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106 (in Sumer) the travels of the Anunnaki within the solar sys- tem (from Pluto to Earth, the seventh planet), and (in Baby- lon) the “stations” in Marduk’s life story: his divine birth in the “Pure Place”; how his birthright, his entitlement to su- premacy, was denied; how he was sentenced to death; how he was buried (alive, in the Great Pyramid); how he was rescued and resurrected; how he was banished and went into exile; and how in the end even the great gods, Anu and Enlil, bowed to destiny and proclaimed him supreme. The original Sumerian Epic of Creation extended over six tablets (paralleled by the biblical six days of creation). In the Bible, God rested on the seventh day, using it to review His handiwork. The Babylonian revision of the Epic culminated with the addition of a seventh tablet that was entirely devoted to the glorification of Marduk by the granting to him of fifty names—an act that symbolized the assumption by him of the Rank of Fifty that was until then Enlil’s (and to which Nin- urta had been in line). Starting with his traditional nome MAR.DUK, “son of the Pure Place,” the names—alternating between Sumerian and Akkadian—granted him epithets that ranged from “Creator of All” to “Lord who fashioned Heaven and Earth” and other titles relating to the celestial battle with Tiamat and the cre- ation of the Earth and the Moon: “Foremost of all the gods,” “Allotter of tasks to the Igigi and the Anunnaki” and their Commander, “The god who maintains life .. . the god who revives the dead,” “Lord of all the lands,” the god whose de- cisions and benevolence sustain Mankind, the people he had fashioned, “Bestower of cultivation,’ who causes rains to enrich the crops, allocates fields, and “heaps abundance” for gods and people alike. Finally, he was granted the name NIBIRU, “He who shall hold the Crossing of Heaven and Earth”: The Kakkabu which in the skies is brilliant. . . He who the Watery Deep ceaselessly courses— Let “Crossing” be his name! May he uphold the courses of the stars in heaven, May he shepherd the heavenly gods as sheep. THE END OF DAYS