THE TEMPLES THAT
"....The great antiquity of
Stonehenge, which kept increasing as
scientific knowledge about it progressed, is of course what troubles
most scientists; and it is primarily the dates of construction
ascertained for Stonehenge I and II + III that have led
archaeologists to seek Mediterranean visitors, and eminent scholars
to allude to ancient gods, as the only possible explanations for the
"....The father of the science of archaeoastronomy - though he
preferred to call it astro-archaeology, which better conveys what he
had in mind - was undoubtedly Sir Norman Lockyer.
"....It struck him, he wrote, that it was truly remarkable that in
Babylonia "from the beginning of things the sign for God was a star"
and that likewise in Egypt, in the hieroglyphic texts, three stars
represented the plural term "gods." Babylonian records on clay
tablets and burned clay bricks, he noted, appeared to deal with
regular cycles of "moon and planet positions with extreme accuracy."
Planets, stars and the constellations of the zodiac are represented
in the walls of Egyptian tombs and on papyruses. In the Hindu
pantheon, he observed, we find the worship of the Sun and of the
Dawn: the name of the god Indra meaning "The Day Brought by the Sun"
and that of the goddess Ushas meaning "Dawn."
"Can astronomy be of assistance to Egyptology? he wondered; can it
help define the measure of Egyptian and Babylonian antiquity?
"When one considers the Hindu Rigveda and Egyptian inscriptions from
an astronomical point of view, Lockyer wrote, "one is struck by the
fact that in both, the early worship and all the early observations
related to the horizon."
"....Since the most regular phenomenon observable on the horizon was
the rising and setting of the Sun on a daily basis, it was natural
to make this the basis of ancient astronomical observations, and to
relate other phenomena (such as the appearance of movements of
planets and even stars) to their "heliacal rising," their brief
appearance on the eastern horizon as the turning Earth reaches the
few moments of dawn, when the Sun begins to rise but the sky is dark
enough to see the stars.
"....Studying the orientation of temples old and not so old,
found that those he called "Sun Temples" were of two kinds: those
oriented according to the equinoxes and those oriented according to
the solstices. Though the Sun always rises in the eastern skies and
sets in the western skies, it is only on the days of the equinoxes
that it rises anywhere on Earth precisely in the east, and
therefore deemed such "equinoctial" temples to be more universal
than those whose axis was oriented according to the solstices;
because the angle formed by the northern and southern (to an
observer in the northern hemisphere, the summer and winter)
solstices depended on where the observer was - his latitude.
Therefore, "solstitial" temples were more individual,
their geographic location (and even elevation).
"As examples of
equinoctial temples Lockyer cited the Temple of Zeus
at Baalbeck, the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, and the great
basilica of St. Peterís in the Vatican in Rome - all oriented on a
precise east-west axis. Regarding the latter he quoted studies on
church architecture that described how at the old St. Peterís (begun
under Constantine in the fourth century and torn down early in the
sixteenth century), on the day of the vernal equinox, "the great
doors of the porch of the quadriporticus were opened at
and also the eastern doors of the church, and as the sun rose, its
rays passed through the outer doors, then through the inner doors,
and penetrating straight through the nave, illuminated the High
Altar." Lockyer added that "the present church fulfills the same
St.Peterís Basilica; Rome, Italy. On left photo, Tiber
River shows, and "Conziliazione Avenue."
"As examples of "solstitial"
Sun Temples Lockyer described the principal Chinese "Temple of
Heaven" in Peking, where "the most important of all state
observances in China, the sacrifice performed in the open air at the
south altar of the Temple of Heaven," was held on the day of the
winter solstice, December 21; and the structure of Stonehenge,
oriented to the summer solstice.
Heaven, Peking (Beijing)
of Altar of Heaven
"All that was, however,
just a prelude to Lockyerís main studies, in Egypt.
"Studying the orientation of Egyptís ancient temples,
concluded that the older ones were "equinoctial" and the later ones
"solstitial." He was amazed to discover that earlier temples
revealed greater astronomical sophistication than later ones, for
they were intended to observe and venerate not only the rising and
setting of the Sun, but also of stars. Moreover, the earliest shrine
suggested a mixed Sun-Moon worship that shifted to an equinoctial,
i.e. Sun, focus. That equinoctial shrine, he wrote, was the temple
in Heliopolis ("City of the Sun" in Greek) whose Egyptian name
was also mentioned in the Bible as On. Lockyer calculated that the
combination of solar observations with the period of the bright star
Sirius and with the annual rising of the Nile, a triple
on which the Egyptian time reckoning Point Zero was circa 3200 B.C.
"The Annu shrine, it is known from Egyptian inscriptions, held the
Ben-Ben ("Pyramidion-Bird"), claimed to have been the actual conical
upper part of the "Celestial Barge" in which the god
Ra had come to
Earth from the "Planet of Millions of Years." This object, usually
kept in the templeís inner sanctum, was put in public display once a
year, and pilgrimages to the shrine to view and venerate the sacred
object continued into dynastic times. The object itself has vanished
over the millennia; but a stone replica thereof has been found,
showing the great god visible through the doorway or hatch of the
capsule. The legend of the Phoenix, the mythical bird that dies and
resurrects after a certain period, has also been traced to this
shrine and its veneration.
"....While this shrine has not survived the millennia, what may have
been another later shrine modeled after the Heliopolitan one has
been found by archaeologists. It is the so called Solar Temple of
the Pharaoh Ne-user-Ra of the fifth dynasty that lasted from 2494 to
2345 B.C. Built at a place now called Abusir, just south of Giza and
its great pyramids, it consisted primarily of a large raised terrace
upon which, within a great enclosure, there stood on a massive
obelisk-like object. A ramp surmounted by a covered corridor lighted
by evenly spaced windows in the ceiling, connected the templeís
elaborate entrance with a monumental gateway in the valley below.
The sloping base of the obelisk-like rose some sixty-five feet above
the level of the templeís court; the obelisk, which may have been
sheathed with gilded copper, rose another 120 feet.
Mr. Sitchin explains the
orientation, both equinoctial and solstitial, of the Solar Temple in
Abusir in detail in his book. He also mentions:
"....The equinoctial orientation of the temple proper and the
solstitial one of the corridor, bespeaking the movements of the Sun,
led Egyptologists to apply to the structure the term "Sun Temple."
They found reinforcement in this designation in the discovery of a
"solar boat" (partly carved out of the rock and partly built of
dried and painted bricks) buried under the sands just south of the
temple enclosure. Hieroglyphic texts dealing with the measurement of
time and the calendar in ancient Egypt held that the celestial
bodies traversed the skies in boats. Often, the gods or even the
deified pharaohs (having joined the gods in the Afterlife) were
depicted in such boats, sailing above the firmament of the skies
that was held up at the four corner points.
Cheop, in display at Solar Boat Museum, Egypt
Solar Boat on display in Museum at Giza.
from Burial Tomb of a Queen
Mr. Sitchin explains the
details in his book, of one or two more examples of temples who had
emulated the pyramidion-on-platform concept of the Ne-user-Ra "Sun
Temple," one of Pharaoh Mentuhotep I; and six centuries later,
another addition from Tuthmosis III and Queen Hatshepsut, which
orientation was similar but not exactly so.
to the Temple of Hatshepsut above.
Pylon at the Temple of Tuthmosis III and Hutshepsut;
Deir el Bahari left
"It was at
that Lockyer made his most important discovery, one that laid the
foundation for archaeoastronomy.
"The sequence of chapters, facts, and arguments in
The Dawn of
reveals that Lockyerís route to Karnak and Egyptian temples passed
through the European evidence. There was the Orientation of the Old
St. Peterís in Rome and the information about the beam of sunlight
at the spring equinox sunrise; and there was St. Peterís Square (a
woodcut drawing of which Lockyer included), with its startling
similarities to Stonehenge ...
found similarities between St. Peterís Square (above)
and Stonehenge (below).
also observed the Parthenon, Athens
"He looked at
Parthenon in Athens, Greeceís principal shrine and found that,
"there is the old Parthenon, a building which may have been standing
at the time of the Trojan war, and the new Parthenon, with an outer
court like the Egyptian temples but with its sanctuary more nearly
in the center of the building. It was by the difference of direction
of these two temples at Athens that my attention was called to the
"He had in front of him drawings of the layout plans of various
Egyptian temples where orientations seemed to vary from early to
later buildings, and was struck by an obvious one in two
back-to-back temples at a site not far from Thebes called
Medinet-Habu and pointed out the similarity between this Egyptian
and the Greek "difference of orientation" in temples that, from a
purely architectural aspect, should have been parallel and with the
same axial orientation.
"Could the slightly altered orientation result from changes in the
amplitude (the position in the skies) of the Sun or stars caused by
the changes in the Earthís obliquity? he wondered, and felt that the
answer was Yes.
"....Lockyer masterful innovation was this: by determining the
orientation of a temple and its geographic longitude, it was
possible to calculate the obliquity that prevailed at the time of
construction; and by determining the changes in obliquity over
millennia, it was possible to conclude with sufficient certainty
when the temple was constructed.
"The Table of Obliquity, fined-tuned and made more accurate during
the past century, shows the change in the angle of the Earthís tilt
in five hundred-year intervals going back from the present 23ļ 27í
(about 23.5 degrees):
"Lockyer applied his
findings primarily at the great temple to Amon-Ra in
Views of the
Great Temple To Amon
archaeological discoveries at Karnak corroborate Lockyerís principal
innovation - that the orientation of the temples changed in time to
reflect the changes in obliquity. Therefore, the orientation could
serve as a clue to the templeís time of construction....
Mr. Sitchin explains several points, including the date of
construction for the oldest part of the Great Temple at circa 2100 B.C, with:
"repairs, demolitions, and rebuilding then continued
through the ensuing centuries by pharaohs of subsequent dynasties;
two obelisks were set up by pharaohs of the XVIII dynasty. The final
phase took shape under Pharaoh Seti II of the XIX dynasty who
reigned in 1216-1210 B.C. - all as Lockyer had determined."
"Archaeoastronomy - or,
astro-archaeology as Sir Norman Lockyer
named it proved its merit and validity.
"At the beginning of this century
Lockyer turned his attention to
"....presented his conclusions in
Stonehenge and Other British Stone
Monuments (1906); they can be summed up in one drawing. It assumes
an axis that begins at the Altar Stone, passes between the sarsen
stones numbered 1 and 30, down the Avenue, toward the Heel Stone as
the focusing pillar. The obliquity angle indicated by such an axis
led him to suggest that Stonehenge was built in 1680 B.C. Needless
to say, such an early date was quite sensational at the time, a
century ago, when scholars still thought of Stonehenge in terms of
King Arthurís days.
Mr. Sitchin explains at this point in his book, the dates for the
earlier phases of Stonehenge, which:
"As the drawing shows" (Lockyerís), "he did not rule out a much
earlier date for the prior phases of Stonehenge, this too compares
well with the presently accepted date of 2900/2800 B.C. for
Stone appears in the distance between the center of the
sarsen stones, Stonehenge.
thus joins archaeological findings and radiocarbon dating to arrive
at the same dates for the construction of the various phases of
Stonehenge, the three separate methods corroborating each other.
With such a convincing determination of Stonehenge's dates, the
question regarding the builders becomes more poignant. Who, circa
2900/2800 B.C., possessed the knowledge of astronomy (to say nothing
of engineering and architecture) to build such a calendrical
"computer," and circa 2100/2000 B.C. to rearrange the various
components thereof and attain a new realignment? And why was such a
realignment required or desired?
"....If, as all agree, the sophisticated scientific knowledge that
was required for the planning, sitting, orientation, and construction
of Stonehenge had to come from outside the British Isles, the
earlier civilizations of the near East seem to be the only sources
for such knowledge at the time.
"Were the Sun Temples of Egypt, then, the
prototypes for Stonehenge?
We have seen that at the dates established for Stonehengeís various
phases, there already existed in Egypt elaborate temples that were
astronomically oriented. The equinoctial Sun Temple at Heliopolis
was built at about the time, 3100 B.C., when kingship
began in Egypt
(if not somewhat earlier) - several centuries before Stonehenge I.
The construction of the oldest phase of the solstitially oriented
temple to Amon-Ra in Karnak took place circa 2100 B.C. - a date
coinciding (perhaps not by chance) with the date for the
"remodeling" of Stonehenge.
"....From the beginning of dynastic times in
Egypt, with which the
appearance of a distinct Egyptian civilization is linked, it was the
pharaohs of Egypt who had hired the architects and masons, the
priests and the savants, and decreed the planning and construction
of the marvelous stone edifices of ancient Egypt. None of them,
however, appears to have designed, oriented, and built a circular
"What about those famous seafarers, the Phoenicians? Not only did
they reach the British Isles (mainly in search of tin) too late to
have built not just Stonehenge I but also the II and III phases, but
none of their temple architecture bears any resemblance to the
emphatically circular essence of Stonehenge.... On the vast platform
at Baalbeck in the Lebanon mountains, people after people and
conquerors after conquerors built their temples precisely on the
ruins and according to the layout of preceding temples. These, as
the later extant ruins from the Roman era reveal, represented a
rectangular temple (black area) (details shown on book) with a
square forecourt (the diamond-shaped entrance pavillion is a purely
Roman addition). The temple is clearly oriented on an east-west
axis, facing directly east toward the Sun at sunrise - an
equinoctial temple. This should perhaps be no surprise, since in
ancient times this site too was called "City of the Sun" -
Heliopolis by the Greeks, Beth-Shemesh ("House of the Sun") in the
Bible, in King Solomonís time.
"diamond" shape (hexagonal), added by the
View of the
Temple from the "Diamond" shape
"That the rectangular
shape and east-west axis were not a passing fad in Phoenicia is
further evidenced by the Temple of Solomon, the first temple of
Jerusalem, which was built with the help of Phoenician architects
provided by Ahiram, king of Tyre; it was a rectangular structure on
an east-west axis, facing eastward, built upon a large man-made
"....Circles do appear, though, in the case of the other
Mediterranean "suspects" - the Mycenaeans, the first Hellenic people
of ancient Greece. But these were at first what archaeologists call
Grave Circles - burial pits surrounded by a circle of stones that
evolved into circular tombs hidden beneath a conical mound of soil.
But that had taken place circa 1500 B.C., and the largest of them,
called the Treasury of Atreus because of the golden artifacts that
were found around the dead, dates to circa 1300 B.C.
Archaeologists who adhere to the
Mycenaean connection compare such
eastern Mediterranean burial mounds to Silbury Hill in the
Stonehenge area or to one of Newgrange, across the Irish Sea in
Boyne Valley, County Meath, in Ireland; but Silbury Hill has been
determined by carbon dating to have been constructed no later than
2200 B.C. and the burial ground at Newgrange at about the same time
- almost a thousand years before the Treasury of Atreus and other
Mycenaean examples; the period of the Mycenaean burial mounds,
moreover, is even further removed from the time of Stonehenge I. In
fact, the burial mounds in the British Isles are much more akin, in
construction and in timing, to such mounds in the western rather
than eastern Mediterranean, such as the one in Los Millares in
"Above all, Stonehenge has never served as a burial place. For all
these reasons, the search for a prototype - a circular structure
serving astronomical purposes - should continue beyond the eastern
Graves at Mycenae
Hill, in the Stonehenge area.
Grave at Newgrange. Ireland
Stone at entrance
"Older than the Egyptian
civilization and possessing much more advanced scientific knowledge,
the Sumerian civilization could have served, theoretically, as the
fountainhead for Stonehenge. Among the outstanding Sumerian
achievements were great cities, a written language, literature,
schools, kings, courts, laws, judges, merchants, craftsmen, poets,
dancers. The sciences flourished within the temples where the
"secrets on numbers and of the heavens" - of mathematics and
astronomy - were kept, taught, and transmitted by generations of
priests who performed their functions within walled-off sacred
compounds. Such compounds usually included shrines dedicated to
various deities, residences, work and study places for the priests,
storehouses and other administrative buildings, and - as the
dominant, principal, and most prominent feature of the sacred
precinct and of the city itself - a ziggurat, a pyramid that rose
sky high in stages (usually seven). The topmost stage was a multichambered structure that was intended - literally - to be the
residence of the great god whose "cult center" (as scholars like to
call it) the city was.
"A good illustration of the layout of such a sacred precinct with
its ziggurat is a reconstruction based on archaeological discoveries
at the sacred precinct of Nippur (NI.IBRU in Sumerian), the
"headquarters" from the earlier days of the god Enlil.... As luck
would have it, archaeologists have also unearthed a clay tablet upon
which an ancient cartographer drew a map of Nippur; it clearly shows
the rectangular sacred precinct with the square-based ziggurat....
The orientation of the ziggurat and the temples was such that the
corners of the structures pointed to the four cardinal points of the
compass, so that the sides of the structure faced to the northeast,
southwest, northwest, and southeast.
"....It was an orientation that it made it possible to scan the
heavens in many directions and angles.... the line between the
east-pointing and west-pointing corners provided the equinoctial
orientation; the sides gave solstitial views to either sunrise or
sunset, at both summer and winter solstices. Modern astronomers have
found many of these observational orientations in the famed ziggurat
of Babylon, whose precise measurements and building plans were found
spelled out on clay tablets.
"Square or rectangular structures, with precise right angles, were
the traditional shape of Mesopotamian ziggurats and temples, whether
one looks at the sacred precinct of Ur at the time of
2100 B.C., the time of Stonehenge II - or goes back to one of the
earliest temples built on a raised platform, as the White Temple at
Eridu that dates to about 3100 B.C. - two or three centuries before
the date of Stonehenge I.
Ziggurats. Above is a ruin from UR, todayís Iraq. On the
right, a ruined Ziggurat from todayís Iran.
"The deliberate manner
in which the Mesopotamian temples, at all times, were given the
rectangular shape and specific orientation can be easily inferred
from the layout on Babylon by comparing the haphazard meshing of
buildings and alleys in cities in Babylonian times with the straight
and geometrically perfect layout of the sacred precinct of Babylon
and the square shape of its ziggurat.
"....In case someone wonders whether this was because the Sumerians
and their successors were unfamiliar with the circle or unable to
construct one, suffice it to point out that in mathematical tablets
certain key number of the sexagesimal ("base 60") system were
represented by circles; in tablets dealing with geometry and land
measurement, instructions were given for measuring regular- and
irregular-shaped areas, including circles. The round wheel was known
- another Sumerian "first." Obviously circular residential houses
were found in the ruins of early cities; a sacred precinct was
sometimes surrounded by an oval-forming wall. It is clear that
avoiding a well-known circular shape for temples was deliberate.
"There were thus basic design, architecture, and orientation
differences between Sumerian temples and Stonehenge, to which one
could add the fact that the Sumerians were not stonemasons (there
being no stone quarries in the alluvial plain between the Euphrates
and Tigris rivers). The Sumerians were not the ones who planned and
erected Stonehenge; and the only instance that can be considered an
exception to discoveries and Sumerian temples, as we shall see,
reinforces this conclusion.
"So, if not the Egyptians or
Phoenicians or early Greeks, if not the
Sumerians and their successors in Mesopotamia - who then came to the
plain of Salisbury to plan and supervise the creation of
"An interesting clue
emerges as one reads the legends concerning the tumulus of Newgrange.
According to Michael J. OíKelly, a leading architect and explorer of
the site and its surroundings (Newgrange: Archaeology, Art and
Legend), the site was known in early Irish lore by various names
that all designated it as Burg Oengusa, the "House of Oengus," son
of the chief god of the pre-Celtic pantheon who had come to Ireland
from "the Otherworld." That chief god was known as
An Dagda, "An,
the good god."
"It is indeed amazing to find the name of the principal deity of the
ancient world in all these diverse places - in Sumer and his
ziggurat of Uruk; in the Egyptian Heliopolis, whose true name was
Annu; and in far-removed Ireland.
"That this might be an important clue and not just an insignificant
coincidence becomes possible when we examine the name of the son of
this "chief god," Oengus. When the Babylonian priest
circa 290 B.C., the history and prehistory of Mesopotamia and
Mankind according to the Sumerian and Babylonian records, he (or the
Greek savants who copied from his works) spelled the name of Enki "Oannes."
Enki was the leader of the first group of Anunnaki to splash down to
Earth, in the Persian Gulf; he was the chief scientist of the
Anunnaki and the one who inscribed all knowledge on the
enigmatic objects that, with our present knowledge, one could
compare to computer memory discs. He was indeed a son of Anu; was he
then the god who in pre-Celtic myth became Oengus, the son of
""All that we know, we were taught by the gods," the
"Was it, then, not the ancient peoples, but the ancient gods who
DUR.AN.KI - THE
"From the earliest days,
Man has lifted his eyes to the heavens for
divine guidance, for inspiration, for help in trouble times.
"....From the earliest days,
Man knew that his creators had come
from the heavens - Anunnaki he called them, literally "Those who
from Heaven to Earth Came." Their true abode was in the heavens,
always knew: "Father who art in heaven," Man knew to say. But those
of the Anunnaki who had come and stayed on Earth, Man also knew,
could be worshipped in the temples.
"Man and his gods met in the temples, and the knowledge and rituals
and beliefs that resulted are called Religion.
most important "cult center," the "navel of the earth," was
Enlilís city in what was later Sumer. Central religiously,
philosophically, and actually, that city, Nippur, was the
control Center; and its Holy of Holies, where the Tablets of
Destinies were kept, was called DUR.AN.KI - "Bond Heaven-Earth."
"And ever since, at all times and in all places and in all
religions, the places of worship that are called temples, in spite
of all the changes that they, and Mankind and its religions have
undergone, have remained the Bond Heaven-Earth.
"....In those days each of
the Great Anunnaki was assigned a
celestial counterpart, and since the Solar System had twelve
members, the "Olympic Circle," throughout the millennia and up to
and including Greek time, was always made up of twelve. It was thus
that the worship of the gods was closely associated with the motions
of the celestial bodies, and the biblical admonitions against the
worship of "the Sun, the Moon and the Host of Heaven" were in
reality against the worship of gods other than Yahweh.
"The rituals, festivals, days of abstinence, and other rites, that
expressed the worship of the gods were thus attuned to the motions
of the godís celestial counterparts. Worship required a calendar,
temples were observatories; priests were astronomers. The ziggurats
were Temples of Time, where time-keeping joined astronomy to
"Thus, according to the Bible (Genesis 4:25-26), did the children of
Adam begin to worship their God. How this calling in the name of the
Lord was done - what form the worship took, what rituals were
involved - we are not told. It happened, the Bible makes clear, in
remote times, well before the Deluge. Sumerian texts, however, throw
light on the subject. They not only assert - repeatedly and
emphatically - that there were Cities of the Gods in Mesopotamia
before the Deluge, and that when the Deluge had occurred there had
already been "demigods" (offspring of "Daughters of Man" by
male Anunnaki "gods"), but also that the worship took place in
consecrated places (we call them "temples"). They were already, we
learn from the earliest texts, Temples of Time.
Mankind began to upset Enlil ("Son of the Command" a
son of Anu), by its excessive "conjugations," especially with
Anunnaki (a situation reflected in the biblical version of the
Deluge tale); and Enlil prevailed on the Great Anunnaki, in their
Council, to use the foreseen catastrophe of the avalanche of water
to wipe mankind off the face of the Earth.
"....But Enki ("Lord of Earth," another important son of
though he joined in swearing to keep the decision a secret from
Mankind, was not happy with the decision and sought ways to
frustrate it. He chose to achieve that through the intermediary of
Atra-Hasis, a son of Enki by a human mother. The text, which at
times assumes a biographical style by Atra-Hasis himself, quotes him
saying, "I am Atra-Hasis; I lived in the temple of Enki my lord" - a
statement which clearly establishes the existence of a temple in
those remote pre-Diluvial times.
"Describing the worsening climatic conditions on the one hand and
Enlilís harsh measures against Mankind on the other hand in the
period preceding the Deluge, the text quotes Enkiís advice to the
people through Atra-Hasis how to protest against Enlilís decrees:
the worship of the gods should stop!
"Enki opened his mouth and addressed his servant," saying thus to
The elders, on a sign,
summon to the House of Council.
Let heralds proclaim a command
loudly throughout the land:
Do not reverence your gods,
do not pray to your goddesses.
"As the situation got worse and the catastrophe day neared,
Atra-Hasis persisted in his intercession with his god Enki.... In
the end Enki decided to subvert the decision of the Council of the
Anunnaki by summoning Atra-Hasis to the temple and speaking to him
from behind a screen.... giving him instructions to build a
submersible.... To make sure Atra-Hasis wasted no time,
into motion a clocklike device:
He opened the water clock
and filled it;
the coming of the flood on the seventh night
he marked off for him.
"....Enki was the chief scientist of the Anunnaki; it is no wonder,
therefore, that it was at his temple, at this "cult center"
that the first human scientists, the Wise Men, served as priests.
One of the first, if not the very first, was called Adapa. Though
the original Adapa text has not been found, Akkadian and
versions on clay fragments that have been found attest the taleís
significance. Informing us at the very beginning that Adapaís
command of wisdom was almost as good as that of Enki himself, the
text proceeds to explain that Enki had "perfected for him wide
understanding, disclosing all the designs of the Earth; Wisdom he
had given to him." It was all done at the temple; Adapa, we are
told, "daily did attend the sanctuary of Eridu."
"According to Sumerian chronicles of the earlier times, it was at
Eriduís temple that Enki, as guardian of the secrets of all
scientific knowledge, kept the MEís - tablet-like objects on which
the scientific data were inscribed.
"....Even unto millennia later, in
Assyrian times, the saying "Wise
as Adapa" meant that someone was exceedingly wise and knowledgeable.
The study of sciences was often referred in Mesopotamian texts as
Shunnat apkati Adapa, "recital/repetition of the great forefather
Adapa." A letter by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, mentioned that
his grandfather Sennacherib, was given great knowledge when
had appeared to him in a dream. The "wide knowledge" imparted by
Enki to Adapa included writing, medicine and - according to the
astronomical series of tablets UD.SAR.ANUM.ENLILLA ("The Great Days
of Anu and Enlil") - knowledge of astronomy and astrology.
"....At the core of these sciences was a mathematical system called
sexagesimal ("Base Sixty") whose advanced nature, including its
celestial aspects, has already been discussed. Such sophistication
existed even in the earliest times that some call predynastic:
arithmetically inscribed tablets that have been found attest the use
of the sexagesimal system and of numerical record keeping. Designs
on clay objects also from the earliest times leave no doubt
regarding the high level of knowledge of geometry in those remote
times, six thousand years ago.
Valley; the land "alloted to Ishtar" this pattern comes
from a tomb in Pakistan.
Left: Nineveh and
marble, ancient temple in Malta
"....In the aftermath of
the Deluge, when the plain between the Tigris and the
rivers dried sufficiently to enable resettlement, the Cities of the
Gods were rebuilt exactly where they had been, according to the
"olden plan." Kish, the first City of Men was entirely new and its
place and layout had to be determined. These decisions, we read in
the Tale of Etana, were made by the gods. Employing scientific
knowledge of geometry for layout and astronomy for orientation,
The gods traced out a city;
Seven gods laid its foundations,
The City of Kish they traced out
and there the seven gods had its foundation.
A city they established, a dewlling place;
but a Shepherd they withheld.
"The twelve rulers at Kish who had preceded
Etana were not yet given
the Sumerian royal-priestly title EN.SI - "Lordy Shepherd" or as
some prefer "Righteous Shepherd." The city, it appears, could attain
this status only when the gods could find the right man to build a
ziggurat stage-temple there and, by becoming a king-priest be given
the title EN.SI.
"....The task to "look for a king in all the lands, above and
below," was assigned to Inanna/Ishtar. She found and recommended
Etana - a humble shepherd.... Enlil, "he who grants kingship," had
to make the actual appointment. We read that "Enlil inspected
the young man who Ishtar had nominated. íShe sought and she found!í
he cried. íIn the land shall kingship be establish; let the heart of
Kish be glad!í"
Tale of Etana explains that he went to the
Abode of Anu to be
taught; it also explains the impression of Etana seeing the Earth
becoming smaller and smaller as the growing distance was being
measured by the "beru," unit of measurement, by the "double-hour" a
measurement of time, as he ascended to heaven. Mr. Sitchin makes the
"....What the text makes clear is that at that remote time, when
first Shepherd King was enthroned in the first City of men,
distance, time, and the heavens could already be measured.
"Since all the major gods of
ancient Mesopotamia had celestial
counterparts from among the twelve members of the Solar System, as
well as a counterpart from the twelve constellations of the
and from the twelve months, one must wonder whether the reference to
the determination of the orientation of Kish and its
ziggurat by the
"seven gods" did not actually mean by the seven planets which those
deities represented. Were the Anunnaki waiting for the propitious
alignment of seven planets as the right time and right orientation
for Kish and its ziggurat?
"Further light, we believe, can be shed on the subject by journeying
in time over more than two thousand years to Judea circa 1000 B.C.
Incredibly, we find that about three thousand years ago the
circumstances surrounding the selection of a shepherd to be the
builder of a new temple in a new royal capital emulated the event
and circumstances recorded in the Tale of Etana; and the same
number seven, with a calendrical significance, also played a role.
"The Judean city where
the ancient drama (Tale of Etana) was reenacted was
who was shepherding the flocks of his father Jesse the Bethlemite
was chosen by the Lord for kingship....
"....A principal preoccupation of the
Israelites at that time was
the need to find a home for the Ark of the Covenant - not just a
permanent home, but also a safe one. Originally placed by Moses in
the Tent of Appointment during the Exodus, it contained the two
stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.
Made with specific wood and overlaid with gold both inside and
outside, it was surrounded by two Cherubim made of hardened gold
with wings extended toward each other; and each time Moses had an
appointment with the Lord, Yahweh spoke to him "from between the two
Cherubim...." We believe that the Ark, with its
layers and Cherubim was a communication device, perhaps electrically
powered (when it was touched inadvertently, the person involved fell
"Yahweh had given very detailed instructions regarding the
construction of the Tent of Appointment and the enclosure for it,
and for the Ark, including what amounted to an "operating manual"
for the dismantling and reassembling of all that as well as for the
careful transportation of the Ark. By Davidís time, however,
was no longer carried by wooden staves but transported upon a
wheeled carriage. It was moved from one temporary place of worship
to another, and a major assignment for the newly anointed Shepherd
King was to establish a new national capital in Jerusalem and
therein build a permanent housing for the Ark in the "House of the
of Moses in the Tent of Appointment (Tabernacle) during
Exodus, with the Ark of the Covenant
the Tabernacle in Jerusalem
Moses about to break the first set of Tablets with the
"But this was not come
to pass.... It was one of the very first tasks of King Solomon (King
Davidís Son), to build the "House of Yahweh" (now referred as to the
First Temple) in Jerusalem. Built as the sacred compound and its
components in the Sinai were, it was erected in accordance with very
detailed instructions. In fact, the layout plans of the two are
almost identical. And both were oriented along a precise east-west
axis, identifying them as equinoctial temples.
"The similarities between
Kish and Jerusalem as new national
capitals, a Shepherd King, and the task of building a temple whose
plans were provided by the Lord is enhanced by the significance of
the number seven.
Gibeon; it is
also the place where the tale of Joshua commanding the Sun
"to stand still" eventuated.
"We are informed in
Kings (chapter 3) that Solomon proceeded to organize the
construction project (it involved among others in the workforce,
80,000 stone quarriers and 70,000 porters) only after Yahweh had
appeared unto Solomon in Gibeon "in a nightly vision."
"....The construction, lasting seven years, began with laying the
foundation stone in the fourth year of Solomonís reign, and "in the
eleventh year, in the month of Bul which is the eighth month the
Temple was completed in all its stipulations and exactly according
to its plans." But although entirely complete with not detailed
missed or omitted, the Temple was not inaugurated.
"It was only eleven months later, "in the
month of Etanim, the
seventh month, on the festival," that all the elders and tribal
chiefs from all over assembled in Jerusalem, "and the priests
brought the Ark of the Covenant with Yahweh into its place, into the
Dvir of the temple which is the Holy of Holies, under the wings of
the Cherubim ... and there was nothing in the Ark except the two
stone tablets which Moses had placed therein in the Wilderness after
Yahweh had made a covenant with the Children of Israel after they
had left Egypt. And when the priests stepped out of the Holy of
Holies, a cloud filled the House of Yahweh...."
"....The long postponement in the inauguration of the temple was
required, it appears, so that it would take place "in the seventh
month, on the festival." There can be no doubt that the festival
referred to was the New Yearís festival, in accordance with the
commandments concerning holy days and festivals pronounced in the
biblical Book of Leviticus.... chapter 23 states: the observance of
the seventh day as the Sabbath is just the first of holy days to be
held in intervals of multiples of seven days or that were to last
seven days, culminating with the festivals of the seventh month: New
Yearís Day, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Booths.
Mesopotamia by that time Babylon and
Assyria had supplanted Sumer, and the New Year was celebrated - as the monthís name
indicated - in the first month called Nissan, which coincided with
"The reasons why the Israelites were commanded to celebrate autumnal
equinox, remain unexplained in the Bible. But we may find a clue in
the fact that the biblical narrative does not call this by its
Babylonian-Assyrian name, Tishrei, but by the enigmatic name
No satisfactory explanation for this name has been found so far; but
a solution does occur to us: in view of all the above listed
similarities between the king-priest as a shepherd and the
circumstances of the establishment of a new capital and the
construction of a residence for Yahweh in the desert and in
Jerusalem, the clue to the monthís name should also be sought in the
Tale of Etana. For does the name used in the Bible,
stem from the name Etana? The name Etan as a personal name, one may
note, was not uncommon among the Hebrews, meaning "heroic, mighty."
"....It is noteworthy that in a discussion by August Wunsche of the
similarities between Solomonís edifices in Jerusalem and the
Mesopotamian "portrait of the heavens" (Ex Oriente Lux, vol.2) he
cited the rabbinic reference - as in the Tale of Etana - to the
"seven stars that indicate time" - Mercury, Moon,
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, and Venus. There are thus plenty of clues and indications
confirming the celestial-calendrical aspects of Solomonís Temple -
aspects that link it to traditions and orientations established
millennia earlier, in Sumer.
"....Walter Andrae (Des Gotteshouse und die Urformen des Bauens)
pointed out that in Assyria the templeís entrance was flanked by
pylons; this was reflected in Solomonís Temple, where the entrance
was flanked by two freestanding pillars.
"The detailed architectural and construction information in the
Bible in respect to Solomonís Temple calls its unteroom
ritual hall Hekhal, and its holiest part Dvir. The latter, meaning
"Where the speaking takes place," no doubt reflected the fact that
Yahweh spoke to Moses from the Ark of the Covenant, the voice coming
from where the wings of the Cherubim were touching; and the
placed in the Temple as the only artifact in the innermost
enclosure, the Holy of Holies or Dvir. The terminology used for the
two foreparts, scholars have recognized, comes from the Sumerian
(via Akkadian): E-gal and Ulammu.
tripartite division, adopted later on elsewhere
(e.g. the Zeus Temple in Olympia, or the Canaanite one at
Upper Syria), was in reality a continuation that began with the most
ancient temples, the ziggurats of Sumer, where the way to the
zigguratís top, via a stairway, led through two shrines, an outer
shrine with two pylons in front of it, and a prayer room - as drawn
by G. Martiny in his studies.
Mr. Sitchin explains the use of golden
utensils for the king and
how each subsequent king, especially in Mesopotamia, took the task
to make listings of repairs, naming the year of their reign and the
kind of repair mainly of the temples themselves, new walls, like in
the case of King Hammurabi.
Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian kings recorded
in their inscriptions with great pride how they repaired,
embellished, or rebuilt the sacred temples and their precincts;
archaeological excavations not only uncovered such inscriptions but
also corroborated the claims made therein (University of
"....The discovery that later temples were erected upon the
foundations of earlier temples in strict adherence to the original
plans was reconfirmed at other ancient sites in Mesopotamia. The
rule applied even to enlargement of temples - even if more than
once, as was found at Eridu; in all instances the original axis and
orientation had to be realigned from time to time because of the
change in the Earthís tilt. Mesopotamian equinoctial temples needed
no adjustment in their orientation because geographic north and
geographic east, by definition, remained unchanged no matter how the
Earthís tilt had changed: the sun always passed over the equator at
"equinox" times, rising on such days precisely in the east.
"The obligation to adhere to the "olden plans" was spelled out in an
inscription on a tablet found in Nineveh, the Assyrian capital,
along the ruins of a rebuilt temple. In it the Assyrian king
recorded his compliance with the sacred requirement:
The everlasting ground plan,
that which for the future
the construction determined,
[I have followed.]
It is the one which bears
the drawings from the Olden Times
and the writings of the Upper Heaven.
"....Indeed, the obligatory adherence to the earlier site,
orientation, and layout of the temples in the ancient Near East, no
matter how long the interval or how extensive the repairs or
rebuilding had to be, is exemplified by the successive temples in
Jerusalem. The First Temple was destroyed by the
Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in 587 B.C.; but after Babylon fell to the
Persian king Cyrus issued an edict permitting the return of Jewish
exiles to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple by them.
Restoration of the Templeís Vessels, under Persian
significantly, began with the erection of an altar (where the first
one used to be) "when the seventh month commenced" i.e. on the day
of the New Year (and the sacrifices continued until the Feast of
Booths). Lest there be doubt about the date, the Book of Ezra (3:6)
restated the date: "From the first day of the seventh month did the
sacrifices to Yahweh commence."
"The adherence not only to the location and orientation of the
temple but also to the time of the New Year - an indication of the
calendrical aspect of the temple - is reaffirmed in the prophecies
Ezequiel had a vision in which he was given the precise orientation
for the new temple, as it had been with the temple Solomon had
"The prophetic vision became a reality after the
Persian king Cyrus,
having defeated and captured Babylon, issued an edict proclaiming
the restoration of the destroyed temples throughout the Babylonian
empire.... A special royal proclamation, recorded word for word in
the Book of Ezra, called on the Jewish exiles to rebuild the "House
of Yahweh, God of Heaven."
Second Temple, built under difficult conditions in what was
still a devastated land, was a poor imitation of the First Temple.
Rebuilt a part at a time, it was constructed according to plans
received from records kept in the Persian royal archives and, the
Bible asserts, in strict conformity with the details in the Five
Books of Moses. That the Temple indeed followed the original layout
and orientation became clearer some five centuries later, when King
Herod decided to replace the poor replica with a new, splendid
edifice that would not just match, but even surpass, in grandeur the
First Temple. Built on an enlarged great platform (still known as
the Temple Mount) and its massive walls (of which the Western Wall,
still largely intact, is revered by Jews as the extant remnant of
the Holy Temple), it was surrounded by courtyards and various
auxiliary buildings. But the House of the Lord proper retained the
tripartite layout and orientation of the first Temple.
Platform at Temple Mount; the Old City in the view.
A Model at
an Hotel in Israel, of the Temple King Herod
"As one views the
remains of the immense sacred precincts with their temples and
shrines and service buildings, courtyards and gates, and, in the
innermost section, the Ziggurat, it should be borne in mind that the
very first temples were the actual abodes of the gods and were
literally called the godís "E" - the godís actual "House." Begun as
structures atop artificial mounds and raised platforms, they in time
evolved to become the famed ziggurats (step-pyramids) - the
skyscrapers of antiquity. As an artistís drawing shows, the deityís
actual residence was in the topmost stage. There, seated on their
thrones under a canopy, the gods would grant audiences to their
chosen king, the "Shepherd of Men."
"....Circa 2300 B.C. a high priestess, the daughter of
Sargon of Akkad, collected all the hymns to the ziggurat-temples of her time.
Called by Sumerologists "a unique Sumerian literary composition" (A. Sjoberg and
E. Bergmann in Texts From Cuneiform Sources, vol. 3),
the text pays homage to forty-two "E" temples, from
Eridu in the
south to Sippar in the north and on both sides of the
"....The composition appropriately begins with
ziggurat-temple in Eridu, called in the hymn "place whose
Holies is the foundation of Heaven-Earth," for Eridu
was the first
City of the Gods, the first outpost of the first landing of
Anunnaki (led by Enki), and the first divine city opened up to
Earthlings to become also a City of Men.
Views from the Palace
of Sargon of Akkad, whose daughter was inspired to take record of
all the ziggurat-temples of her time.
Transporting wood by boat, upper right; a worshipper, upper left;
depiction of Sargon, above.
"This hymn was followed
by one to the E.KUR - "House which is like a mountain" - the
ziggurat of Enlil in Nippur.... It was a "shrine where destinies are
determined," a ziggurat "which bonds heaven and earth." In
Nippur Ninlil, Enlilís spouse, had her separate temple, "clad in awesome
brilliance." From it the goddess appeared "in the month of the New
Year, on the day of the festival, wonderfully adorned."
"The half sister of
Enki and Enlil, Ninharsag, who was among the
first Anunnaki to come to Earth and was their chief biologist and
medical officer, had her temple at the city called Kesh. Simply
called E.NINHARSAG. "House of the Lady of the Mountainpeak," it was
described as a ziggurat whose "bricks are well molded ... a place
of Heaven and Earth, an awe inspiring place" which apparently was
adorned with "a great poisonous snake" made of lapis lazuli - the
symbol of medicine and healing. (Moses, it will be recalled, made an
image of a serpent to stop a killing plague in the Sinai desert).
"The god Ninurta, Enlilís Foremost son by his half sister
who had a ziggurat in his own "cult center," Lagash, had at the time
of the composition of this text also a temple in the sacred precinct
of Nippur, it was called E.ME.UR.ANNA, "House of the MEís of Anuís
Hero." In Lagash, the ziggurat was called
E.NINNU, "House of Fifty,"
reflecting the numerical rank in the divine hierarchy (Anuís rank,
sixty, was the highest).
"It was, the hymn stated, a "House filled with radiance and awe,
grown high like a mountain," in which Ninurtaís "Black Bird," his
flying machine, and his Sharur weapon ("the raging storm which
envelopes men") were housed.
"Enlilís firstson by his official spouse,
Ninlil, was Nannar (later
known as Sin), who was associated with the Moon as his celestial
counterpart. His ziggurat, in Ur, was called E.KISH.NU.GAL, a "House
of Thirty, the great seed" and was described as a temple "whose
beaming moonlight comes forth in the land" - all references to
Nannar/Sinís celestial association with the Moon and the month.
"Nannar/Sinís son, Utu/Shamash (his celestial counterpart was the
Sun) had his temple in Sippar, the E.BABBAR - "House of the Bright
One" or "Bright House." It was described as "House of the prince of
heaven, a heavenly star who from the horizon, fills the earth from
heaven." His twin sister, Inanna/Ishtar, whose celestial counterpart
was the planet Venus, had her ziggurat temple in the city
where it was called "House full of brightness"; it was described as
a "pure mountain," a "shrine whose mouth opens at dawn" and one
"through which the firmament is made beautiful at night" - undoubted
reference to the double role of Venus as an evening, as well as a
morning "star." Inanna/Ishtar was also worshipped in
Anu had put at her disposal the ziggurat-temple built for him when
he had come to Earth for a visit. The ziggurat was called E.NANNA,
simply "House of Anu." The hymn described it as a "ziggurat of seven
stages, surveying the seven luminary gods of the night" - a
reference to its alignment and astronomical aspects that was echoed
as we have noted earlier, in rabbinic comments regarding the
"Thus did the composition go on, on portraying the
their glories, and celestial associations. Scholars speak of this
association from more than 4,300 years ago as a "collection of
Sumerian temple hymns" and title it "The Cycle of Old Sumerian Poems
about the Great Temples." It may however be much more appropriate to
follow the Sumerian custom and call the text by its opening words:
E.U NIR House-ziggurat rising high
AN.KI DA Heaven-Earth joining.
"One of those
Houses and its sacred precinct, as we shall see, hold
a key that can unlock the Stonehenge enigma and the events of that
timeís New Age.