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11 The assembled gods—the Anunnaki leaders—agreed en- thusiastically. On Enki's suggestion they summoned Ninmah, the Chief Medical Officer, to assist in the task. "You are the midwife of the gods," they said to her—"Create Mankind! Create a Mixed One that he may bear the yoke, let him bear the yoke assigned by Enlil, let the Primitive Worker toil for the gods!" In Chapter 1 of Genesis the discussion that led to this decision is summed up in one verse: "And Elohim said: Let us make the Adam in our image, after our likeness." And, with the implied consent of the assembled "us," the task was carried out: "And Elohim created the Adam in His image; in the image of Elohim created He him." The term image—the element or process by which the existing "creature" could be raised to the level desired by the Anunnaki, akin to them except for Knowing and Longev- ity—can best be understood by realizing who or what the existing "creature" was. As other texts (e.g. one that scholars title The Myth of Cattle and Grain) explain, When Mankind was first created They knew not the eating of bread, knew not the wearing of garments. They ate plants with their mouths, like sheep; They drank water from the ditch. This is a fitting description of hominids roaming wildly as, and with, other beasts. Sumerian depictions, engraved on stone cylinders (so-called "cylinder seals") show such homi- nids mingling with animals but standing erect on two feet— an illustration (regrettably ignored by modern scientists) of a Homo erectus (Fig. 2). It was upon that Being, that already existed, that Enki had suggested to "bind upon it the image of the gods," and create through genetic engineering an Earth ling, Homo sapiens. A hint of the process involved in the genetic makeover is made in the Yahwist Version (as scholars refer to it) in chap- The First Encounters Bind upon it the image of the gods.