Page Content (OCR)
167 you out." And as he did, he gave her his hand. . . . She conducted him and the other defenders of the Great Pyramid to the Harsag, her abode. Ninurta and his warriors watched the Enkites depart. And the great and impregnable structure stood unoccupied, si- 1 lent. Nowadays the visitor to the Great Pyramid finds its passages and chambers bare and empty, its complex inner construction appar- ently purposeless, its niches and nooks meaningless. It has been so ever since the first men had entered the pyramid. But it was not so when Ninurta had entered it—circa 8670 B.C. according to our calculations. "Unto the radiant place," yielded by its defenders, Ninurta had entered, the Sumerian text relates. And what he had done after he had entered changed not only the Great Pyramid from within and without but also the course of human affairs. When, for the first time ever, Ninurta went into the "House Which Is Like a Mountain," he must have wondered what he would find inside. Conceived by Enki/Ptah. planned by Ra/Mar- duk, built by Geb, equipped by Thoth, defended by Nergal, what mysteries of space guidance, what secrets of impregnable defense did it hold? In the smooth and seemingly solid north face of the pyramid, a swivel stone swung open to reveal the entranceway, protected by the massive diagonal stone blocks, just as the text lauding Ninhar- sag had described. A straight Descending Passage led to the lower service chambers where Ninurta could see a shaft dug by the de- fenders in search for subterranean water. But his interest focused on the upper passages and chambers; there, the magical "stones" were arrayed—minerals and crystals, some earthly, some heav- enly, some the likes of which he had never seen. From them there were emitted the beamed pulsations for the guidance of the astro- nauts and the radiations for the defense of the structure. Escorted by the Chief Mineralmaster, Ninurta inspected the ar- ray of "stones" and instruments. As he stopped by each one of them, he determined its destiny—to be smashed up and destroyed, to be taken away for display, or to be installed as instruments else- where. We know of these "destinies," and of the order in which Ninurta had stopped by the stones, from the text inscribed on tab- lets 10-13 of the epic poem Lugal-e. It is by following and cor- rectly interpreting this text that the mystery of the purpose and The Pyramid Wars As Enki hesitated she said to him tenderly: "Come, let me lead