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32 wiped off the face of the Earth. Naram-Sin’s end came circa 2260 B.c.E.; texts from that time report that troops from the territory in the east, called Gutium, loyal to Ninurta, were the instrument of divine wrath; Aggade was never rebuilt, never resettled; that royal city, indeed, has never been found. The saga of Gilgamesh at the start of the third millennium B.C.E., and the military forays of the Akkadian kings near the end of that millennium, provide a clear background for that millennium’s events: the targets were the space-related sites—by Gilgamesh to attain the gods’ longevity, by the kings beholden to Ishtar to attain supremacy. Without doubt, it was Marduk’s “Tower of Babel” attempt that placed the control of the space-related sites at the center of the affairs of gods and men; and as we shall see, that centrality dominated much (if not most) of what took later place. The Akkadian phase of the War and Peace on Earth was not without celestial or “messianic” aspects. In his chronicles, Sargon’s titles followed the customary honorific “Overseer of Ishtar, king of Kish, great Ensi of En- lil” but he also called himself “anointed priest of Anu.” It was the first time that being divinely anointed—which is what “Messiah” literally means—appears in ancient inscriptions. Marduk, in his pronouncements, warned of coming up- heavals and cosmic phenomena: The day shall be turned into darkness, the flow of river waters shall be disarrayed, the lands shall be laid to waste, the people will be made to perish. Looking back, recalling similar biblical prophecies, it is clear that on the eve of the twenty-first century B.c.E., gods and men expected a coming Apocalyptic Time. THE END OF DAYS