-heap make them; the cities I will upheaval, to desolation turn them; the mountains I will flatten, their animals make disappear; the seas I will agitate, that which teems in them I will decimate; the people I will make vanish, their souls shall turn to vapour; none shall be spared…”
The Gods, locked in dispute, asked Anu to resolve the conflict.
Anu agreed to the use of seven powerful weapons to attack Marduk, but Gibil, a brother of Marduk, warned him of Erra’s plan:
“Those seven, in the mountain they abide, in a cavity inside the earth they dwell.
From this place with a brilliance they will rush forth, from Earth to Heaven, clad with terror.”
A God named Ishum, meaning “Scorcher”, was then appointed to join Erra in the Lower World (Africa) to prime the weapons and deliver them to their targets.
Zecharia Sitchin has identified this God as Ninurta. As the son of Enlil by his half-sister Ninharsag, Ninurta was the direct rival of Marduk, the son of Enki.
As for Erra, there is little doubt that this God was Nergal, a God who was often referred to in ancient texts as the “raging king”, “the violent one” and pointedly “the one who burns”, a God of war and hunting and a bringer of pestilence. It was Erra/Nergal, an embittered and jealous brother of Marduk, who assumed the most aggressive role, vowing to destroy not only Marduk and his supporters, but also his son Nabu.
Erra suggested that the weapons be used against the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah where Marduk and his son Nabu were thought to be hiding, and, for reasons which will later become clear, against the Sinai space centre itself:
“From city to city an emissary [weapon] I will send; the son, seed of his father, shall not escape; his mother shall cease her laughter… To the place of the Gods, access he shall not have; the place from where the Great Ones ascend I shall upheaval.”
Ninurta tried to calm Erra with words almost identical to those used by Abraham to God in the Biblical account:
“Valiant Erra, will you the righteous destroy with the unrighteous? Will you destroy those who have against you sinned together with those who against you have not sinned?”
Having agreed on a plan, the two Gods then carried out the devastating attack, Ishum to the space centre and Erra to Sodom and Gomorrah:
Ishum to Mount Most Supreme set his course; the awesome seven, without parallel, trailed behind him.
At the Mount Most Supreme the hero arrived; he raised his hand the Mount was smashed.
The plain by the Mount Most Supreme he then obliterated; in its forests not a tree stem was left standing.
Then, emulating Ishum, Erra the King’s Highway followed. The cities he finished off, to desolation he overturned
them. In the mountains he caused starvation, their animals he made perish.
The “Khedorlaomer Texts” confirm the details of the Erra Epic and summarize the destruction:
He who scorches with fire, and he of the evil wind, together performed their evil. The two made the Gods flee, made them flee the scorching. That which was raised towards Anu to launch they caused to wither: its face they made fade away, its place they made desolate.
According to the Erra Epic, the attack by Erra not only destroyed the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah but also created the Dead Sea as we know it today:
He dug through the sea, its wholeness he divided. That which lives in it, even the crocodiles, he made wither, as with fire he scorched the animals, banned its grains to become as dust.
Did crocodiles once live in the Dead Sea? It is no coincidence that nine hundred years earlier Gilgamesh was warned not to let his hand touch the “waters of death”, as his boat approached the far western shore of the “Sea of the Waters of Death”.
In modern times it is known as the Dead Sea for a different reason because its concentration of salt is so high that marine life cannot live in it.
Geographical Evidence
Where did the events of Sodom and Gomorrah take place?
The Bible clearly identifies the Valley of Siddim with the Salt Sea, suggesting that there had once been a valley where the waters now lie.” Modern reference books state that the destroyed cities were indeed once situated in the area of the Dead Sea, drawing this conclusion from Greek and Roman historians, who stated that the valley was inundated after the event.
It is no coincidence that the name Gomorrah came to mean “submersion” in the Hebrew language, nor that the Bible refers to the Salt Sea as the Sea of the Arabah, the latter term in Hebrew meaning “dry or burnt up”, and thus commemorating the attack.?’ Can all of these sources be wrong?
More specifically, scholars locate the evil cities in the southern part of the Dead Sea, which to this day is called “Lot’s Sea”, commemorating the man who was allowed to escape the disaster. The Bible provides a number of further clues which pinpoint the exact location: references to salt, bitumen and tar Pits all fit the southern part of the Dead Sea. First, this area still remains, in places, a flat salt marsh.
And secondly, to this day, lumps of bitumen still float to the surface of the Dead Sea, which for this reason was called Lake Asphaltites in ancient times. In addition, the south-east shore of the Dead Sea is indeed “well-watered” and rich in vegetation, in accordance with the Biblical description. What physical evidence might prove that a nuclear explosion occurred at the Dead Sea in ancient times?
The geology of the Dead Sea is unusual. It is divided into two parts by a large peninsula called the Lisan (“the Tongue”), which reaches to within two miles of the western shore. North of the Lisan, the Dead Sea is up to 1,310 feet deep, the lowest landlocked point on Earth.
To the south, in complete contrast, the waters are shallow, from only three to fifteen feet deep. Could this unusual geological feature be attributed to an explosion which breached the original Lisan and caused the previously dry “valley of the fields” to become submerged under water? To this day, unnatural levels of radioactivity are found in the water of springs around the southernmost edges of the Dead Sea.
One study confirmed that this radioactivity was sufficiently high to “induce sterility and allied afflictions in any animals and humans that absorbed it over a number of years”. Further evidence of an explosion is being revealed by the falling level of the Dead Sea, which has in recent years dropped from 1,280 feet to 1,340 feet below sea level?
The shrinkage of its surface area has exposed bizarre fissures, described by one observer as “almost architecturally articulated rock fissures”. What about the high salt concentration, more than five times the normal level? This is actually caused by the absence of any outlet from the Dead Sea other than by evaporation.
The 6.5 million tons of fresh water which pour in every day from the Jordan River erode natural salt from the Dead Sea floor, which cannot evaporate, and this increases the salt concentration. But here is a strange fact. In October 1993, it was announced that Israeli and German scientists would attempt to take samples of sediments from beneath the Dead Sea, using the latest drilling technology.
Previous attempts had failed due to an extremely hard layer of rock salt, only a few feet beneath the bottom of the Sea!” What unnatural event could have formed a crust of rock salt so hard that modern technology struggled to penetrate it?
Now let us move south to an even more dramatic proof of ancient nuclear weapons. Zecharia Sitchin has highlighted an enormous geological scar on the Sinai peninsula, exactly where the space centre of the Gods ought to be. This scar is visible from high above the Earth, appearing as a mysterious white patch.
Following up on Sitchin’s claim, I obtained a close-up satellite photo of the scar, showing an area 112 by 112 miles – Plate 44.
Whilst the thousands of tiny lines are wadis (dry riverbeds), no scientific explanation of the bright scar (situated bottom, left of centre) has ever been forthcoming.
Furthermore, in the eastern Sinai, millions of blackened stones are found strewn for tens of miles.
These stones are, without any doubt, unnatural. The expeditions to the Sinai by Nelson Glueck in the 1950s highlighted the existence of numerous blackened rocks, scattered across the landscape.
These rocks have more recently come to the attention of Emmanuel Anati, who was attracted to the region by his interest in rock art.
Following his first expedition in 1955, Anati carried out several field trips to the site of Har Karkom (Jebel Ideid), a sacred mountain from the third millennium BC. Anati’s book, The Mountain of God, shows many boulders, several feet in diameter, on which ancient travellers have etched various signs and symbols (Plate 45). Anati’s photographs clearly demonstrate that the rocks are blackened only on the surface.
Emmanuel Anati also describes the large mountain plateau of Har Karkom as covered in an expanse of black stone fragments, known as “hamada”. In some places, the hamada has been cleared in ancient times to form so-called “hut circles”. Again, Anati’s photographs (Plate 46) demonstrate that the blackened stones are a thin surface layer.
The ground beneath is a hard light-brown coloured surface, which from the air reflects the sunlight to create the appearance of bright white patches. What do the geologists have to say about the blackened rocks in the Sinai? They admit that they resemble volcanic rock, and yet this cannot be so, since there are no volcanoes anywhere near the Sinai. These stones are an anomaly – an impossibility that cannot be explained by conventional science.
Due to the perceived “impossibility” of nuclear weapons four thousand years ago, the debate goes no further. But it cannot be denied that the black, charred rocks are there in the Sinai, as is the enormous scar. The only possible explanation is that provided by Zecharia Sitchin – an unnatural explosion. In this context, everything begins to make sense.
The incontrovertible physical evidence not only confirms the reliability of the Erra Epic, but also the reliability of all the other evidence in chapter 8 which identified the Sinai as the geographic location of the space centre !
Chronologically, the destruction of the space centre, Sodom and Gomorrah and the fall of Sumer can all be tied together c. 2000 BC (the era of Abraham). The Sumerian lamentation texts clearly link the “evil wind” to the events in Sinai, by their references to “a great storm directed from Anu”, a “storm in a flash of lightning created” and by stating “in the west it was spawned”.
The Dead Sea and the space centre in Sinai are indeed located to the west of Sumer. Other references pinpoint the Sinai specifically:
“from the midst of the mountains it had descended upon the land, from the Plain of No Pity it hath come”.
It only remains to offer a convincing explanation of why the Gods permitted such extreme force to be used.
In order to understand the full story of how the Gods decided to sabotage their own space facilities, we must begin with the Tower of Babel incident in which the God Marduk attempted to rebuild his pre-Flood city in Sumer.
The Tower of Babel
I have, in earlier chapters, described the succession rules of the Gods, which caused such deep resentment between the two brothers Enki and Enlil, and consequently between their respective descendants. Prior to the Flood, this resentment appears not to have broken out into open conflict.
After the Flood, however, when the Earth was redivided, territorial disputes arose to prompt a bitter war of the Gods, the evidence for which we have seen at the Great Pyramid and Jebel Barkal. As a result of that war, supremacy among the Gods lay with Enlil and particularly his firstborn son Ninurta. In due course, when the flooding had subsided sufficiently from the Tigris-Euphrates plains, the Gods decided to re establish there the olden cities in their original locations.
But this territory was now assigned to the Enlilite Gods. Of the Enkiites, only Enki himself, by prior agreement, was allowed to rebuild his pre-Flood city (Eridu). Marduk’s pleas to rebuild his pre-Flood city of Babylon were met with no sympathy whatsoever.
It would appear that the Biblical account of the Tower of Babel has its roots in this conflict. Marduk, as the chief God of Babylon in later times, is the likely perpetrator, but what was the nature of the “Tower”?
Remembering (from chapter 6), that a shem means “sky vehicle” rather than “name”, let us re-examine what Marduk’s supporters were up to, by correcting the translation of the Biblical account:
“Come let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a shem for ourselves.”
It now becomes apparent that Marduk’s plans were both ambitious and controversial. Furthermore, Zecharia Sitchin has highlighted the existence of an Akkadian text, which parallels the Bible’s account of what happened next.
Various clues in that text confirm that Marduk was the rebel, whilst the most telling verse identifies the Biblical “God” as Enlil, who:
To their stronghold tower, in the night,
a complete end he made.
In his anger, a command he also poured out:
to scatter abroad was his decision.
He gave a command their counsels to confuse.
… their course he stopped.
It is not at all clear whether the languages of mankind were actually changed during this incident, but the Akkadian tale does confirm that Marduk’s people were indeed scattered.
However, in contrast to general perceptions of the Biblical account, the Tower of Babel must be seen here as a fairly localized incident, which only affected one relatively small group of people. What was the chronology of the Tower of Babel incident?
Zecharia Sitchin dates it shortly prior to Marduk’s return to his Egyptian homelands, where he was known by the name Ra. The latter event can be dated very roughly to around 3450 BC, the time when Egypt entered 350 years of chaos prior to the beginning of its civilization c. 3100 BC. The incident at Babylon would certainly not have been any earlier than that of the first Sumerian cities of Eridu and Nippur. Thus we can place it with some confidence between 3800-3450 BC.
Following the war of the Gods, in which Marduk led the Enkiite forces, a condition of the peace treaty was that his pacifist brother, Thoth, be placed in charge of Egypt. By now, however, Thoth had long stepped down, allowing various other Gods and demi-Gods to rule the land.
The opportunity existed for an embittered Marduk to return to Egypt and vent his frustration. It is highly likely that Marduk/Ra’s return to Egypt coincided with the death of Dumuzi, whose tragic tale was related in chapter 6. If Marduk assumed power in Egypt at that time, he was doing so in defiance of the peace treaty, and his authority was arguably illegal. We can now begin to understand why Dumuzi’s accidental death resulted in such a harsh punishment for Marduk.
It would seem that, following his escape from the Pyramid, Marduk went into a self-imposed exile as Amen (“the Hidden One”) to his supporters and persona non grata to his enemies. His principal enemy was Inanna, who, as a result of her husband Dumuzi’s death, had turned from a Goddess of love to a Goddess of war, with a bitter hatred of Marduk. Inanna had always had ambitions, but now those ambitions were intensified.
As described in chapter 6, she was not satisfied with her dominion over the new Indus Valley civilization, nor with her low-ranking Sumerian city of Uruk. In approximately 2350 BC, her powerful ambitions were fulfilled. Armed with the enigmatic “MEs” which she had dispossessed from Enki, she found a man whom she named Sharru-kin (“Righteous Ruler”).
This man, known to us as Sargon, was the founder of the Akkadian empire and its capital city Agade.
As Inanna strove to build a powerful new kingdom in Mesopotamia, Marduk could only watch from the sidelines with growing frustration. Convinced of his own innocence, and angry at the refusal of the Gods to permit his city to be rebuilt at Babylon, he consoled himself with the belief that a “destiny-determining time” would come, when he would return to Babylon, overturn Inanna’s supremacy, and claim Lordship over the Gods.
As we shall see in the next chapter, this “destiny determining time” was not a whimsical dream but a scientific reality. And the timing of the Akkadian empire can thus be seen as a deliberate attempt by Inanna to counter the ambitions of her arch enemy.
Inanna’s Conquests
Circa 2350 BC, Sargon, assisted by Inanna, began to build a mighty empire throughout Mesopotamia.
In so doing, he took great care not to alienate the other Gods of the Near East. Initially, his conquests avoided Enlil’s city of Nippur, Ninurta’s city of Lagash, the disputed site of Babylon and the strategic sites of the Gods at Jerusalem and Baalbek.
Then, in his old age, he made the fatal mistake of removing “sacred soil” from Babylon to somehow “legitimise” Inanna’s city of Agade. It would seem that this sacrilegious act prompted Marduk’s return to Babylon. The ancient texts state that Marduk destroyed Sargon’s people by hunger, and afflicted Sargon himself with a “restlessness” that led to his death after a reign of 54 years.
Reassembling his scattered people, Marduk rebuilt Babylon and, according to the ancient texts, constructed a sophisticated waterworks system. This is an interesting detail, since the site of eighteenth century BC Babylon does indeed lie underneath the present-day water table, preventing its excavation. It is my view that Marduk avoided this flooding by pumping water out of Babylon into the surrounding areas.
The surrounding cities quickly grew reliant upon these fresh supplies of water from Babylon, since the average rainfall in
Babylonia has been negligible since time immemorial. Indeed, without irrigation canals and the flooding of the rivers, Babylonia would have been a barren desert. Marduk’s supporters continued to fight fierce battles with Sargon’s successors, and the council of Gods, in a bid to avoid further armed confrontation, sent Nergal, a brother of Marduk, to persuade him to leave Babylon.
Nergal provided Marduk with convincing evidence that his “destiny-determining time” had not yet come.”
Marduk eventually agreed to leave, but on the condition that no-one interfered with Babylon’s waterworks system:
“On the day I step off my seat,
the flooding shall from its well cease to work…
The waters shall not rise…
the bright day to darkness [shall turn]…Confusion shall arise…
the winds of draught shall howl…sicknesses shall spread.”
After Marduk’s departure, Nergal entered the secret chambers of Babylon and, in a surprising act of animosity, upset the precious waterworks.
As forewarned, there was a serious drought in the surrounding cities. Nergal ended up being severely chastised by the elder Gods.
Around 2250 BC, following Marduk’s departure from Babylon, and the ensuing drought, Inanna once again decided to flex her muscles – this time with the grandson of Sargon, called Naram-Sin. His name clearly indicates that Inanna had won the support of her uncle, the God Nannar/Sin. This time it would seem that Inanna was determined to see just how far she could extend her powers.
The Mesopotamian texts provide a long list of Naram Sin’s conquests, including Jericho, Baalbek, Dilmun-land (Sinai) and finally Egypt.
Is there any historic corroboration of Naram-Sin’s conquests? Archaeology has confirmed that the era of Jericho in the third millennium BC ended in destruction. The attack upon Baalbek, where Inanna reportedly burned down its gates and held its defenders under siege, could well explain the abandoned quarry work which can still be seen at the site today – a feature that no-one has ever ventured to explain.
In Egypt too, an incursion by foreigners is confirmed at this time in history by a long poem known as “the Admonitions of Ipuwer”. As for Naram-Sin’s alleged conquest of the Sinai space centre, could this incident be the one commemorated on the famous stele of Naram-Sin, now on display at the Louvre museum in Paris.
The central feature in Plate 51, which many believe to be a mountain, looks more like the rockets with which Dilmun land was associated.
The horned tiara, worn by the victorious Naram-Sin, was a symbol of the Gods, and suggests that this was a victory in the most sacred region where Gods alone were allowed to rule.
It would seem, however, that Naram-Sin made one conquest too many. Whether it was the space centre, the Enkiite territories or both, we cannot be sure, but the council of the Gods decided to arrest Inanna and put an end to her aggrandizement.
A Sumerian poem known as The Curse of Agade relates that Inanna fled from her city Agade.
The Gods then stripped the city of its powers, possibly including some of the “MEs” stolen from Enki:
“The crownband of lordship,
the tiara of kingship,
the throne given to rulership,
Ninurta brought over to his temple;
Utu carried off the city’s “Eloquence”;
Enki withdrew its “Wisdom”.
Its Awesomeness that could reach the Heaven,
Anu brought up to the midst of Heaven.”
The texts state that Marduk’s brother Nergal had also assisted the conquests of Naram-Sin, and thus acted in an unlikely alliance with Inanna to prevent Marduk’s return. We can only guess at the reasons for this brotherly enmity.
Shortly afterwards, Inanna and Nergal staged a major revolt against the authority of the elder Gods, a revolt which ended in failure and the catastrophic destruction of Agade. The Curse of Agade blames the destruction of Agade on Naram-Sin, who allegedly attacked Enlil’s city, Nippur, desecrating its sacred Ekur.
We know from a Sumerian poem entitled Hymn to Enlil that this Ekur was the resting place for “a fast stepping bird” from whose “grasp no-one can escape”, and the spot from where he could “raise the beams that search the heart of all the lands”. The attack was thus not just a symbolic insult to the highest God on Earth, but also a physical disabling of his powers.
According to The Curse of Agade, the Gods wiped Agade from the face of the Earth. The hordes of Guti were then ordered by Enlil to leave their homelands in the Zagros Mountains and subjugate Inanna’s supporters. The Akkadian empire disintegrated and the central administration fell into a state of anarchy. Did the Gods really have a hand in this?
It is a fact that Agade is one of the few ancient Mesopotamian cities whose location has never been discovered by the archaeologists, whilst historians are puzzled at the fall of such a mighty empire which collapsed c. 2200 BC as suddenly as it had once begun.
Battles of the Kings
The Guti occupied Mesopotamia for around a century, but left little trace of their culture.
Meanwhile, between 2200-2100 BC, several Sumerian and Elamite cities declared their independence, and entered a new era of prosperity that would prove to be their swansong.
The Elamite state of Ninurta was first to emerge as a dominant force, centered on its capital city of Susa in south-east Mesopotamia. Its powerful defenses and highly-trained army had enabled it to escape conquest by military alliance with Naram-Sin. However, after Naram-Sin’s death, its ruler Puzur-Inshushinak declared independence and, to emphasize the point, assumed the title “King of the Universe”.
The Sumerian renaissance began at Lagash, whose famous ruler, Gudea, reigned early in the 22nd century BC. This king embarked on a massive programme of temple restoration, and took Sumerian culture to new heights. Lagash, however, was destined to remain a religious centre, with no aspirations for political control over a new Sumerian empire. Shortly afterwards, the city of Ur arose as the new Sumerian capital.
The famous (and final) Third Dynasty of Ur took Sumerian achievements to new heights in art, foreign trade and temple-building. The God in charge was Nannar/Sin, a move perhaps aimed at keeping his niece Inanna in check. We now enter a period where historic dates can be established with a high degree of accuracy.
Ur’s first ruler Ur-Nammu is generally dated to c. 2112 BC.56 Ur-Nammu instigated a new legal and moral code, and began a restoration programme throughout Sumer which returned the temples of the Gods, including the Ekur at Nippur, to their former glories. Not only the temples had to be restored but also the trust of the people in their Gods.
After two hundred years of chaos, the people of Mesopotamia had become independent and unruly. Sumerian texts record that Ur-Nammu was given a remit by Enlil to bring these rebellious city states to heel.
Unfortunately, just as the Sumerians began to find new faith in their Gods, disaster struck again. Their king, Ur-Nammu, fell from his chariot in the middle of battle, and was “abandoned on the battlefield like a crushed vessel”. The new ruler of Ur, c. 2094-2047 BC, was named Shulgi.
Towards the end of his reign we see the first signs of trouble for the last Sumerian dynasty. Shulgi became engaged in a series of battles to put down uprisings in the outer provinces, c. 2054-2047 BC. In order to strengthen his position, he obtained by the marriage of his daughter, an alliance with the Elamites. In exchange for control of the city of Larsa, Shulgi engaged the services of the notorious Elamite troops as a kind of foreign legion under the command of Khedorlaomer.
Where was Marduk at this time?
According to Zecharia Sitchin’s chronology, in 2048 BC Marduk was about to enter the land of Hatti (the land of the Hittites in Anatolia) where he would rest for 24 years, awaiting a “favourable omen” for his return to Babylon.
The presence of an Egyptian God in Anatolia at this time is indeed confirmed by the archaeological record. At the site of Alaca Huyuk (an important city dating to at least 2500 BC) the entrance to the city was found to be flanked by Egyptian-style sphinxes, dating to around 2000 BC.
After Shulgi’s death c. 2047 BC, his son Amar-Sin faced a continuing struggle to assert the authority of Ur, and the Sumerian texts record in the seventh year of his reign, c. 2040 BC, a major campaign to subdue an uprising in four western lands.
The dispatch by Amar-Sin of troops under Khedorlaomer to quell the rebellion is dealt with both in the Old Testament and in the Khedorlaomer Texts, which both confirm the rebellion as taking place in the thirteenth year of rule from Ur. What was the cause of the rebellion? The Khedorlaomer Texts make it clear that the rebellion was a change of allegiance from Sin, the God of Ur, to Nabu, the son of Marduk.
Sin’s son, Shamash claimed that the people had betrayed their covenant with his father:
“The faithfulness of his heart [the king] betrayed in the time of the thirteenth year a falling-out against my father [he had]; to his faith-keeping the king ceased to attend; all this Nabu has caused to happen.”
The change of allegiance to Nabu in Canaan is commemorated today by the various names in the region – Mount Nebo to the north-east of the Dead Sea, and the large town of Nabulus to the north-west.
In later times, the name Nabu took on the meaning “speaker/announcer/prophet”, reflecting the role that Marduk’s son had played in stirring up the rebellion. But what was the nature of this rebellion that caused it to be preserved in history as such a major event?
The answer comes from a scrutiny of the battle which took place in the following year.
According to Genesis 14:
In the fourteenth year, Khedorlaomer and the kings allied with him went out and defeated the Rephaites in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzites in Ham, the Emites in Shaveh Kiriathaim and the Horites in the hill country of Seir, as far as El Paran near the desert. They then turned back and went to En Mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and they conquered the whole territory of the Amalekites, as well as the Amorites…
This sequence of battles is also confirmed by the Khedorlaomer Texts.
It is only after this grueling tour that the kings of the east finally confront the kings of the evil cities whom they had been sent to punish.
So why the delay, and why waste their time with a long out-of-the-way excursion into the desert? As Zecharia Sitchin has pointed out, the only possible significance of El Paran (Nakhl) and Kadesh-Barnea is their strategic location in the restricted land of the Gods – the space centre in the Sinai desert. Why else would the invaders target an oasis town in the middle of nowhere?
A Sumerian cylinder seal cited by Zecharia Sitchin (Figure 35) gives a remarkably accurate visual portrayal of the space centre incident, although my interpretation differs from that of Sitchin.
It is my conclusion that the Canaanite kings, incited by Nabu, had marched south to occupy the space centre.
Then, when they heard of the formidable strength of the approaching eastern alliance, led by Khedorlaomer, they fled to Kadesh-Barnea.
Thus did the invaders turn back from Nakhl to Kadesh, as described in Genesis 14, in order to pursue their fleeing enemy. From Kadesh, the kings of the east chased the kings of the west back to the Valley of Siddim, where the latter were forced to make a stand in their homeland and were heavily defeated.
The cylinder seal shown in Figure 35 identifies the space centre location by the sign of Sin’s crescent moon and a tower with wings. However, there is no battle scene (as suggested by Sitchin) but only a depiction of four kings marching in and five kings marching out in the opposite direction! My interpretation of these events illustrates the desire of Marduk to take possession of the space centre in addition to his return to Babylon.
This is vital to an understanding of the extreme actions which were later taken against him and his son Nabu. According to Zecharia Sitchin’s chronology, it was a mere 16 years later that Marduk returned to Babylon and the nuclear weapons were used.
During those sixteen years, the last two kings of Ur, Shu-Sin c. 2037-2029 BC, and Ibbi-Sin c. 2028-2024 BC, turned to desperate defensive measures to protect a crumbling empire in times of great uncertainty.
Significantly, Shu-Sin put down an uprising at Mardin in southern Turkey – by now Marduk’s territory. Circa 2034 BC, he then built a fortress to assist the defense of Sumerian territories against the Amorites. Early in the reign of Ibbi-Sin, the Third Dynasty of Ur literally disintegrated.
The last records of Sumer describe numerous oracles of imminent invasion from the west, the cessation of tributes from the outer provinces and finally the cessation of foreign commerce in the third year of Ibbi-Sin’s reign. No inscriptions of his reign have been found beyond the fifth year, c. 2024 BC. In that year, a prince by the name of Ishbi-Irra instigated a rebellion in the key city of Mari, which protected the western approach to Sumer.
Ibbi-Sin’s last records spoke of a deep penetration by the Amorites into Sumerian territories.
Marduk’s Return
The Sumerian texts state that the chaotic final battle for Sumer was fought and lost by Elamite troops against the overwhelming numbers of invading Amorites.
These Amorites were destined to become the first dynasty of the new kingdom of Babylon. Who were these Amorites, and why did they support Marduk?
Since the invasion of Sumer came from the west, it is not very helpful to find that the term Amorite, derived from the Akkadian word Amurru, simply means “Westerners”. Biblical studies, however, have identified the Amorites as the dominant tribe among the Canaanites, and thus descended from the line of Ham. The final battle was thus based on racial loyalties – Shemitic easterners defending their territory against Hamitic Africans who were supporting an African God, Marduk.
By the same token, we would expect the native Egyptians to rally to Marduk’s cause. What then was happening in Egypt c. 2024 BC? This date falls between the end of the Old Kingdom c. 2100 BC and the beginning of the Middle Kingdom c. 2000 BC. Egyptologists refer to this time gap as the “First Intermediate Period” (FIP), signifying a time of chaos, during which the country was divided between rival dynasties.
The collapse of the Old Kingdom is generally attributed to “social revolution”, and as I shall suggest in a later chapter, it is likely that these first Egyptian pharaohs were in fact Sumerians. Was the timing of the FIP simply a coincidence, or could it have signified an internal rebellion by the native Africans in preparation for Marduk’ s return to power?
Closer inspection of the Egyptian situation confirms that the rebels were based in the south at Thebes, which was indeed the centre of worship of Marduk as Amen, “the Hidden One”. Their faithful support of Marduk has been commemorated in the word aman, which was preserved in the Hebrew language with the literal meaning “to build/support” and figuratively “to be firm/faithful”.
Geographically, these supporters were expanding northwards, towards the delta area and the Sinai peninsula. Would Marduk once again attempt to take control of the space centre?
The exile of Marduk is described in a partly damaged tablet, found in the great library of Ashurbanipal. Its significance went unnoticed until Zecharia Sitchin placed it into historical context – a final countdown of 24 years from 2028 to 2024 BC, at which time Marduk finally returned to Babylon:
“I am the divine Marduk, a, great God. I was cast off for my sins, to the mountains I have gone. In many lands I have been a wanderer: from where the sun rises to where it sets I went. To the heights of Hatti-land I went. In Harti-land I asked an oracle [about] my throne and my Lordship; in its midst [I asked] “Until when?” 24 years in its midst I rested.
“My days [of exile] were completed; I raised my heels toward Babylon, through the lands I went to my city; a king in Babylon to make the foremost, in its midst my temple-mountain to heaven raise.”
The ancient texts record a short-lived victory for Marduk.
In the chaos of battle, various temples were destroyed, including the shrine of Enlil at Nippur.
Enlil, who was somewhere “loftily enthroned”, sped back to Sumer and demanded an explanation. Although the Babylonian accounts blamed the desecration on the God Erra (Nergal), other Gods accused Marduk of the sacrilegious act. It was at this time that the council of Gods met to decide what action to take, and at this council that the God Erra stormed out with a promise of vengeance.
And, chronologically, it was at this time and in this context, that another deity, the Biblical “God”, decided to drop in on the city of Sodom “to see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me”. The outcome, as discussed earlier, was the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Sinai space centre.
At this point it should be recalled that the change of allegiance of the “evil cities” had occurred 17 years previously, in 2041 BC, and been dealt with by Khedorlaomer.
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was thus a different punishment for a separate incident. What was the second crime of Sodom and Gomorrah, the “outcry” of which had reached the ears of God. In view of the previous attempt of the Canaanite kings to seize the space centre, and in view of the expansionist threat from Marduk’s supporters in northern Egypt, there can surely be only one conclusion – the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were once again preparing an army to march on the space centre.
It is against this background that one must understand the radical decision of the Gods to use nuclear weapons against Marduk and his son Nabu. We can only speculate on what Marduk might have intended to do with the space centre, but the texts related that he and Nabu must be stopped at all costs.
What happened to Marduk and Nabu?
One of the aims of Erra/Nergal was to kill them both, but according to the ancient texts they were both warned of the attack on Sodom and Gomorrah and thus escaped. Nevertheless, it would seem that Nergal may have had another attempt. A mere 50 miles to the north, in a separate incident, also dated to c. 2000 BC, the town of Tell Ghassul was utterly destroyed.
So powerful was the force used, that this town was once thought to be the site of ancient Sodom. Archaeologists have been unable to explain the cause of the extensive damage and the thousands of blackened stones which they found strewn across the site. Once again, however, Marduk and Nabu escaped.
According to legend, Nabu became the God of a Mediterranean island, whilst Marduk himself was finally allowed to assume the Lordship of the Gods from Babylon.
Abraham the Spy
Earlier we noted the presence of Abraham at Sodom and Gomorrah, and he was also in Canaan during the Battle of the Kings.
Who exactly was the Biblical patriarch, Abraham, and what role did he play in this crucial period of the world’s history? Most scholars have overlooked or discarded the possibility that, since Abraham came from Ur, he might actually have been a native of Ur. Several studies have indeed concluded that he was a Sumerian.
A major clue to Abraham’s Sumerian origin is his original name IB.RAM, which carried a clear meaning, “Father’s Beloved”, in the Sumerian language. Another clue exists in the Biblical term “Ibri” with which Abraham’s family identified themselves.””
This term, the origin of the word “Hebrew”, is usually translated as ,’wanderers” or “those who crossed over”, but in Sumerian it meant “natives of IBR”.”’ The place name IBR is indeed linked to the verb ibri, meaning “to cross”, but as one authority has pointed out, it is also closely connected to the original Sumerian name for the city of Nippur NI.IB.RU, literally translated as “The Crossing place”.
We encountered this city in chapter 8 as the original mission control centre of the Gods, and it thus took its name from the planet NIBIRU, the “Planet of Crossing”.
The Biblical Ibri are therefore the Sumerian “ni-ib-ri” – the natives of Nippur. And Nippur was Sumer’s foremost religious city. Nor did Abraham come from a family that were typical Nippurians. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that he was from the most noble, priestly class.” The ease with which Abraham commanded respect, even in foreign lands, tends to support this view. What was a Nippurian priest doing in Ur?
The obvious conclusion is that the move coincided with the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur under Ur-Nammu in 2113 BC. The Sumerian texts record that Enlil, the God of Nippur, had entrusted the safe-keeping of his city to Sin, the God of Ur. The timing of Terah and Abraham’s departure from Ur to Harran would have been close to the time when Ur-Nammu came to his untimely end, c. 2095 BC.
Let us take a closer look at Abraham’s role after he left Ur. First, his family was ordered to Harran – a town which has been identified by archaeologists in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains. Then, when he was 75, Abraham was told by ,”God ” to leave Harran. His route took him through Canaan, where God appeared to him, and he then built an “altar” where he “called on the name of the Lord”.
His journey then continued to the Negev – the arid region bordering on the Sinai and from there into northern Egypt. According to the Book of Jubilees, his stay in Egypt lasted 5 years. Working backwards from Abraham’s age of 99 in 2024 BC, he was born in 2123 BC and thus his period ill Egypt encompassed the years 2048-2043 BC.
According to the Old Testament, Abraham’s first action back in Canaan was to approach the altar he had built and again “call on the name of the Lord’’. The year was approximately 2042 BC just one year before the Canaanite kings rebelled against Sin, and thus a time when Nabu would have been actively lobbying for their support.
In 2040 BC, following the Battle of the Kings, Abraham demonstrated the alliance he had forged with the local nobility.
He took 318 trained Amorite soldiers and rescued Lot from the homebound kings of the east quite an achievement at the grand old age of 83! Three years later Hagar bore him a son, Ishmael. The Biblical record is then blank until 13 years later, when at age 99, Abraham entered a covenant with God, who promised him a child the following year (another fine achievement!).
Before that year had passed, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed; the date was 2024 BC. Thus, as the Amorites invaded Abraham’s homeland to the east, God promised to Abraham’s descendants the lands of the west. Was Abraham simply a pawn in the game, or did he earn his prize? Let us now review his movements in the context of the threat from Marduk.
First, Abraham moved to Harran, the northernmost outpost of Ur, on the border with the Hittite lands, where Marduk was shortly to arrive. In 2048 BC, the same year that Marduk arrived for his 24-year stay, Abraham left Harran but his father stayed behind. This move may have been prompted by the death of Shulgi, king of Ur, and the prospect of further turmoil in his empire’s western provinces.
In any event, Abraham headed for Egypt and consulted with the northern pharaohs who were desperately resisting Marduk’s supporters in the south. Can it then be a coincidence that Abraham returned to Canaan only one year before the rebellion of the kings?
I do not subscribe to the view which has been expressed by Zecharia Sitchin that Abraham played a military role in the Battle of the Kings.
As I suggested earlier, there was no battle in the Sinai, only a tactical withdrawal. Abraham’s military involvement, as it appears in the Bible, is restricted only to the subsequent rescue of his nephew Lot, in what was probably a surprise raid. There is nothing to suggest anything beyond that. However, there is evidence to suggest that his role was one of espionage!
At a time of great uncertainty for the Third Dynasty of Ur, its God, Sin, would have found it extremely useful to have a trusted pair of eyes and ears in the lands of the unstable western provinces, particularly as he feared an imminent return of Marduk from the west.
There is no doubt that such a spy existed in Canaan, for the Bible records the fact:
Then the Lord said:
“The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me.”
Having gained the confidence of the Canaanite kings, Abraham was in a perfect position to report on the political situation and possible troop movements.
I have suggested earlier that Nabu motivated the kings of the west to form an army to capture the space centre in the Sinai in 2041 BC.
It was at that exact time that Abraham returned to Canaan to watch what they were up to. The “altar” which Abraham built in Canaan, where he called on the name of the Lord, was thus a means to keep Sin informed of events.
The Petra Connection
After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the other cities of the plain, and the space centre, the repercussions spread far and wide.
The nuclear fall-out in Sumer caused many survivors to become refugees.
Their migrations were accompanied by a high level of culture and technology, hence explaining many of the mysterious breakthroughs c. 2000 BC which archaeologists have uncovered all over the world. We will discuss some of these migrations further in chapter 15. However, whilst some Sumerians fled thousands of miles, others preferred to stay closer to home. One such refugee was Abraham’s nephew Lot.
Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave.
One day the older daughter said to the younger:
“Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father.”
This incestuous tale of Lot and his daughters demonstrates the scale of the catastrophe which had befallen the region.
Although the Gods sometimes practiced similar acts of incest, it was not a widely accepted custom of the people at that time. It can be understood only in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion.
We ourselves might contemplate unthinkable acts only in the most extreme circumstances; examples of cannibalism by survivors of plane crashes in remote areas prove the point. Lot and his daughters, who witnessed the nuclear holocaust, may well have believed that they were the only survivors.
Where are the “mountains” and the “cave” where Lot lived with his daughters? As far as I am aware, no-one has attempted to locate it, perhaps because the whole tale, being connected with Sodom and Gomorrah, is regarded as a Biblical myth. However, there is a site hidden deep in the mountains of that area that fits the bill a site which I visited in 1994.
The mysterious lost city of Petra is located less than sixty miles directly south from the southern part of the Dead Sea where Sodom and Gomorrah are believed to have once stood. It was thus within reach of, and a safe distance from, Lot’s initial destination of Zoar, the small town which had been spared from the destruction.
As I studied the maps of the area, it was clear that Petra was located in a mountain range that extended all the way south from the Dead Sea almost as far as the Gulf of Aqaba, which is then surrounded by mountains on both sides. Anyone fleeing south had little choice but to seek refuge in these mountains.
Hachette’s Guide to the Middle East describes Petra as:
… not so much a town as a natural stronghold where one could seek refuge without having to build walls, and where one could live in the caves as comfortably as one could in man-made houses.”
Petra, literally meaning “Rock”, is entered via a narrow Siq one mile long and as narrow as six feet across, beneath two cliffs which rise up to 260 feet in height.
This dusty trail was featured in the film Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. As one exits the Siq, one enters what has rather aptly been described as a “fairy city of pink sandstone”.
Over a site of eight square miles, a fantastic array of temples and tombs has been carved out of the sandstone rock. As I studied the history books on Petra, I came up against a complete blank. Having been “discovered” in 1812 by a young Swiss explorer named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, little progress has been made in our knowledge of this once important site. As one book admits: “almost nothing is known about its origin or nature”.
Nevertheless, the extensive collection of carved temples and tombs at Petra is generally attributed to the Nabateans, a people of mysterious origin, who gradually infiltrated the area around 500-400 BC.
These Nabateans became wealthy on account of Petra’s position as an important crossroads of two important trade routes, and it is thus naive to think that previous travellers and occupants did not also leave their mark. Indeed, Petra contains a bewildering variety of different styles and different cultures.
On the one hand there are numerous depictions of step-pyramids, indicating a Mesopotamian link, on the other obelisks and serpents indicating an Egyptian connection. The Romans, too, could not resist the urge to build a huge amphitheatre here.
My impression of this unique site was of a tremendous contrast in the quality of the workmanship. Most of the tombs and temples are very simple designs – natural clefts enlarged to form cavities, surmounted on the outside face of the cliff by two dimensional relief work of mediocre quality. Many of these facades are badly eroded due to their exposure to the elements.
The Ed Deir (“the Monastery”), in contrast, is impressive, standing 135 feet high and 150 feet wide. Its upper parts are carved in three dimensions, and the main artistic feature is a splendid urn which is itself 30 feet high.
The Monastery is dated to around AD 40, which may be a reasonable estimate, since it has suffered little erosion despite its exposed position in the side of a hill.
However, although well-carved and well-preserved, the simple style and imposing size of the Monastery bear no comparison to “the Treasury”. To me, El Khazneh (“the Treasury”) stands out clearly from the rest of Petra as a work of vastly superior quality. As shown in Plate 53, the detailed three dimensional carving is stunning, and would be unthinkable for an artist to undertake today.
It bears comparison with the great Sphinx of Egypt.
Once again, an urn is the main feature and accounts for the name of the Treasury.
Elsewhere in Petra, there are many poor quality and badly eroded reliefs which appear to be copies of the Treasury. In contrast to these later copies, however, the builders of the Treasury took great care to undertake a preliminary excavation deep into the cliff face prior to carving.
This technique, combined with a careful positioning of the Treasury in a sheltered spot surrounded by cliffs on all sides, has minimized the risk of erosion. For this reason, it is possible that archaeologists have under-estimated its age by more than a thousand years.
Could the Treasury mark the cave where Lot and his daughters lived c. 2000 BC? Inside there is indeed a large natural cave of great height which has been squared off to create ample living quarters for a small family. The interior is stark and functional, the only features being large empty niches. In contrast, the exterior facade of the Treasury is incredibly ornate -a “labour of love” that was built to last.
The question is: who might have had the motivation to dedicate so much time and care in this secluded location? When one tries to research into the history of Petra, all discussions of its inhabitants begin with the Edomites. These are the people descended from Esau, who are thought to have occupied the area from around 1000 BC.
No-one claims that the Edomites actually founded Petra, and yet the historians seem reluctant to search any further back in time. Why?
Here is my theory of Petra.
After the nuclear destruction in 2024 BC, Lot and his daughters travelled south and discovered the entrance into the mountains. In those days, Petra was surrounded by forests of cedar and pine, in contrast to the arid desert of today. At the end of the Siq, they found the cave in which, according to the Bible, they took up residence.
After the death of Lot, his sons (by his daughters) Moab and Ben-Ammi dedicated themselves to commemorating their father (and perhaps their father’s wife who was turned to vapour) by the elaborate carving of the building now known as the Treasury. The urn (the symbolism of which no-one has explained) signified the ashes of their dead father, and was perhaps also a memorial to their father’ s wife.
After this task was completed, the sons’ curiosity led them into the outside world. As recorded in Genesis, one son Moab formed the tribe known as the Moabites, who lived in the mountain range where Petra lies.
The other son, BenAmmi, became the father of the Ammonite tribe – the city Ammon today stands just 90 miles north of Petra.
In later times, the Edomites and Nabateans came to the area. Some emulated what they saw, sometimes with their own artistic, cultural bias, but none applied the same diligence as the original artists.
Over thousands of years, the site lost its importance and the knowledge of its origins was restricted to a chosen few. Those few clues which were handed down then became enshrined in the Biblical myth of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Could this be the reason why scientists are reluctant to search for the origins of Petra?
Chapter Ten Conclusions
- The Biblical “fire and brimstone” destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah and the other “evil” cities of the plain was caused by the nuclear weapons of the Gods in 2024 BC. A simultaneous nuclear strike destroyed the space centre in Sinai leaving the geological scar and blackened rocks which can still be seen today. The nuclear fall-out brought the Sumerian civilization to its knees c. 2000 BC.
- The “evil” of Sodom and Gomorrah was a change in allegiance to a “foreign” God, Marduk. Nuclear weapons were used against the space centre to prevent its capture by Marduk. The background to these events was Marduk’s ambition to assume “Lordship” at the city of Babylon.
- Abraham acted as a spy for his God. His reward was the Biblical “covenant” which promised prosperity to his bloodline.
- The “cave” where Lot and his daughters fled following the attack on Sodom and Gomorrah is nowadays known as “the Treasury” in Petra.
by Brad Steiger
December 21, 2007
from TheCanadian Website
Cataclysmic changes in the Earth’s crust.
I find myself now in the seventh decade of life still asking two questions that in one way or another the great majority of my 165 published books have sought to answer:
- Who are we as a species?
- What is our destiny?
The basic reason that I wrote Worlds Before Our Own (2007) is that I have always found it incredible that such sophisticated people as we judge ourselves to be, do not really know who we are.
Archaeologists, anthropologists, and various academicians who play the “origins of Man” game, reluctantly and only occasionally acknowledge instances where unique skeletal and cultural evidence from the prehistoric record suddenly appear long before they should – and in places where they should not.
These irritating artifacts destroy the orderly ‘evolutionary line’ that academia has for so long presented to the public.
Consequently, such data have been largely left buried in site reports, forgotten storage rooms, and dusty archives where one suspects that there is a great deal of suppressed, ignored, and misplaced pre-historical cultural evidence that would alter the established interpretations of human origins and provide us with a much clearer definition of what it means to be human.
There is now a basic academic consensus that the “homo” lineage goes back at least three million years, and that an ancestor of modern man evolved about one million years ago.
Homo Sapiens, the “thinking man,” (our own species), became the dominant planetary life form on a worldwide basis, about 40,000 years ago.
It is difficult enough to explain the sudden appearance of Homo Sapiens at that time, but it is an even more complex question to ponder why Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man correspondingly disappeared. And academic warfare rages unceasingly over whether or not Neanderthal and our ancestors were two separate species or whether they interbred.
And just as scientists are adding to a growing body of evidence that humankind developed in Africa,
- a Hungarian excavation surrenders a Homo Sapiens skull fragment in a context more than 600,000 years out of alignment with the accepted calendar of man’s migrations across the planet
- hominid fossils are unearthed in Dmanisi, Georgia, indicative of 1.77 million years old
- a hominid tooth found in Niocene deposits near the Maritsa River in Bulgaria is dated at seven million years old
What happens to Darwinian evolution when there are such sites as the one in Australia, which yielded,
- Homo Sapiens (modern man)
- Homo erectus (our million-year-old ancestor)
- Neanderthal (our Stone Age cousin),
…in what appears to be a contemporaneous environment?
Then there is the Tabun site where Homo Sapiens fragments were found in strata below (which means older than) classic Neanderthal bones.
In August 2007, scientists dating fossils found in Kenya challenged the conventional view that Homo Habilis (1.44 million years) and Homo erectus (1.55 million years) evolved one after the other. Dating of new fossil evidence revealed that the two species lived side by side in Africa for almost half a million years.
Somewhere, in what would appear to be a biological and cultural free-for-all, there must lie the answer to that most important question: Who are we?
But just as we are trying our best to fit skeletal fragments together in a manner that will be found acceptable to what we believe we know about our origins, footprints are being found in stone, which, if they are what they appear to be, will make a total shambles of our accepted evolutionary calendar.
In Pershing County, Nevada, a shoe print was found in Triassic limestone, strata indicative of 400 million years, in which the fossilized evidence clearly revealed finely wrought double-stitching in the seams.
Early in 1975, Dr. Stanley Rhine of the University of New Mexico announced his discovery of human-like footprints in strata indicative of 40 million years old. A few months before, a similar find was made in Kenton, Oklahoma. At almost the same time, a discovery of a footprint in stone was revealed in north-central Wisconsin.
In Death Valley, there is ample fossil and skeletal evidence to indicate that the desolate area was once a tropical Garden of Eden where a race of giants lived and fed themselves with palatable foods taken from the local lakes and forests.
To speak of a race of prehistoric giants in what is now the desert sands of Death Valley is simultaneously to refute the doctrine which decrees that man is a relative newcomer to the North and South American continents. While on the one hand, new radiocarbon dates demonstrate that the Bering Land Bridge and Cordilleran Ice Corridor were not passable until 9000 years ago, an increasing amount of physical evidence indicates that man was surely in this hemisphere much earlier than that recent date.
For one thing, corn, an American contribution to the dinner tables of the world, is said to be, at 9000 years, our oldest domesticated seed crop. Some agriculturist had to be in the Americas more than 9000 years ago in order to domesticate the seed.
Ancient squash seeds, peanuts, and cotton balls dated at 8,500 years old found in Peru’s Nanchoc Valley constitute additional evidence that New World farming was well established. Conclusive proof that such ancient farmers did exist in the Americas was offered when a Humble Oil Company drill brought up Mexican corn pollen that was more than 80,000 years old.
The anomalous Indian blood serration and dentition, and the geographic distribution of the American Indian, demands an impossible genetic time scale in which to transform Asiatic immigrants to distinctive New World inhabitants.
Even if we attempt to keep some kind of peace with the accepted theories of New World habitation, we must grant more evolution in 40,000 years in North America than that which took place in more than one million years in Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Skulls found in California, which are clearly those of American Indians, have been dated at 50,000 years old. But we are left with another mystery.
A 140,000 year old American Indian type skull (via metric analysis) has been found at an Iranian excavation site.
- What of the lost Amerindian civilization of Cahokia, complete with pyramids and a great wall? One site, near the present city of St. Louis, may have contained a metropolis of more than 250,000 North American Indians.
- And who constructed the mysterious seven-mile walls of the Berkeley and Oakland, California, hills?
- And which pre-Mayan peoples engineered an elaborate waterworks in Yucatan to irrigate crops over 2000 years ago?
The Caracol Tower at Chichen Itza is a remarkable Mesoamerican observatory that seems to have correlated its findings with similar sites in North America, including Mesa Verde, Wichita, and Chaco Canyon.
One of the most heretical theories that I suggest in Worlds Before Our Own is that the cradle of civilization might possibly have traveled from the so-called New World to the Old.
Now, in December 2007, years after Ruth Shady Solis found the ancient city of Caral, Peru, scientists have accepted the carbon dating of 2,627 B.C.E., thereby establishing the civilization in South America to be much older than the Harappa Valley towns and the pyramids of Egypt.
Caral must now be recognized as “the mother of all civilizations,” the missing link of archaeology, the Mother City.
Scientific knowledge has seemingly been prized by the inhabitants of every culture, known and unknown. Rock engravings, which may be as old as 60 million years, depict in step-by-step illustrations an entire heart-transplant operation and a Cesarean section. The ancient Egyptians used the equivalent of contraceptive jelly and had urine pregnancy tests. The cement used in filling Mayan dental cavities still holds after 1500 years.
No fabric is supposed to have been found until Egypt produced cloth material 5000 years ago. How, then, can we deal with the Russian site which provides spindle whorls and patterned fabric designs more than 80,000 years old?
Not only did the ancient Babylonians appear to use sulphur matches, but they had a technology sophisticated enough to employ complex electrochemical battery cells with wiring. There is also evidence of electric batteries and electrolysis in ancient Egypt, India, and Swahililand.
Remains of a metal-working factory of over 200 furnaces was found at what is now Medzamor in Russian Armenia. Although a temperature of over 1780 degrees is required to melt platinum, some pre-Incan peoples in Peru were making objects of the metal.
Even today the process of extracting aluminium from bauxite is a complicated procedure, but Zhou Chu, famous general of the Jin era (265-420 A.D.), was interred with aluminium belt fasteners on his burial costume.
Carved bones, chalk, stones, together with what would appear to be greatly ornamented ”coins,” have been brought up from great depths during well-drilling operations. A strange, imprinted slab was found in a coal mine. The artifact was decorated with diamond-shaped squares with the face of an old man in each ”box.”
In another coal-mine discovery, miners found smooth, polished concrete blocks which formed a solid wall. According to one miner’s testimony. he chipped one block open only to find the standard mixture of sand and cement that makes up most typical building blocks of today.
A gold necklace was found embedded in a lump of coal.
A metal spike was discovered in a silver mine in Peru. An iron implement was found in a Scottish coal-bed. Estimated to be millions of years older than man is believed to have existed. A metal, bell-shaped vessel, inlaid with a silver floral design was blasted out of solid rock near Dorchester, Massachusetts.
Two hypotheses may explain the presence of these perplexing artifacts:
- that they were manufactured by an advanced civilization on Earth which, due either to natural or technological catastrophe, was destroyed before our world’s own genesis
- that they are vestiges of a highly technological civilization of extraterrestrial origin, which visited this planet millions of years ago, leaving behind various artifacts
Even if a highly advanced extraterrestrial race might have visited this planet in prehistoric times, it seems unlikely such common, everyday items as nails, necklaces, buckles and vases would have been carried aboard a spacecraft deposited in such widely separated areas; for such artifacts have been found in North and South America, Great Britain, the whole of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Mid-East.
In spite of the general unpopularity of catastrophism, there does seem to be a number of recently discovered “proofs” of ancient cataclysmic changes in the Earth’s crust which may account for the nearly total disappearance of these prehistoric worlds. Geological evidence indicates that these changes were both sudden and drastic might have completely overwhelmed and destroyed the early inhabitants and their cultures.
Perhaps the most potentially mind-boggling evidence of an advanced prehistoric technology that might have blown its parent-culture away is to be found in those sites which ostensibly bear mute evidence of prehistoric nuclear warfare.
Large areas of fused green glass and vitrified cities have been found deep in the strata of archaeological digs at,
- Pierrelatte in Gabon, Africa
- the Euphrates Valley
- the Sahara Desert
- the Gobi Desert
- Iraq
- the Mojave Desert
- Scotland
- the Old and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt
- south-central Turkey
In contemporary times, such material as fused green glass has only been known at nuclear testing sites (where the sand had melted to form the substance). It is quite unsettling to some to consider it possible that these sites provide evidence of a prehistoric nuclear war.
At the same time, scientists have found a number of uranium deposits that appear to have been mined or depleted in antiquity.
If it is possible that nuclear annihilation of a global civilization did occur in prehistoric times, it seems even more urgent to learn who we really are before we find ourselves doomed to repeat the lessons left to us, by a world before our own.
Ancient Nuclear Blasts and Levitating Stones of Shivapur
by Alexander Pechersky
Translated by: Dmitry Sudakov
08/27/2004 10:56
from EnglishPravda Website
The great ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, contains numerous legends about the powerful force of a mysterious weapon
The archaeological expedition, which carried out excavations near the Indian settlement of Mohenjo-Daro in the beginning of the 1900s, uncovered the ruins of a big ancient town. The town belonged to one of the most developed civilizations in the world. The ancient civilization existed for two or three thousand years. However, scientists were a lot more interested in the death of the town, rather than in its prosperity.
Researchers tried to explain the reason of the town’s destruction with various theories. However, scientists did not find any indications of a monstrous flood, skeletons were not numerous, there were no fragments of weapons, or anything else that could testify either to a natural disaster or a war. Archaeologists were perplexed: according to their analysis the catastrophe in the town had occurred very unexpectedly and it did hot last long.
Scientists Davneport and Vincenti put forward an amazing theory. They stated the ancient town had been ruined with a nuclear blast. They found big stratums of clay and green glass. Apparently, archaeologists supposed, high temperature melted clay and sand and they hardened immediately afterwards. Similar stratums of green glass can also found in Nevada deserts after every nuclear explosion.
A hundred years have passed since the excavations in Mohenjo-Daro. The modern analysis showed, the fragments of the ancient town had been melted with extremely high temperature – not less than 1,500 degrees centigrade. Researchers also found the strictly outlined epicenter, where all houses were leveled. Destructions lessened towards the outskirts. Dozens of skeletons were found in the area of Mohenjo-Daro – their radioactivity exceeded the norm almost 50 times.
The great ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, contains numerous legends about the powerful force of a mysterious weapon. One of the chapters tells of a shell, which sparkled like fire, but had no smoke.
“When the shell hit the ground, the darkness covered the sky, twisters and storms leveled the towns. A horrible blast burnt thousands of animals and people to ashes. Peasants, townspeople and warriors dived in the river to wash away the poisonous dust.”
Astounding mysteries of India’s ancient times can be found in the town of Shivapur. There are two enigmatic stones resting opposite the local shrine. One of them weighs 55 kilograms, the other one is 41 kilograms. If eleven men touch the bigger stone, and nine men touch the smaller stone, if they all chant the magic phrase, which is carved on one of the walls of the shrine, the two stones will raise two meters up in the air and will hang there for two seconds, as if there is no gravitation at all. A lot of European and Asian scientists and researchers have studied the phenomenon of levitating stones of Shivapur.
Modern people divide the day into 24 hours, the hour – into 60 minutes, the minute – into 60 seconds. Ancient Hindus divided the day in 60 periods, lasting 24 minutes each, and so on and so forth. The shortest time period of ancient Hindus made up one-three-hundred-millionth of a second.
by Philip Coppens
January 2005
from PhilipCoppens Website
recovered through WayBackMachine Website
| Are the Indian remains of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, their sudden abandonment and the apparent discovery of an ancient site with a layer of radioactive ash the best available evidence for the possibility that our ancient ancestors possessed a highly advanced technology – which might have included atomic warfare? |
Did an ancient advanced civilization exist on Earth?
The question is very intriguing and the search for “evidence” to support a positive answer has intrigued Mankind for many decades – if not centuries. Many possibilities have been put forward, from outright statements that Atlantis was a high tech civilization, to the possibility that the Nazca lines might be a prehistoric airport.
Rather than an accumulation of various items of evidence that is then subjected to the possibility that it might be either alien or advanced, it is more scientific – and perhaps better- to focus on the quest for the “best evidence”: a single piece of evidence that in itself is the best example to support a conclusion.
In the search for an advanced ancient civilization, what would be this “best evidence”?
One possible item that would classify as “best evidence” exists within the Indus River Valley, where towns such as Harappa and Mohenjo Daro flourished in 3000 BC. The question is why these cities were abandoned. And one answer that has been put forward is that the ancient cities might have been irradiated by an atomic blast.
If true, it would be impossible to ignore the conclusion that ancient civilization possessed high technology.
The ruins of Harappa
The story begins when a layer of radioactive ash was found in Rajasthan, India.
It covered a three-square mile area, ten miles west of Jodhpur. The research occurred after a very high rate of birth defects and cancer was discovered in the area.
The levels of radiation registered so high on investigators’ gauges that the Indian government cordoned off the region. Scientists then apparently unearthed an ancient city where they found evidence of an atomic blast dating back thousands of years: from 8,000 to 12,000 years.
The blast was said to have destroyed most of the buildings and probably a half-million people.
Archeologist Francis Taylor stated that etchings in some nearby temples he translated suggested that they prayed to be spared from the great light that was coming to lay ruin to the city.
“It’s so mind-boggling to imagine that some civilization had nuclear technology before we did. The radioactive ash adds credibility to the ancient Indian records that describe atomic warfare.”
When excavations of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro reached the street level, they discovered skeletons scattered about the cities, many holding hands and sprawling in the streets as if some instant, horrible doom had taken place.
People were just lying, unburied, in the streets of the city. And these skeletons are thousands of years old, even by traditional archaeological standards.
What could cause such a thing? Why did the bodies not decay or get eaten by wild animals?
Furthermore, there is no apparent cause of a physically violent death.
A. Gorbovsky, in Riddles of Ancient History, reported the discovery of at least one human skeleton in this area with a level of radioactivity approximately 50 times greater than it should have been due to natural radiation.
Furthermore, thousands of fused lumps, christened “black stones”, have been found at Mohenjo-Daro. These appear to be fragments of clay vessels that melted together in extreme heat.
Another curious sign of an ancient nuclear war in India is a giant crater near Bombay. The nearly circular 2,154-metre-diameter Lonar crater (left image), located 400 kilometers northeast of Bombay and aged at less than 50,000 years old, could be related to nuclear warfare of antiquity.
No trace of any meteoric material, etc., has been found at the site or in the vicinity, and this is the world’s only known “impact” crater in basalt. Indications of great shock (from a pressure exceeding 600,000 atmospheres) and intense, abrupt heat (indicated by basalt glass spherules) can be ascertained from the site.
With the apparent discovery of this radiated area, parallels were quick drawn to the Mahabharata, the Indian epic.
It reads:
… (it was) a single projectile
Charged with all the power of the Universe.
An incandescent column of smoke and flame
As bright as the thousand suns
Rose in all its splendor…
…it was an unknown weapon,
An iron thunderbolt,
A gigantic messenger of death,
Which reduced to ashes
The entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.
…The corpses were so burned
As to be unrecognizable.
The hair and nails fell out;
Pottery broke without apparent cause,
And the birds turned white.
After a few hours
All foodstuffs were infected…
….to escape from this fire
The soldiers threw themselves in streams
To wash themselves and their equipment.
Whereas the story of the Mahabharata is indirect evidence, the other discoveries in India pose serious problems for those trying to deny the possibility that this might indeed be evidence of ancient atomic warfare.
Whereas believing in the existence of Atlantis or a highly advanced civilization that might not have left any trace is one thing, to suggest that our ancestors might have wiped themselves out along the same lines we almost did, but only fifty years ago, is a major paradigm shift.
Some skeptics thus stated:
“I am sick and tired of hearing this, and I cannot find any debunks of this either. Anyone who can debunk this, or is this really true?”
That is indeed the question… and an important one. The stakes are high, as one would expect when facing with the best evidence.
Lonar crater
So, let us discover what might be the best evidence.
The first question is whether a Francis Taylor existed. There is a Francis Taylor, an American museum director, who died in 1957. He was not an archaeologist. There is a “Francisco Taylor”, but he is not the above quoted Francis Taylor.
Not a good start. Skeptics have also wondered whether the ancient atomic warfare is not a modern invention, to deflect attention from a serious – modern – atomic contamination. In 1998, it was reported that an Indian power stations had some major problems. One had an incident in which 2000 workers became exposed to excess radiation, 300 of which had to be hospitalized.
Surendra Gadekar also investigated the conditions of villagers at Rawatbhatta in Rajasthan and discovered gross radiation-related deformities.
We note that Rawatbhatta is in the same region as the discovery of the “ancient warfare” site. But Gadekar did not find evidence of ancient warfare, but evidence of modern negligence: wood that had been used in the power plant, had then “somehow” made his way into society, where it was subsequently used as wood for a fire.
This in itself was a minor incident, but could there have been more serious incidents, whereby it was decided to deflect attention from the present to the ancient past?
We thus find that there no newspapers carried the story of the discovery. The Indian archaeological authorities are not aware of the story. And there is a government laboratory in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.
Might something have gone wrong in the latter?
The nuclear facility at Rawatbhatta
With the above objections, the case for the best evidence has become more controversial than a clean-cut case.
But in a case such as an ancient high tech civilization, this should not come as a surprise. Rome was not built in one day, and arguing for or against the case of an ancient highly advanced civilization will not take any less time.
There should also not be a rush to judgment: the case for ancient warfare in India is currently better than any contradictory evidence.
The bodies of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro remain a mystery, whether or not the other radioactive site turns out to be modern or ancient. The anomalous crater adds power to the possibility. Finally, the fact that all these enigmas are within one general region (as opposed to scattered across the world) adds further weight to the case… but then this should be expected if we might consider this case to be the best evidence.
The problem of the “best evidence” is often that it sounds too good to be true. That is either because it is, or because it is indeed the “best evidence”.
And only careful analysis of the evidence will reveal what it is…
CHAPTER TEN
NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE 2024 BC
Sumer’s Sudden Downfall
The mysterious beginning of civilization in Sumer, nearly six thousand years ago, was matched by its equally sudden and mysterious demise.
The circumstances behind this demise are generally brushed over by the general history books. They tell us that this magnificent civilization beget a rival in the neighbouring and equally mysterious Akkadian empire, and that around 2000 BC both the Sumerians and the Akkadians disappeared for no particular reason.
We are then told that two new civilizations, the Babylonians and the Assyrians, arose as if from nowhere to dominate Mesopotamia. With this huge over-simplification, the matter is left to rest. And yet a mass of evidence does exist, describing the downfall of Sumer, so why does this evidence not appear in the history books?
The answer is that the nature of the final disaster which struck the Sumerians mystified them as much as it mystifies scholars today. The Sumerians’ description of the disaster is so strange that it is conveniently regarded as mythology and brushed to one side. It is archaeological fact, however, that Sumer’s demise came suddenly. In 1985, Zecharia Sitchin put forward a credible scenario for the use of nuclear weapons to the west of Sumer, at a date which coincided with its mysterious downfall.
We will deal with that scenario in due course, but meanwhile let us consider Sitchin’s claim that the Sumerians were decimated by the nuclear fall-out. The evidence is contained in various texts, known as “lamentations” over the destruction of various Sumerian cities.
The following translations have been published by the foremost expert on Sumer, Professor Samuel Kramer.
On the land [Sumer] fell a calamity, one unknown to man;
one that had never been seen before,
one which could not be withstood.
A great storm from heaven…
A land-annihilating storm…
An evil wind, like a rushing torrent…
A battling storm joined by a scorching heat…
By day it deprived the land of thebright sun, in the evening the stars did not shine…
The people, terrified, could hardly breathe;
the evil wind clutched them, does not grant them another day…
Mouths were drenched with blood, heads wallowed in blood…
The face was made pale by the Evil Wind.
It caused cities to be desolated, houses to become desolate;
stalls to become desolate, the sheepfolds to be emptied…
Sumer’s rivers it made flow with water that is bitter;
its cultivated fields grow weeds, its pastures grow withering plants.
The nature of the disaster was such that even the Gods were powerless to resist it. A tablet named The Uruk Lament states:
Thus all its Gods evacuated Uruk; they kept away from it; they hid in the mountains, they escaped to the distant plains.
In another text, named The Eridu Lament, Enki and his wife Ninki also fled their city of Eridu:
Ninki its great lady, flying like a bird, left her city… Father Enki stayed outside the city… For the fate of his harmed city he wept with bitter tears.
Numerous Sumerian lamentation tablets have been found and translated in the last hundred years, covering Uruk, Eridu, Ur and Nippur. These tablets suggest that all of the cities simultaneously experienced the same phenomenon. However, there is no mention of warfare – a subject with which the Sumerian chroniclers were quite familiar. On the contrary, the disaster appeared not as a destruction but as a desolation.
One scholar, Thorkild Jacobsen, concluded that Sumer had been struck not by invaders, but by “dire catastrophe” which was “really quite puzzling”. As cited above, what struck the Sumerian cities was an “evil wind” that brought death like an invisible “ghost” that had “never been seen before”.
No wonder that nuclear fall-out has been suggested as the cause. What are the alternatives? Could it simply have been an unprecedented killer disease? Whilst this must remain as a possibility, the Sumerians’ detailed descriptions of water turning bitter, people retching blood, and the effect on animals as well as humans, suggest that this was not any type of disease known to us today. Furthermore, several lamentation texts, such as the one cited above, refer to a “storm” which accompanied the invisible “ghost”.
Those who have experienced the unseen radioactive fall-out of a nuclear explosion could surely find no better terms to describe it. Let us now review the evidence of that explosion.
Sodom and Gomorrah The Biblical tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone is familiar to most of us.
But how many of us take it literally? Like many other important events in human history, the story has been relegated to “myth” or religious symbolism.
However, the Biblical account in Genesis 18-19 describes a premeditated, controllable act, by a God who did not differentiate between the people and the vegetation of the plain. This was a real event, as evidenced by the description of dense smoke rising from the land the following morning.
If we accept the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as an eye witness account, there occurred an explosion so powerful that it can be compared to the use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. This story is treated as myth because our paradigms do not allow the existence of nuclear weapons four thousand years ago. It is also tempting to dismiss the tale on account of the reference to Lot’ s wife, who turned back and became “a pillar of salt”.
However, it does not sound so ridiculous when we learn that several studies have suggested the term “salt” to be a mistranslation. If we were able to read an original Sumerian version of the event, we would find the word NIMUR, meaning both salt and vapour.
Thus Lot’s wife may have become “a pillar of vapour”. Several ancient texts have now been discovered, paralleling the Biblical narrative, but predating it. These accounts provide additional background details which are lacking in the Old Testament.
One of the earliest Sumerian texts clearly parallels the Biblical destruction of the evil cities by fire and brimstone:
Lord, bearer of the Scorcher that burnt up the adversary;
who obliterated the disobedient land;
who withered the life of the Evil Word’s followers;
who rained stones and fire upon the adversaries.
Who were the “disobedient adversaries”, and what was the “Evil Word” that they followed?
The full significance of the Sodom and Gomorrah incident was revealed in a detailed study by Zecharia Sitchin in 1985. The background to Sodom and Gomorrah was a heated argument concerning the right of the God Marduk to return to his city, Babylon, and assume supremacy over the Gods.
Whilst Marduk’s father, Enki, defended the rights of his first-born son, the other Gods were bitterly opposed, for reasons which will become clear in due course. One God, named Erra, vowed to use force against Marduk.
A long text known as the Erra Epic, describes what happened next, as a furious Erra exited from the council of Gods with a defiant promise:
“The lands I will destroy, to a dust-heap make them; the cities I will upheaval, to desolation turn them; the mountains I will flatten, their animals make disappear; the seas I will agitate, that which teems in them I will decimate; the people I will make vanish, their souls shall turn to vapour; none shall be spared…”
The Gods, locked in dispute, asked Anu to resolve the conflict.
Anu agreed to the use of seven powerful weapons to attack Marduk, but Gibil, a brother of Marduk, warned him of Erra’s plan:
“Those seven, in the mountain they abide, in a cavity inside the earth they dwell.
From this place with a brilliance they will rush forth, from Earth to Heaven, clad with terror.”
A God named Ishum, meaning “Scorcher”, was then appointed to join Erra in the Lower World (Africa) to prime the weapons and deliver them to their targets.
Zecharia Sitchin has identified this God as Ninurta. As the son of Enlil by his half-sister Ninharsag, Ninurta was the direct rival of Marduk, the son of Enki.
As for Erra, there is little doubt that this God was Nergal, a God who was often referred to in ancient texts as the “raging king”, “the violent one” and pointedly “the one who burns”, a God of war and hunting and a bringer of pestilence. It was Erra/Nergal, an embittered and jealous brother of Marduk, who assumed the most aggressive role, vowing to destroy not only Marduk and his supporters, but also his son Nabu.
Erra suggested that the weapons be used against the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah where Marduk and his son Nabu were thought to be hiding, and, for reasons which will later become clear, against the Sinai space centre itself:
“From city to city an emissary [weapon] I will send; the son, seed of his father, shall not escape; his mother shall cease her laughter… To the place of the Gods, access he shall not have; the place from where the Great Ones ascend I shall upheaval.”
Ninurta tried to calm Erra with words almost identical to those used by Abraham to God in the Biblical account:
“Valiant Erra, will you the righteous destroy with the unrighteous? Will you destroy those who have against you sinned together with those who against you have not sinned?”
Having agreed on a plan, the two Gods then carried out the devastating attack, Ishum to the space centre and Erra to Sodom and Gomorrah:
Ishum to Mount Most Supreme set his course; the awesome seven, without parallel, trailed behind him.
At the Mount Most Supreme the hero arrived; he raised his hand the Mount was smashed.
The plain by the Mount Most Supreme he then obliterated; in its forests not a tree stem was left standing.
Then, emulating Ishum, Erra the King’s Highway followed. The cities he finished off, to desolation he overturned
them. In the mountains he caused starvation, their animals he made perish.
The “Khedorlaomer Texts” confirm the details of the Erra Epic and summarize the destruction:
He who scorches with fire, and he of the evil wind, together performed their evil. The two made the Gods flee, made them flee the scorching. That which was raised towards Anu to launch they caused to wither: its face they made fade away, its place they made desolate.
According to the Erra Epic, the attack by Erra not only destroyed the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah but also created the Dead Sea as we know it today:
He dug through the sea, its wholeness he divided. That which lives in it, even the crocodiles, he made wither, as with fire he scorched the animals, banned its grains to become as dust.
Did crocodiles once live in the Dead Sea? It is no coincidence that nine hundred years earlier Gilgamesh was warned not to let his hand touch the “waters of death”, as his boat approached the far western shore of the “Sea of the Waters of Death”.
In modern times it is known as the Dead Sea for a different reason because its concentration of salt is so high that marine life cannot live in it.
Geographical Evidence
Where did the events of Sodom and Gomorrah take place?
The Bible clearly identifies the Valley of Siddim with the Salt Sea, suggesting that there had once been a valley where the waters now lie.” Modern reference books state that the destroyed cities were indeed once situated in the area of the Dead Sea, drawing this conclusion from Greek and Roman historians, who stated that the valley was inundated after the event.
It is no coincidence that the name Gomorrah came to mean “submersion” in the Hebrew language, nor that the Bible refers to the Salt Sea as the Sea of the Arabah, the latter term in Hebrew meaning “dry or burnt up”, and thus commemorating the attack.?’ Can all of these sources be wrong?
More specifically, scholars locate the evil cities in the southern part of the Dead Sea, which to this day is called “Lot’s Sea”, commemorating the man who was allowed to escape the disaster. The Bible provides a number of further clues which pinpoint the exact location: references to salt, bitumen and tar Pits all fit the southern part of the Dead Sea. First, this area still remains, in places, a flat salt marsh.
And secondly, to this day, lumps of bitumen still float to the surface of the Dead Sea, which for this reason was called Lake Asphaltites in ancient times. In addition, the south-east shore of the Dead Sea is indeed “well-watered” and rich in vegetation, in accordance with the Biblical description. What physical evidence might prove that a nuclear explosion occurred at the Dead Sea in ancient times?
The geology of the Dead Sea is unusual. It is divided into two parts by a large peninsula called the Lisan (“the Tongue”), which reaches to within two miles of the western shore. North of the Lisan, the Dead Sea is up to 1,310 feet deep, the lowest landlocked point on Earth.
To the south, in complete contrast, the waters are shallow, from only three to fifteen feet deep. Could this unusual geological feature be attributed to an explosion which breached the original Lisan and caused the previously dry “valley of the fields” to become submerged under water? To this day, unnatural levels of radioactivity are found in the water of springs around the southernmost edges of the Dead Sea.
One study confirmed that this radioactivity was sufficiently high to “induce sterility and allied afflictions in any animals and humans that absorbed it over a number of years”. Further evidence of an explosion is being revealed by the falling level of the Dead Sea, which has in recent years dropped from 1,280 feet to 1,340 feet below sea level?
The shrinkage of its surface area has exposed bizarre fissures, described by one observer as “almost architecturally articulated rock fissures”. What about the high salt concentration, more than five times the normal level? This is actually caused by the absence of any outlet from the Dead Sea other than by evaporation.
The 6.5 million tons of fresh water which pour in every day from the Jordan River erode natural salt from the Dead Sea floor, which cannot evaporate, and this increases the salt concentration. But here is a strange fact. In October 1993, it was announced that Israeli and German scientists would attempt to take samples of sediments from beneath the Dead Sea, using the latest drilling technology.
Previous attempts had failed due to an extremely hard layer of rock salt, only a few feet beneath the bottom of the Sea!” What unnatural event could have formed a crust of rock salt so hard that modern technology struggled to penetrate it?
Now let us move south to an even more dramatic proof of ancient nuclear weapons. Zecharia Sitchin has highlighted an enormous geological scar on the Sinai peninsula, exactly where the space centre of the Gods ought to be. This scar is visible from high above the Earth, appearing as a mysterious white patch.
Following up on Sitchin’s claim, I obtained a close-up satellite photo of the scar, showing an area 112 by 112 miles – Plate 44.
Whilst the thousands of tiny lines are wadis (dry riverbeds), no scientific explanation of the bright scar (situated bottom, left of centre) has ever been forthcoming.
Furthermore, in the eastern Sinai, millions of blackened stones are found strewn for tens of miles.
These stones are, without any doubt, unnatural. The expeditions to the Sinai by Nelson Glueck in the 1950s highlighted the existence of numerous blackened rocks, scattered across the landscape.
These rocks have more recently come to the attention of Emmanuel Anati, who was attracted to the region by his interest in rock art.
Following his first expedition in 1955, Anati carried out several field trips to the site of Har Karkom (Jebel Ideid), a sacred mountain from the third millennium BC. Anati’s book, The Mountain of God, shows many boulders, several feet in diameter, on which ancient travellers have etched various signs and symbols (Plate 45). Anati’s photographs clearly demonstrate that the rocks are blackened only on the surface.
Emmanuel Anati also describes the large mountain plateau of Har Karkom as covered in an expanse of black stone fragments, known as “hamada”. In some places, the hamada has been cleared in ancient times to form so-called “hut circles”. Again, Anati’s photographs (Plate 46) demonstrate that the blackened stones are a thin surface layer.
The ground beneath is a hard light-brown coloured surface, which from the air reflects the sunlight to create the appearance of bright white patches. What do the geologists have to say about the blackened rocks in the Sinai? They admit that they resemble volcanic rock, and yet this cannot be so, since there are no volcanoes anywhere near the Sinai. These stones are an anomaly – an impossibility that cannot be explained by conventional science.
Due to the perceived “impossibility” of nuclear weapons four thousand years ago, the debate goes no further. But it cannot be denied that the black, charred rocks are there in the Sinai, as is the enormous scar. The only possible explanation is that provided by Zecharia Sitchin – an unnatural explosion. In this context, everything begins to make sense.
The incontrovertible physical evidence not only confirms the reliability of the Erra Epic, but also the reliability of all the other evidence in chapter 8 which identified the Sinai as the geographic location of the space centre !
Chronologically, the destruction of the space centre, Sodom and Gomorrah and the fall of Sumer can all be tied together c. 2000 BC (the era of Abraham). The Sumerian lamentation texts clearly link the “evil wind” to the events in Sinai, by their references to “a great storm directed from Anu”, a “storm in a flash of lightning created” and by stating “in the west it was spawned”.
The Dead Sea and the space centre in Sinai are indeed located to the west of Sumer. Other references pinpoint the Sinai specifically:
“from the midst of the mountains it had descended upon the land, from the Plain of No Pity it hath come”.
It only remains to offer a convincing explanation of why the Gods permitted such extreme force to be used.
In order to understand the full story of how the Gods decided to sabotage their own space facilities, we must begin with the Tower of Babel incident in which the God Marduk attempted to rebuild his pre-Flood city in Sumer.
The Tower of Babel
I have, in earlier chapters, described the succession rules of the Gods, which caused such deep resentment between the two brothers Enki and Enlil, and consequently between their respective descendants. Prior to the Flood, this resentment appears not to have broken out into open conflict.
After the Flood, however, when the Earth was redivided, territorial disputes arose to prompt a bitter war of the Gods, the evidence for which we have seen at the Great Pyramid and Jebel Barkal. As a result of that war, supremacy among the Gods lay with Enlil and particularly his firstborn son Ninurta. In due course, when the flooding had subsided sufficiently from the Tigris-Euphrates plains, the Gods decided to re establish there the olden cities in their original locations.
But this territory was now assigned to the Enlilite Gods. Of the Enkiites, only Enki himself, by prior agreement, was allowed to rebuild his pre-Flood city (Eridu). Marduk’s pleas to rebuild his pre-Flood city of Babylon were met with no sympathy whatsoever.
It would appear that the Biblical account of the Tower of Babel has its roots in this conflict. Marduk, as the chief God of Babylon in later times, is the likely perpetrator, but what was the nature of the “Tower”?
Remembering (from chapter 6), that a shem means “sky vehicle” rather than “name”, let us re-examine what Marduk’s supporters were up to, by correcting the translation of the Biblical account:
“Come let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a shem for ourselves.”
It now becomes apparent that Marduk’s plans were both ambitious and controversial. Furthermore, Zecharia Sitchin has highlighted the existence of an Akkadian text, which parallels the Bible’s account of what happened next.
Various clues in that text confirm that Marduk was the rebel, whilst the most telling verse identifies the Biblical “God” as Enlil, who:
To their stronghold tower, in the night,
a complete end he made.
In his anger, a command he also poured out:
to scatter abroad was his decision.
He gave a command their counsels to confuse.
… their course he stopped.
It is not at all clear whether the languages of mankind were actually changed during this incident, but the Akkadian tale does confirm that Marduk’s people were indeed scattered.
However, in contrast to general perceptions of the Biblical account, the Tower of Babel must be seen here as a fairly localized incident, which only affected one relatively small group of people. What was the chronology of the Tower of Babel incident?
Zecharia Sitchin dates it shortly prior to Marduk’s return to his Egyptian homelands, where he was known by the name Ra. The latter event can be dated very roughly to around 3450 BC, the time when Egypt entered 350 years of chaos prior to the beginning of its civilization c. 3100 BC. The incident at Babylon would certainly not have been any earlier than that of the first Sumerian cities of Eridu and Nippur. Thus we can place it with some confidence between 3800-3450 BC.
Following the war of the Gods, in which Marduk led the Enkiite forces, a condition of the peace treaty was that his pacifist brother, Thoth, be placed in charge of Egypt. By now, however, Thoth had long stepped down, allowing various other Gods and demi-Gods to rule the land.
The opportunity existed for an embittered Marduk to return to Egypt and vent his frustration. It is highly likely that Marduk/Ra’s return to Egypt coincided with the death of Dumuzi, whose tragic tale was related in chapter 6. If Marduk assumed power in Egypt at that time, he was doing so in defiance of the peace treaty, and his authority was arguably illegal. We can now begin to understand why Dumuzi’s accidental death resulted in such a harsh punishment for Marduk.
It would seem that, following his escape from the Pyramid, Marduk went into a self-imposed exile as Amen (“the Hidden One”) to his supporters and persona non grata to his enemies. His principal enemy was Inanna, who, as a result of her husband Dumuzi’s death, had turned from a Goddess of love to a Goddess of war, with a bitter hatred of Marduk. Inanna had always had ambitions, but now those ambitions were intensified.
As described in chapter 6, she was not satisfied with her dominion over the new Indus Valley civilization, nor with her low-ranking Sumerian city of Uruk. In approximately 2350 BC, her powerful ambitions were fulfilled. Armed with the enigmatic “MEs” which she had dispossessed from Enki, she found a man whom she named Sharru-kin (“Righteous Ruler”).
This man, known to us as Sargon, was the founder of the Akkadian empire and its capital city Agade.
As Inanna strove to build a powerful new kingdom in Mesopotamia, Marduk could only watch from the sidelines with growing frustration. Convinced of his own innocence, and angry at the refusal of the Gods to permit his city to be rebuilt at Babylon, he consoled himself with the belief that a “destiny-determining time” would come, when he would return to Babylon, overturn Inanna’s supremacy, and claim Lordship over the Gods.
As we shall see in the next chapter, this “destiny determining time” was not a whimsical dream but a scientific reality. And the timing of the Akkadian empire can thus be seen as a deliberate attempt by Inanna to counter the ambitions of her arch enemy.
Inanna’s Conquests
Circa 2350 BC, Sargon, assisted by Inanna, began to build a mighty empire throughout Mesopotamia.
In so doing, he took great care not to alienate the other Gods of the Near East. Initially, his conquests avoided Enlil’s city of Nippur, Ninurta’s city of Lagash, the disputed site of Babylon and the strategic sites of the Gods at Jerusalem and Baalbek.
Then, in his old age, he made the fatal mistake of removing “sacred soil” from Babylon to somehow “legitimise” Inanna’s city of Agade. It would seem that this sacrilegious act prompted Marduk’s return to Babylon. The ancient texts state that Marduk destroyed Sargon’s people by hunger, and afflicted Sargon himself with a “restlessness” that led to his death after a reign of 54 years.
Reassembling his scattered people, Marduk rebuilt Babylon and, according to the ancient texts, constructed a sophisticated waterworks system. This is an interesting detail, since the site of eighteenth century BC Babylon does indeed lie underneath the present-day water table, preventing its excavation. It is my view that Marduk avoided this flooding by pumping water out of Babylon into the surrounding areas.
The surrounding cities quickly grew reliant upon these fresh supplies of water from Babylon, since the average rainfall in
Babylonia has been negligible since time immemorial. Indeed, without irrigation canals and the flooding of the rivers, Babylonia would have been a barren desert. Marduk’s supporters continued to fight fierce battles with Sargon’s successors, and the council of Gods, in a bid to avoid further armed confrontation, sent Nergal, a brother of Marduk, to persuade him to leave Babylon.
Nergal provided Marduk with convincing evidence that his “destiny-determining time” had not yet come.”
Marduk eventually agreed to leave, but on the condition that no-one interfered with Babylon’s waterworks system:
“On the day I step off my seat,
the flooding shall from its well cease to work…
The waters shall not rise…
the bright day to darkness [shall turn]…Confusion shall arise…
the winds of draught shall howl…sicknesses shall spread.”
After Marduk’s departure, Nergal entered the secret chambers of Babylon and, in a surprising act of animosity, upset the precious waterworks.
As forewarned, there was a serious drought in the surrounding cities. Nergal ended up being severely chastised by the elder Gods.
Around 2250 BC, following Marduk’s departure from Babylon, and the ensuing drought, Inanna once again decided to flex her muscles – this time with the grandson of Sargon, called Naram-Sin. His name clearly indicates that Inanna had won the support of her uncle, the God Nannar/Sin. This time it would seem that Inanna was determined to see just how far she could extend her powers.
The Mesopotamian texts provide a long list of Naram Sin’s conquests, including Jericho, Baalbek, Dilmun-land (Sinai) and finally Egypt.
Is there any historic corroboration of Naram-Sin’s conquests? Archaeology has confirmed that the era of Jericho in the third millennium BC ended in destruction. The attack upon Baalbek, where Inanna reportedly burned down its gates and held its defenders under siege, could well explain the abandoned quarry work which can still be seen at the site today – a feature that no-one has ever ventured to explain.
In Egypt too, an incursion by foreigners is confirmed at this time in history by a long poem known as “the Admonitions of Ipuwer”. As for Naram-Sin’s alleged conquest of the Sinai space centre, could this incident be the one commemorated on the famous stele of Naram-Sin, now on display at the Louvre museum in Paris.
The central feature in Plate 51, which many believe to be a mountain, looks more like the rockets with which Dilmun land was associated.
The horned tiara, worn by the victorious Naram-Sin, was a symbol of the Gods, and suggests that this was a victory in the most sacred region where Gods alone were allowed to rule.
It would seem, however, that Naram-Sin made one conquest too many. Whether it was the space centre, the Enkiite territories or both, we cannot be sure, but the council of the Gods decided to arrest Inanna and put an end to her aggrandizement.
A Sumerian poem known as The Curse of Agade relates that Inanna fled from her city Agade.
The Gods then stripped the city of its powers, possibly including some of the “MEs” stolen from Enki:
“The crownband of lordship,
the tiara of kingship,
the throne given to rulership,
Ninurta brought over to his temple;
Utu carried off the city’s “Eloquence”;
Enki withdrew its “Wisdom”.
Its Awesomeness that could reach the Heaven,
Anu brought up to the midst of Heaven.”
The texts state that Marduk’s brother Nergal had also assisted the conquests of Naram-Sin, and thus acted in an unlikely alliance with Inanna to prevent Marduk’s return. We can only guess at the reasons for this brotherly enmity.
Shortly afterwards, Inanna and Nergal staged a major revolt against the authority of the elder Gods, a revolt which ended in failure and the catastrophic destruction of Agade. The Curse of Agade blames the destruction of Agade on Naram-Sin, who allegedly attacked Enlil’s city, Nippur, desecrating its sacred Ekur.
We know from a Sumerian poem entitled Hymn to Enlil that this Ekur was the resting place for “a fast stepping bird” from whose “grasp no-one can escape”, and the spot from where he could “raise the beams that search the heart of all the lands”. The attack was thus not just a symbolic insult to the highest God on Earth, but also a physical disabling of his powers.
According to The Curse of Agade, the Gods wiped Agade from the face of the Earth. The hordes of Guti were then ordered by Enlil to leave their homelands in the Zagros Mountains and subjugate Inanna’s supporters. The Akkadian empire disintegrated and the central administration fell into a state of anarchy. Did the Gods really have a hand in this?
It is a fact that Agade is one of the few ancient Mesopotamian cities whose location has never been discovered by the archaeologists, whilst historians are puzzled at the fall of such a mighty empire which collapsed c. 2200 BC as suddenly as it had once begun.
Battles of the Kings
The Guti occupied Mesopotamia for around a century, but left little trace of their culture.
Meanwhile, between 2200-2100 BC, several Sumerian and Elamite cities declared their independence, and entered a new era of prosperity that would prove to be their swansong.
The Elamite state of Ninurta was first to emerge as a dominant force, centered on its capital city of Susa in south-east Mesopotamia. Its powerful defenses and highly-trained army had enabled it to escape conquest by military alliance with Naram-Sin. However, after Naram-Sin’s death, its ruler Puzur-Inshushinak declared independence and, to emphasize the point, assumed the title “King of the Universe”.
The Sumerian renaissance began at Lagash, whose famous ruler, Gudea, reigned early in the 22nd century BC. This king embarked on a massive programme of temple restoration, and took Sumerian culture to new heights. Lagash, however, was destined to remain a religious centre, with no aspirations for political control over a new Sumerian empire. Shortly afterwards, the city of Ur arose as the new Sumerian capital.
The famous (and final) Third Dynasty of Ur took Sumerian achievements to new heights in art, foreign trade and temple-building. The God in charge was Nannar/Sin, a move perhaps aimed at keeping his niece Inanna in check. We now enter a period where historic dates can be established with a high degree of accuracy.
Ur’s first ruler Ur-Nammu is generally dated to c. 2112 BC.56 Ur-Nammu instigated a new legal and moral code, and began a restoration programme throughout Sumer which returned the temples of the Gods, including the Ekur at Nippur, to their former glories. Not only the temples had to be restored but also the trust of the people in their Gods.
After two hundred years of chaos, the people of Mesopotamia had become independent and unruly. Sumerian texts record that Ur-Nammu was given a remit by Enlil to bring these rebellious city states to heel.
Unfortunately, just as the Sumerians began to find new faith in their Gods, disaster struck again. Their king, Ur-Nammu, fell from his chariot in the middle of battle, and was “abandoned on the battlefield like a crushed vessel”. The new ruler of Ur, c. 2094-2047 BC, was named Shulgi.
Towards the end of his reign we see the first signs of trouble for the last Sumerian dynasty. Shulgi became engaged in a series of battles to put down uprisings in the outer provinces, c. 2054-2047 BC. In order to strengthen his position, he obtained by the marriage of his daughter, an alliance with the Elamites. In exchange for control of the city of Larsa, Shulgi engaged the services of the notorious Elamite troops as a kind of foreign legion under the command of Khedorlaomer.
Where was Marduk at this time?
According to Zecharia Sitchin’s chronology, in 2048 BC Marduk was about to enter the land of Hatti (the land of the Hittites in Anatolia) where he would rest for 24 years, awaiting a “favourable omen” for his return to Babylon.
The presence of an Egyptian God in Anatolia at this time is indeed confirmed by the archaeological record. At the site of Alaca Huyuk (an important city dating to at least 2500 BC) the entrance to the city was found to be flanked by Egyptian-style sphinxes, dating to around 2000 BC.
After Shulgi’s death c. 2047 BC, his son Amar-Sin faced a continuing struggle to assert the authority of Ur, and the Sumerian texts record in the seventh year of his reign, c. 2040 BC, a major campaign to subdue an uprising in four western lands.
The dispatch by Amar-Sin of troops under Khedorlaomer to quell the rebellion is dealt with both in the Old Testament and in the Khedorlaomer Texts, which both confirm the rebellion as taking place in the thirteenth year of rule from Ur. What was the cause of the rebellion? The Khedorlaomer Texts make it clear that the rebellion was a change of allegiance from Sin, the God of Ur, to Nabu, the son of Marduk.
Sin’s son, Shamash claimed that the people had betrayed their covenant with his father:
“The faithfulness of his heart [the king] betrayed in the time of the thirteenth year a falling-out against my father [he had]; to his faith-keeping the king ceased to attend; all this Nabu has caused to happen.”
The change of allegiance to Nabu in Canaan is commemorated today by the various names in the region – Mount Nebo to the north-east of the Dead Sea, and the large town of Nabulus to the north-west.
In later times, the name Nabu took on the meaning “speaker/announcer/prophet”, reflecting the role that Marduk’s son had played in stirring up the rebellion. But what was the nature of this rebellion that caused it to be preserved in history as such a major event?
The answer comes from a scrutiny of the battle which took place in the following year.
According to Genesis 14:
In the fourteenth year, Khedorlaomer and the kings allied with him went out and defeated the Rephaites in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzites in Ham, the Emites in Shaveh Kiriathaim and the Horites in the hill country of Seir, as far as El Paran near the desert. They then turned back and went to En Mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and they conquered the whole territory of the Amalekites, as well as the Amorites…
This sequence of battles is also confirmed by the Khedorlaomer Texts.
It is only after this grueling tour that the kings of the east finally confront the kings of the evil cities whom they had been sent to punish.
So why the delay, and why waste their time with a long out-of-the-way excursion into the desert? As Zecharia Sitchin has pointed out, the only possible significance of El Paran (Nakhl) and Kadesh-Barnea is their strategic location in the restricted land of the Gods – the space centre in the Sinai desert. Why else would the invaders target an oasis town in the middle of nowhere?
A Sumerian cylinder seal cited by Zecharia Sitchin (Figure 35) gives a remarkably accurate visual portrayal of the space centre incident, although my interpretation differs from that of Sitchin.
It is my conclusion that the Canaanite kings, incited by Nabu, had marched south to occupy the space centre.
Then, when they heard of the formidable strength of the approaching eastern alliance, led by Khedorlaomer, they fled to Kadesh-Barnea.
Thus did the invaders turn back from Nakhl to Kadesh, as described in Genesis 14, in order to pursue their fleeing enemy. From Kadesh, the kings of the east chased the kings of the west back to the Valley of Siddim, where the latter were forced to make a stand in their homeland and were heavily defeated.
The cylinder seal shown in Figure 35 identifies the space centre location by the sign of Sin’s crescent moon and a tower with wings. However, there is no battle scene (as suggested by Sitchin) but only a depiction of four kings marching in and five kings marching out in the opposite direction! My interpretation of these events illustrates the desire of Marduk to take possession of the space centre in addition to his return to Babylon.
This is vital to an understanding of the extreme actions which were later taken against him and his son Nabu. According to Zecharia Sitchin’s chronology, it was a mere 16 years later that Marduk returned to Babylon and the nuclear weapons were used.
During those sixteen years, the last two kings of Ur, Shu-Sin c. 2037-2029 BC, and Ibbi-Sin c. 2028-2024 BC, turned to desperate defensive measures to protect a crumbling empire in times of great uncertainty.
Significantly, Shu-Sin put down an uprising at Mardin in southern Turkey – by now Marduk’s territory. Circa 2034 BC, he then built a fortress to assist the defense of Sumerian territories against the Amorites. Early in the reign of Ibbi-Sin, the Third Dynasty of Ur literally disintegrated.
The last records of Sumer describe numerous oracles of imminent invasion from the west, the cessation of tributes from the outer provinces and finally the cessation of foreign commerce in the third year of Ibbi-Sin’s reign. No inscriptions of his reign have been found beyond the fifth year, c. 2024 BC. In that year, a prince by the name of Ishbi-Irra instigated a rebellion in the key city of Mari, which protected the western approach to Sumer.
Ibbi-Sin’s last records spoke of a deep penetration by the Amorites into Sumerian territories.
Marduk’s Return
The Sumerian texts state that the chaotic final battle for Sumer was fought and lost by Elamite troops against the overwhelming numbers of invading Amorites.
These Amorites were destined to become the first dynasty of the new kingdom of Babylon. Who were these Amorites, and why did they support Marduk?
Since the invasion of Sumer came from the west, it is not very helpful to find that the term Amorite, derived from the Akkadian word Amurru, simply means “Westerners”. Biblical studies, however, have identified the Amorites as the dominant tribe among the Canaanites, and thus descended from the line of Ham. The final battle was thus based on racial loyalties – Shemitic easterners defending their territory against Hamitic Africans who were supporting an African God, Marduk.
By the same token, we would expect the native Egyptians to rally to Marduk’s cause. What then was happening in Egypt c. 2024 BC? This date falls between the end of the Old Kingdom c. 2100 BC and the beginning of the Middle Kingdom c. 2000 BC. Egyptologists refer to this time gap as the “First Intermediate Period” (FIP), signifying a time of chaos, during which the country was divided between rival dynasties.
The collapse of the Old Kingdom is generally attributed to “social revolution”, and as I shall suggest in a later chapter, it is likely that these first Egyptian pharaohs were in fact Sumerians. Was the timing of the FIP simply a coincidence, or could it have signified an internal rebellion by the native Africans in preparation for Marduk’ s return to power?
Closer inspection of the Egyptian situation confirms that the rebels were based in the south at Thebes, which was indeed the centre of worship of Marduk as Amen, “the Hidden One”. Their faithful support of Marduk has been commemorated in the word aman, which was preserved in the Hebrew language with the literal meaning “to build/support” and figuratively “to be firm/faithful”.
Geographically, these supporters were expanding northwards, towards the delta area and the Sinai peninsula. Would Marduk once again attempt to take control of the space centre?
The exile of Marduk is described in a partly damaged tablet, found in the great library of Ashurbanipal. Its significance went unnoticed until Zecharia Sitchin placed it into historical context – a final countdown of 24 years from 2028 to 2024 BC, at which time Marduk finally returned to Babylon:
“I am the divine Marduk, a, great God. I was cast off for my sins, to the mountains I have gone. In many lands I have been a wanderer: from where the sun rises to where it sets I went. To the heights of Hatti-land I went. In Harti-land I asked an oracle [about] my throne and my Lordship; in its midst [I asked] “Until when?” 24 years in its midst I rested.
“My days [of exile] were completed; I raised my heels toward Babylon, through the lands I went to my city; a king in Babylon to make the foremost, in its midst my temple-mountain to heaven raise.”
The ancient texts record a short-lived victory for Marduk.
In the chaos of battle, various temples were destroyed, including the shrine of Enlil at Nippur.
Enlil, who was somewhere “loftily enthroned”, sped back to Sumer and demanded an explanation. Although the Babylonian accounts blamed the desecration on the God Erra (Nergal), other Gods accused Marduk of the sacrilegious act. It was at this time that the council of Gods met to decide what action to take, and at this council that the God Erra stormed out with a promise of vengeance.
And, chronologically, it was at this time and in this context, that another deity, the Biblical “God”, decided to drop in on the city of Sodom “to see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me”. The outcome, as discussed earlier, was the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Sinai space centre.
At this point it should be recalled that the change of allegiance of the “evil cities” had occurred 17 years previously, in 2041 BC, and been dealt with by Khedorlaomer.
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was thus a different punishment for a separate incident. What was the second crime of Sodom and Gomorrah, the “outcry” of which had reached the ears of God. In view of the previous attempt of the Canaanite kings to seize the space centre, and in view of the expansionist threat from Marduk’s supporters in northern Egypt, there can surely be only one conclusion – the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were once again preparing an army to march on the space centre.
It is against this background that one must understand the radical decision of the Gods to use nuclear weapons against Marduk and his son Nabu. We can only speculate on what Marduk might have intended to do with the space centre, but the texts related that he and Nabu must be stopped at all costs.
What happened to Marduk and Nabu?
One of the aims of Erra/Nergal was to kill them both, but according to the ancient texts they were both warned of the attack on Sodom and Gomorrah and thus escaped. Nevertheless, it would seem that Nergal may have had another attempt. A mere 50 miles to the north, in a separate incident, also dated to c. 2000 BC, the town of Tell Ghassul was utterly destroyed.
So powerful was the force used, that this town was once thought to be the site of ancient Sodom. Archaeologists have been unable to explain the cause of the extensive damage and the thousands of blackened stones which they found strewn across the site. Once again, however, Marduk and Nabu escaped.
According to legend, Nabu became the God of a Mediterranean island, whilst Marduk himself was finally allowed to assume the Lordship of the Gods from Babylon.
Abraham the Spy
Earlier we noted the presence of Abraham at Sodom and Gomorrah, and he was also in Canaan during the Battle of the Kings.
Who exactly was the Biblical patriarch, Abraham, and what role did he play in this crucial period of the world’s history? Most scholars have overlooked or discarded the possibility that, since Abraham came from Ur, he might actually have been a native of Ur. Several studies have indeed concluded that he was a Sumerian.
A major clue to Abraham’s Sumerian origin is his original name IB.RAM, which carried a clear meaning, “Father’s Beloved”, in the Sumerian language. Another clue exists in the Biblical term “Ibri” with which Abraham’s family identified themselves.””
This term, the origin of the word “Hebrew”, is usually translated as ,’wanderers” or “those who crossed over”, but in Sumerian it meant “natives of IBR”.”’ The place name IBR is indeed linked to the verb ibri, meaning “to cross”, but as one authority has pointed out, it is also closely connected to the original Sumerian name for the city of Nippur NI.IB.RU, literally translated as “The Crossing place”.
We encountered this city in chapter 8 as the original mission control centre of the Gods, and it thus took its name from the planet NIBIRU, the “Planet of Crossing”.
The Biblical Ibri are therefore the Sumerian “ni-ib-ri” – the natives of Nippur. And Nippur was Sumer’s foremost religious city. Nor did Abraham come from a family that were typical Nippurians. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that he was from the most noble, priestly class.” The ease with which Abraham commanded respect, even in foreign lands, tends to support this view. What was a Nippurian priest doing in Ur?
The obvious conclusion is that the move coincided with the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur under Ur-Nammu in 2113 BC. The Sumerian texts record that Enlil, the God of Nippur, had entrusted the safe-keeping of his city to Sin, the God of Ur. The timing of Terah and Abraham’s departure from Ur to Harran would have been close to the time when Ur-Nammu came to his untimely end, c. 2095 BC.
Let us take a closer look at Abraham’s role after he left Ur. First, his family was ordered to Harran – a town which has been identified by archaeologists in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains. Then, when he was 75, Abraham was told by ,”God ” to leave Harran. His route took him through Canaan, where God appeared to him, and he then built an “altar” where he “called on the name of the Lord”.
His journey then continued to the Negev – the arid region bordering on the Sinai and from there into northern Egypt. According to the Book of Jubilees, his stay in Egypt lasted 5 years. Working backwards from Abraham’s age of 99 in 2024 BC, he was born in 2123 BC and thus his period ill Egypt encompassed the years 2048-2043 BC.
According to the Old Testament, Abraham’s first action back in Canaan was to approach the altar he had built and again “call on the name of the Lord’’. The year was approximately 2042 BC just one year before the Canaanite kings rebelled against Sin, and thus a time when Nabu would have been actively lobbying for their support.
In 2040 BC, following the Battle of the Kings, Abraham demonstrated the alliance he had forged with the local nobility.
He took 318 trained Amorite soldiers and rescued Lot from the homebound kings of the east quite an achievement at the grand old age of 83! Three years later Hagar bore him a son, Ishmael. The Biblical record is then blank until 13 years later, when at age 99, Abraham entered a covenant with God, who promised him a child the following year (another fine achievement!).
Before that year had passed, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed; the date was 2024 BC. Thus, as the Amorites invaded Abraham’s homeland to the east, God promised to Abraham’s descendants the lands of the west. Was Abraham simply a pawn in the game, or did he earn his prize? Let us now review his movements in the context of the threat from Marduk.
First, Abraham moved to Harran, the northernmost outpost of Ur, on the border with the Hittite lands, where Marduk was shortly to arrive. In 2048 BC, the same year that Marduk arrived for his 24-year stay, Abraham left Harran but his father stayed behind. This move may have been prompted by the death of Shulgi, king of Ur, and the prospect of further turmoil in his empire’s western provinces.
In any event, Abraham headed for Egypt and consulted with the northern pharaohs who were desperately resisting Marduk’s supporters in the south. Can it then be a coincidence that Abraham returned to Canaan only one year before the rebellion of the kings?
I do not subscribe to the view which has been expressed by Zecharia Sitchin that Abraham played a military role in the Battle of the Kings.
As I suggested earlier, there was no battle in the Sinai, only a tactical withdrawal. Abraham’s military involvement, as it appears in the Bible, is restricted only to the subsequent rescue of his nephew Lot, in what was probably a surprise raid. There is nothing to suggest anything beyond that. However, there is evidence to suggest that his role was one of espionage!
At a time of great uncertainty for the Third Dynasty of Ur, its God, Sin, would have found it extremely useful to have a trusted pair of eyes and ears in the lands of the unstable western provinces, particularly as he feared an imminent return of Marduk from the west.
There is no doubt that such a spy existed in Canaan, for the Bible records the fact:
Then the Lord said:
“The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me.”
Having gained the confidence of the Canaanite kings, Abraham was in a perfect position to report on the political situation and possible troop movements.
I have suggested earlier that Nabu motivated the kings of the west to form an army to capture the space centre in the Sinai in 2041 BC.
It was at that exact time that Abraham returned to Canaan to watch what they were up to. The “altar” which Abraham built in Canaan, where he called on the name of the Lord, was thus a means to keep Sin informed of events.
The Petra Connection
After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the other cities of the plain, and the space centre, the repercussions spread far and wide.
The nuclear fall-out in Sumer caused many survivors to become refugees.
Their migrations were accompanied by a high level of culture and technology, hence explaining many of the mysterious breakthroughs c. 2000 BC which archaeologists have uncovered all over the world. We will discuss some of these migrations further in chapter 15. However, whilst some Sumerians fled thousands of miles, others preferred to stay closer to home. One such refugee was Abraham’s nephew Lot.
Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave.
One day the older daughter said to the younger:
“Our father is old, and there is no man around here to lie with us, as is the custom all over the earth. Let’s get our father to drink wine and then lie with him and preserve our family line through our father.”
This incestuous tale of Lot and his daughters demonstrates the scale of the catastrophe which had befallen the region.
Although the Gods sometimes practiced similar acts of incest, it was not a widely accepted custom of the people at that time. It can be understood only in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion.
We ourselves might contemplate unthinkable acts only in the most extreme circumstances; examples of cannibalism by survivors of plane crashes in remote areas prove the point. Lot and his daughters, who witnessed the nuclear holocaust, may well have believed that they were the only survivors.
Where are the “mountains” and the “cave” where Lot lived with his daughters? As far as I am aware, no-one has attempted to locate it, perhaps because the whole tale, being connected with Sodom and Gomorrah, is regarded as a Biblical myth. However, there is a site hidden deep in the mountains of that area that fits the bill a site which I visited in 1994.
The mysterious lost city of Petra is located less than sixty miles directly south from the southern part of the Dead Sea where Sodom and Gomorrah are believed to have once stood. It was thus within reach of, and a safe distance from, Lot’s initial destination of Zoar, the small town which had been spared from the destruction.
As I studied the maps of the area, it was clear that Petra was located in a mountain range that extended all the way south from the Dead Sea almost as far as the Gulf of Aqaba, which is then surrounded by mountains on both sides. Anyone fleeing south had little choice but to seek refuge in these mountains.
Hachette’s Guide to the Middle East describes Petra as:
… not so much a town as a natural stronghold where one could seek refuge without having to build walls, and where one could live in the caves as comfortably as one could in man-made houses.”
Petra, literally meaning “Rock”, is entered via a narrow Siq one mile long and as narrow as six feet across, beneath two cliffs which rise up to 260 feet in height.
This dusty trail was featured in the film Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. As one exits the Siq, one enters what has rather aptly been described as a “fairy city of pink sandstone”.
Over a site of eight square miles, a fantastic array of temples and tombs has been carved out of the sandstone rock. As I studied the history books on Petra, I came up against a complete blank. Having been “discovered” in 1812 by a young Swiss explorer named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, little progress has been made in our knowledge of this once important site. As one book admits: “almost nothing is known about its origin or nature”.
Nevertheless, the extensive collection of carved temples and tombs at Petra is generally attributed to the Nabateans, a people of mysterious origin, who gradually infiltrated the area around 500-400 BC.
These Nabateans became wealthy on account of Petra’s position as an important crossroads of two important trade routes, and it is thus naive to think that previous travellers and occupants did not also leave their mark. Indeed, Petra contains a bewildering variety of different styles and different cultures.
On the one hand there are numerous depictions of step-pyramids, indicating a Mesopotamian link, on the other obelisks and serpents indicating an Egyptian connection. The Romans, too, could not resist the urge to build a huge amphitheatre here.
My impression of this unique site was of a tremendous contrast in the quality of the workmanship. Most of the tombs and temples are very simple designs – natural clefts enlarged to form cavities, surmounted on the outside face of the cliff by two dimensional relief work of mediocre quality. Many of these facades are badly eroded due to their exposure to the elements.
The Ed Deir (“the Monastery”), in contrast, is impressive, standing 135 feet high and 150 feet wide. Its upper parts are carved in three dimensions, and the main artistic feature is a splendid urn which is itself 30 feet high.
The Monastery is dated to around AD 40, which may be a reasonable estimate, since it has suffered little erosion despite its exposed position in the side of a hill.
However, although well-carved and well-preserved, the simple style and imposing size of the Monastery bear no comparison to “the Treasury”. To me, El Khazneh (“the Treasury”) stands out clearly from the rest of Petra as a work of vastly superior quality. As shown in Plate 53, the detailed three dimensional carving is stunning, and would be unthinkable for an artist to undertake today.
It bears comparison with the great Sphinx of Egypt.
Once again, an urn is the main feature and accounts for the name of the Treasury.
Elsewhere in Petra, there are many poor quality and badly eroded reliefs which appear to be copies of the Treasury. In contrast to these later copies, however, the builders of the Treasury took great care to undertake a preliminary excavation deep into the cliff face prior to carving.
This technique, combined with a careful positioning of the Treasury in a sheltered spot surrounded by cliffs on all sides, has minimized the risk of erosion. For this reason, it is possible that archaeologists have under-estimated its age by more than a thousand years.
Could the Treasury mark the cave where Lot and his daughters lived c. 2000 BC? Inside there is indeed a large natural cave of great height which has been squared off to create ample living quarters for a small family. The interior is stark and functional, the only features being large empty niches. In contrast, the exterior facade of the Treasury is incredibly ornate -a “labour of love” that was built to last.
The question is: who might have had the motivation to dedicate so much time and care in this secluded location? When one tries to research into the history of Petra, all discussions of its inhabitants begin with the Edomites. These are the people descended from Esau, who are thought to have occupied the area from around 1000 BC.
No-one claims that the Edomites actually founded Petra, and yet the historians seem reluctant to search any further back in time. Why?
Here is my theory of Petra.
After the nuclear destruction in 2024 BC, Lot and his daughters travelled south and discovered the entrance into the mountains. In those days, Petra was surrounded by forests of cedar and pine, in contrast to the arid desert of today. At the end of the Siq, they found the cave in which, according to the Bible, they took up residence.
After the death of Lot, his sons (by his daughters) Moab and Ben-Ammi dedicated themselves to commemorating their father (and perhaps their father’s wife who was turned to vapour) by the elaborate carving of the building now known as the Treasury. The urn (the symbolism of which no-one has explained) signified the ashes of their dead father, and was perhaps also a memorial to their father’ s wife.
After this task was completed, the sons’ curiosity led them into the outside world. As recorded in Genesis, one son Moab formed the tribe known as the Moabites, who lived in the mountain range where Petra lies.
The other son, BenAmmi, became the father of the Ammonite tribe – the city Ammon today stands just 90 miles north of Petra.
In later times, the Edomites and Nabateans came to the area. Some emulated what they saw, sometimes with their own artistic, cultural bias, but none applied the same diligence as the original artists.
Over thousands of years, the site lost its importance and the knowledge of its origins was restricted to a chosen few. Those few clues which were handed down then became enshrined in the Biblical myth of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Could this be the reason why scientists are reluctant to search for the origins of Petra?
Chapter Ten Conclusions
- The Biblical “fire and brimstone” destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah and the other “evil” cities of the plain was caused by the nuclear weapons of the Gods in 2024 BC. A simultaneous nuclear strike destroyed the space centre in Sinai leaving the geological scar and blackened rocks which can still be seen today. The nuclear fall-out brought the Sumerian civilization to its knees c. 2000 BC.
- The “evil” of Sodom and Gomorrah was a change in allegiance to a “foreign” God, Marduk. Nuclear weapons were used against the space centre to prevent its capture by Marduk. The background to these events was Marduk’s ambition to assume “Lordship” at the city of Babylon.
- Abraham acted as a spy for his God. His reward was the Biblical “covenant” which promised prosperity to his bloodline.
- The “cave” where Lot and his daughters fled following the attack on Sodom and Gomorrah is nowadays known as “the Treasury” in Petra.
