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The Messianic Clock5lil in matters of the throne was complicated by personal rivalry in matters of the heart. They both coveted theirhalf-sister Ninmah, whose mother was yet another concubineof Anu. She was Ea’s true love, but he was not permitted tomarry her. Enlil then took over, and had a son by her—Ninurta. Though born without wedlock, the succesion rules madeNinurta Enlil’s uncontested heir, being both his Firstborn sonand one born by a royal half-sister.Ea, as related in The Earth Chronicles books, was the leaderof the first group of fifty Anunnaki to come to Earth to obtainthe gold needed to protect Nibiru’s dwindling atmosphere.When the initial plans failed, his half-brother Enlil was sent toEarth with more Anunnaki for an expanded Mission Earth. Ifthat was not enough to create a hostile atmosphere, Ninmahtoo arrived on Earth to serve as chief medical officer . . .A long text known as the Atrahasis Epic begins the story ofgods and men on Earth with a visit by Anu to Earth to settleonce and for all (he hoped) the rivalry between his two sonsthat was ruining the vital mission; he even offered to stay onEarth and let one of the half-brothers assume the regency onNibiru. With that in mind, the ancient text tells us, lots weredrawn to determine who would stay on Earth and who wouldsit on Nibiru’s throne:The gods clasped hands together,had cast lots and had divided:Anu went up [back] to heaven,[For Enlil] the Earth was made subject;The seas, enclosed as with a loop,to Enki the prince were given.The result of drawing lots, then, was that Anu returned toNibiru as its king. Ea, given dominion over the seas and waters (in later times, “Poseidon” to the Greeks and “Neptune”to the Romans), was granted the epithet EN.KI (“Lord ofEarth”) to soothe his feelings; but it was EN.LIL (“Lord ofthe Command”) who was put in overall charge: “To him theEarth was made subject.” Resentful or not, Ea/Enki could

6THE END OF DAYSnot defy the rules of succession or the results of the drawingof lots; and so the resentment, the anger at justice denied, anda consuming determination to avenge injustices to his fatherand forefathers and thus to himself led Enki’s son Mardukto take up the fight.Several texts describe how the Anunnaki set up their settlements in the E.DIN (the post-Diluvial Sumer), each with aspecific function, and all laid out in accordance with a master plan. The crucial space connection—the ability to constantly stay in communication with the home planet and withthe shuttlecraft and spacecraft—was maintained from Enlil’scommand post in Nippur, the heart of which was a dimly litchamber called the DUR.AN.KI, “The Bond Heaven-Earth.”Another vital facility was a spaceport, located at Sippar(“Bird City”). Nippur lay at the center of concentric circles atwhich the other “cities of the gods” were located; all togetherthey shaped out, for an arriving spacecraft, a landing corridor whose focal point was the Near East’s most visible topographic feature—the twin peaks of Mount Ararat (Fig. 2).And then the Deluge “swept over the earth,” obliterated allthe cities of the gods with their Mission Control Center andSpaceport, and buried the Edin under millions of tons ofmud and silt. Everything had to be done all over again—butmuch could no longer be the same. First and foremost, it wasnecessary to create a new spaceport facility, with a new Mission Control Center and new Beacon-sites for a LandingCorridor. The new landing path was anchored again on theprominent twin peaks of Ararat; the other components wereall new: the actual spaceport in the Sinai Peninsula, on the 30thparallel north; artificial twin peaks as beacon sites, the Gizapyramids; and a new Mission Control Center at a place calledJerusalem (Fig. 3). It was a layout that played a crucial role inpost-Diluvial events.The Deluge was a watershed (both literally and figuratively)in the affairs of both gods and men, and in the relationshipbetween the two: the Earthlings, who were fashioned to serveand work for the gods were henceforth treated as junior partners on a devastated planet.

The Messianic Clock7Figure 2The new relationship between men and gods was formulated, sanctified, and codified when Mankind was grantedits first high civilization, in Mesopotamia, circa 3800 b.c.e.The momentous event followed a state visit to Earth by Anu,not just as Nibiru’s ruler but also as the head of the pantheon,on Earth, of the ancient gods. Another (and probably themain) reason for his visit was the establishment and affirmation of peace among the gods themselves—a live-and-let-livearrangement dividing the lands of the Old World among thetwo principal Anunnaki clans, that of Enlil and that of Enki—for the new post-Diluvial circumstances and the new locationof the space facilities required a new territorial divisionamong the gods.

8THE END OF DAYSFigure 3It was a division that was reflected in the biblical Table ofNations (Genesis, chapter 10), in which the spread of Mankind, emanating from the three sons of Noah, was recordedby nationality and geography: Asia to the nations/lands ofShem, Europe to the descendants of Japhet, Africa to the nation/lands of Ham. The historical records show that the parallel division among the gods allotted the first two to theEnlilites, the third one to Enki and his sons. The connecting

The Messianic Clock9Sinai peninsula, where the vital post-Diluvial spaceport waslocated, was set aside as a neutral Sacred Region.While the Bible simply listed the lands and nations according to their Noahite division, the earlier Sumerian textsrecorded the fact that the division was a deliberate act, theresult of deliberations by the leadership of the Anunnaki. Atext known as the Epic of Etana tells us thatThe great Anunnaki who decree the fatessat exchanging their counsels regarding the Earth.They created the four regions,set up the settlements.In the First Region, the lands between the two rivers Euphrates and Tigris (Mesopotamia), Man’s first known high civilization, that of Sumer, was established. Where the prediluvialcities of the gods had been, Cities of Man arose, each with itssacred precinct where a deity resided in his or her ziggurat—Enlil in Nippur, Ninmah in Shuruppak, Ninurta inLagash, Nannar/Sin in Ur, Inanna/Ishtar in Uruk, Utu/Shamash in Sippar, and so on. In each such urban center anEN.SI, a “Righteous Shepherd”—initially a chosen demigod—was selected to govern the people in behalf of thegods; his main assignment was to promulgate codes of justice and morality. In the sacred precinct, a priesthood overseen by a high priest served the god and his spouse,supervised the holiday celebrations, and handled the rites ofofferings, sacrifices, and prayers to the gods. Art and sculpture, music and dance, poetry and hymns, and above all writing and recordkeeping flourished in the temples and extendedto the royal palace.From time to time one of those cities was selected to serveas the land’s capital; there the ruler was king, LU.GAL(“Great man”). Initially and for a long time thereafter thisperson, the most powerful man in the land, served as bothking and high priest. He was carefully chosen, for his roleand authority, and all the physical symbols of Kingship, weredeemed to have come to Earth directly from Heaven, fromAnu on Nibiru. A Sumerian text dealing with the subject

10THE END OF DAYSstated that before the symbols of Kingship (tiara/crown andscepter) and of Righteousness (the shepherd’s staff ) weregranted to an earthly king, they “lay deposited before Anu inheaven.” Indeed, the Sumerian word for Kingship was Anuship.This aspect of “Kingship” as the essence of civilization,just behavior and a moral code for Mankind, was explicitlyexpressed in the statement, in the Sumerian King List, thatafter the Deluge “Kingship was brought down from Heaven.”It is a profound statement that must be borne in mind as weprogress in this book to the messianic expectations—in thewords of the New Testament, for the Return of the “Kingship of Heaven” to Earth.Circa 3100 b.c.e. a similar yet not identical civilizationwas established in the Second Region in Africa, that of theriver Nile (Nubia and Egypt). Its history was not as harmonious as that among the Enlilites, for rivalry and contentioncontinued among Enki’s six sons, to whom not cities butwhole land domains were allocated. Paramount was an ongoing conflict between Enki’s firstborn Marduk (Ra in Egypt)and Ningishzidda (Thoth in Egypt), a conflict that led to theexile of Thoth and a band of African followers to the NewWorld (where he became known as Quetzalcóatl, the WingedSerpent). Marduk/Ra himself was punished and exiled when,opposing the marriage of his young brother Dumuzi to Enlil’s granddaughter Inanna/Ishtar, he caused his brother’sdeath. It was as compensation to Inanna/Ishtar that she wasgranted dominion over the Third Region of civilization, thatof the Indus Valley, circa 2900 b.c.e. It was for good reasonthat the three civilizations—as was the spaceport in the sacred region—were all centered on the 30th parallel north(Fig. 4).According to Sumerian texts, the Anunnaki establishedKingship—civilization and its institutions, as most clearlyexemplified in Mesopotamia—as a new order in their relationships with Mankind, with kings/priests serving both as alink and a separator between gods and men. But as one looksback on that seemingly “golden age” in the affairs of godsand men, it becomes evident that the affairs of the gods con-

The Messianic Clock11Figure 4stantly dominated and determined the affairs of Men and thefate of Mankind. Overshadowing all was the determinationof Marduk/Ra to undo the injustice done to his father Ea/Enki, when under the succession rules of the Anunnaki notEnki but Enlil was declared the Legal Heir of their fatherAnu, the ruler on their home planet Nibiru.In accord with the sexagesimal (“base sixty”) mathematicalsystem that the gods granted the Sumerians, the twelve greatgods of the Sumerian pantheon were given numerical ranks inwhich Anu held the supreme Rank of Sixty; the Rank of Fiftywas granted to Enlil; that of Enki was forty, and so fartherdown, alternating between male and female deities (Fig. 5).

12THE END OF DAYSUnder the succession rules, Enlil’s son Ninurta was in line forthe rank of fifty on Earth, while Marduk held a nominal rankof ten; and initially, these two successors-in-waiting were notyet part of the twelve “Olympians.”And so the long, bitter, and relentness struggle by Mardukthat began with the Enlil–Enki feud focused later on Marduk’s contention with Enlil’s son Ninurta for the successionto the Rank of Fifty, and then extended to Enlil’s granddaughter Inanna/Ishtar, whose marriage to Dumuzi, Enki’syoungest son, was so opposed by Marduk that it ended withDumuzi’s death. In time Marduk/Ra faced conflicts evenFigure 5

The Messianic Clock13with other brothers and half-brothers of his, in addition to theconflict with Thoth that we have already mentioned—principally with Enki’s son Nergal, who married a granddaughterof Enlil named Ereshkigal.In the course of these struggles, the conflicts at timesflared up to full-fledged wars between the two divine clans;some of those wars are called “The Pyramid Wars” in mybook The Wars of Gods and Men. In one notable instance thefighting led to the burying alive of Marduk inside the GreatPyramid; in another, it led to its capture by Ninurta. Mardukwas also exiled more than once—both as punishment and asa self-imposed absence. His persistent efforts to attain thestatus to which he believed he was entitled included the eventrecorded in the Bible as the Tower of Babel incident; but inthe end, after numerous frustrations, success came only whenEarth and Heaven were aligned with the Messianic Clock.Indeed, the first cataclysmic set of events, in the twentyfirst century b.c.e., and the Messianic expectations that accompanied it, is principally the story of Marduk; it alsobrought to center stage his son Nabu—a deity, the son of agod, but whose mother was an Earthling.Throughout the history of Sumer that spanned almost twothousand years, its royal capital shifted—from the first one,Kish (Ninurta’s first city), to Uruk (the city that Anu grantedto Inanna/Ishtar) to Ur (Sin’s seat and center of worship);then to others and then back to the initial ones; and finally,for the third time, back to Ur. But at all times Enlil’s cityNippur, his “cult center,” as scholars are wont to call it, remained the religious center of Sumer and the Sumerian people; it was there that the annual cycle of worshipping thegods was determined.The twelve “Olympians” of the Sumerian pantheon, eachwith his or her celestial counterpart among the twelve members of the Solar System (Sun, Moon, and ten planets, including Nibiru), were also honored with one month each in theannual cycle of a twelve-month year. The Sumerian term for“month,” EZEN, actually meant holiday, festival; and eachsuch month was devoted to celebrating the worship-festival of

14THE END OF DAYSone of the twelve supreme gods. It was the need to determinethe exact time when each such month began and ended (andnot in order to enable peasants to know when to sow or harvest, as schoolbooks explain) that led to the introduction ofMankind’s first calendar in 3760 b.c.e. It is known as theCalendar of Nippur because it was the task of its priests todetermine the calendar’s intricate timetable and to announce,for the whole land, the time of the religious festivals. Thatcalendar is still in use to this day as the Jewish religious calendar, which, in a.d. 2007, numbers the year as 5767.In pre-Diluvial times Nippur served as Mission ControlCenter, Enlil’s command post where he set up the DUR.AN.KI, the “Bond Heaven-Earth” for the communications withthe home planet Nibiru and with the spacecraft connectingthem. (After the Deluge, these functions were relocated to aplace later known as Jerusalem.) Its central position, equidistant from the other functional centers in the E.DIN (see Fig. 2),was also deemed to be equidistant from the “four corners ofthe Earth” and gave it the nickname “Navel of the Earth.” Ahymn to Enlil referred to Nippur and its functions thus:Enlil,When you marked off divine settlements on Earth,Nippur you set up as your very own city . . .You founded the Dur-An-KiIn the center of the four corners of the Earth.(The term “the Four Corners of the Earth” is also found inthe Bible; and when Jerusalem replaced Nippur as MissionControl Center after the Deluge, it too was nicknamed theNavel of the Earth.)In Sumerian the term for the four regions of the Earthwas UB, but it also is found as AN.UB—the heavenly, thecelestial four “corners”—in this case an astronomical termconnected with the calendar. It is taken to refer to the fourpoints in the Earth-Sun annual cycle that we nowadays callthe Summer Solstice, the Winter Solstice, and the two crossings of the equator—once as the Spring Equinox and then asthe Autumnal Equinox. In the Calendar of Nippur, the year

The Messianic Clock15began on the day of the Spring Equinox and it has so remained in the ensuing calendars of the ancient Near East.That determined the time of the most important festival ofthe year—the New Year festival, an event that lasted tendays, during which detailed and canonized rituals had tobe followed.Determining calendrical time by Heliacal Rising entailedthe observation of the skies at dawn, when the sun just begins to rise on the eastern horizon but the skies are still darkenough to show the stars in the background. The day of theequinox having been determined by the fact that on it daylight and nighttime were precisely equal, the position of thesun at heliacal rising was then marked by the erection of astone pillar to guide future observations—a procedure thatwas followed, for example, later on at Stonehenge in Britain;and, as at Stonehenge, long-term observations revealed thatthe group of stars (“constellation”) in the background hasnot remained the same (Fig. 6); there, the alignment stonecalled the “Heel Stone” that points to sunrise on solstice dayFigure 6

16THE END OF DAYSnowadays, pointed originally to sunrise circa 2000 b.c.e.The phenomenon, called Precession of the Equinoxes orjust Precession, results from the fact that as the Earth completes one annual orbit around the Sun, it does not return tothe same exact celestial spot. There is a slight, very slightretardation; it amounts to one degree (out of 360 in the circle)in 72 years. It was Enki who first grouped the stars observable from Earth into “constellations,” and divided the heavens in which the Earth circled the sun into twelve parts—whathas since been called the Zodiacal Circle of constellations(Fig. 7). Since each twelfth part of the circle occupied 30degrees of the celestial arc, the retardation or Precessionalshift from one Zodiacal House to another lasted (mathematically) 2,l60 years (72 30), and a complete zodiacal cyclelasted 25,920 years (2,l60 l2). The approximate dates ofthe Zodiacal Ages—following the equal twelve-part division and not actual astronomical observations—have beenadded here for the reader’s guidance.Figure 7

The Messianic Clock17That this was the achievement from a time precedingMankind’s civilizations is attested to by the fact that a zodiacal calendar was applied to Enki’s first stays on Earth (whenthe first two zodiacal houses were named in his honor); thatthis was not the achievement of a Greek astronomer (Hipparchus) in the third century b.c.e. (as most textbooks stillsuggest), is attested by the fact that the twelve zodiacal houseswere known to the Sumerians millennia earlier by names(Fig. 8) and depictions (Fig. 9) that we use to this day.Figure 8In When Time Began the calendrical timetables of godsand men were discussed at length. Having come from Nibiru,whose orbital period, the SAR, meant 3,600 (Earth-) years,that unit was naturally the first calendrical yardstick of theAnunnaki even on the fast-orbiting Earth. Indeed, the textsdealing with their early days on Earth, such as the SumerianKing Lists, designated the periods of this or that leader’s timeon Earth in terms of Sars. I termed this Divine Time. Thecalendar granted to Mankind, one based on the orbital aspects of the Earth (and its Moon), was named Earthly Time.Pointing out that the 2,l60-year zodiacal shift

ZECHARIA SITCHIN. THE. END OF DAYS. ARMAGEDDON AND PROPHECIES OF THE RETURN . The The 7th and Concluding Book 7th and Concluding Book of The The Earth Chr Earth Chronicles. . who have read my books, the “they” being the Anunnaki— the extraterrestrials who had come to Earth