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163 his way. "The land on which you stay belongs to God alone," they announced. Realizing that he could not change his fate, Alexander gave up the search and instead started to build cities bearing his name, mereby to be forever remembered. The numerous details of the Alexander search that are vir- tually identical to those of Gilgamesh—the location, the name of the mountain, the twelve periods of the subterranean jour- ney, the winged Birdmen, the questioning by the guards, the immersion in the well of the Waters of Life—indicate a fa- miliarity with the Epic of Gilgamesh; not only with the liter- ary work (which continued to survive to our times), but also with the raison d'etre for the search—the partial divinity, the divine parentage, of Gilgamesh. Indeed, even the claims by Egyptian Pharaohs that they were fathered by gods or, in the very least, nourished with mother's milk by a goddess, can be traced to the time and place of Gilgamesh; for it was in Uruk that the custom and tradition began with the dynasty to which Gilgamesh belonged. The Kingship began in Uruk, it will be recalled, when the future city consisted almost entirely only of the sacred pre- cinct. There, according to the Sumerian King Lists, "Mes- kiag-gasher, the son of the god Utu, became high priest as well as king." Then, after reigns by Enmerkar and Lugal- banda and an intermediate reign by the divine Dumuzi, Gil- gamesh ascended the throne; and he, as stated, was the son of the goddess Ninsun. These are astounding revelations, especially in light of the episode of the taking of human wives by the Nefilim that caused Enlil to seek the annihilation of Mankind. It took Mankind, the Anunnaki, and the Earth itself millennia to re- cover from the trauma of the Deluge. It took millennia for the Anunnaki to gradually, and step by careful step, grant Mankind knowledge, technology, domestication, and, finally, full-fledged civilizations. It took the better part of a millen- nium to develop, in Kish, the institution of Kingship. And then, so unexpectedly, boom! Kingship is transferred to Uruk, and the first dynasty is begun by a son of a god (Utu/Sha- mash) and a human female ... While the sexual shenanigans of other deities (some al- ready mentioned, more to come) have been recorded in the Encounters in the GIGUNU