Wars of Gods and Men - Zecharia Sitchin-pages

Page 115 of 368

Page 115 of 368
Wars of Gods and Men - Zecharia Sitchin-pages

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112 The pseudepigraphical Book of Jubilees, believed to have been composed in the second century B.C. from earlier material, adds the in- formation that Cain espoused his own sister Awan and she bore him Enoch "at the close of the fourth Jubilee. And in the first year of the first week of the fifth Jubilee, houses were built on the earth, and Cain built a city and called its name Foundation, after the name of his son." Where did this additional information come from? It has long been held that this part of the Genesis tale stands alone, without corroboration or parallel in the Mesopotamian texts. But we have found that it is just not so. First, we have come upon a Babylonian tablet in the British Mu- seum (No. 74329, Fig. 31), catalogued as "containing an other- wise unknown myth." Yet it may in fact be a Babylonian/Assyrian version from circa 2000 B.C. of a missing Sumerian record of the Line of Cain! As copied by A. R. Millard and translated by W. G. Lambert (Kadmos, vol. VI), it speaks of the beginnings of a group of people who were ploughmen, which corresponds to the biblical “tiller of the land." They are called Amakandu—"People Who In Sorrow Roam"; it parallels the condemnation of Cain: "Banned be thou from the soil which hath received thy brother's blood ... a rest- less nomad shaft thou be upon the earth." And, most remarkably, the Mesopotamian chief of these exiled people was called Ka'in! Also, just as in the biblical tale: a city with twin towers. Ka'in dedicated to himself The name of this place is intriguing. Because the order of sylla- bles could be reversed in Sumerian without changing the meaning, the name could also be spelled NU.DUN, paralleling the biblical name Nud as the place of Cain's exile. The Sumerian name meant "the excavated resting place"—very much similar to the biblical interpretation of the name as meaning "Foundation." After the death (or murder) of Ka'in, "he was laid to rest in the city of Dunnu, which he loved." As in the biblical tale, the Meso- potamian text records the history of four following generations: brothers married their sisters and murdered their parents, taking over the rulership in Dunnu as well as settling in new places, the oe aa att\ THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN He built in Dunnu the lordship over the city. last of which was named Shupat ("Judgment").