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102 someone viewing and mapping it from the air could have done it. And the only ones around at the time were the Anunnaki. Indeed, the slippage of Antarctica's ice cover and its effects on the Earth are mentioned in a major text known as the Erra Epos. It deals with the events, millennia later, when a deadly dispute arose between the Anunnaki concerning the supremacy on Earth. As the zodiacal age of the Bull (Taurus) was giving way to that of the Ram (Aries), Marduk, the Firstborn son of Enki, asserted that his time had come to take over the supremacy from Enlil and his legal heir. When instruments located at sacred precincts in Sumer indicated that the new age of the Ram had not yet arrived, Marduk complained that they reflected changes that had occurred be- cause "the Erakallum quaked and its covering was dimin- ished, and the measures could no longer be taken." Erakallum is a term whose precise meaning escapes the scholars; it used to be translated "Lower World" but is now left in scholarly studies untranslated. In When Time Began we have suggested that the term denotes the land at the bottom of the world—Antarctica, and that the "covering" that had diminished was the ice cover that had slipped circa 13,000 years ago but grew back to some extent by 4,000 years ago. (Charles Hapgood surmised that the ice-free Antarctica as depicted in the Orontius Finaeus map showed the continent as it was seen circa 4000 B.C., ie. 6,000 years ago; other studies saw 9,000 years ago as the right time). no As the Deluge overwhelmed the lands and destroyed all upon them, the Anunnaki themselves were airborne, orbiting the Earth in their spacecraft. From the skies they could see me havoc and destruction. Divided into several spacecraft, some "cowered like dogs, crouched against the outer wall." As the days passed "their lips were feverish of thirst, they were suffering cramp from hunger." In the spacecraft where Ishtar was, "she cried out like a woman in travail," la- menting that "the olden days are alas turned to clay." In her spacecraft Ninmah, who shared in the creation of Mankind, bewailed what she was seeing. "My creatures have become like flies, filling the rivers like dragonflies, their fatherhood DIVINE ENCOUNTERS