Page Content (OCR)
196 Great Anu, may Heaven and Earth bless you! May the gods Enlil, Ea and Ninmah bless you! May the gods Sin and Shamash bless you... May the gods Nergal and Ninurta bless you. . . May the Igigi who are in heaven and the Anunnaki who are on Earth, bless you! May the gods of the Abzu and the gods of the holy land bless you! And then Anu and Antu took off to the Spaceport. It was the sev- enteenth day of their visit to Earth, a tablet found in the archives of Uruk states. The momentous visit was over. Its decisions opened the way for the establishment of new cities besides the Olden Ones. First and foremost among them was Kish. It was put under the control of Ninurta. "Enlil's Foremost Son"; he turned it into Sumer's first administrative capital. For Nan- nar/Sin, "Enlil's Firstborn,". the new urban center of Ur ("The City") was established—a place that was to become Sumer's eco- nomic heart. There were additional decisions concerning the new era in man- kind's advancement and its relations with the Anunnaki. We read in the in the Sumerian texts, concerning the crucial conclave that launched Sumer's great civilization, that "the great Anunnaki who decree the fate" decided that the gods "were too lofty for Man- kind.". The term used—elu in Akkadian—means exactly _ that: "Lofty Ones"; from it comes the Babylonian, Assyrian, Hebrew, and Ugaritic El— the term to which the Greeks gave the connotation "god." There was a need, the Anunnaki decided, to give mankind "Kingship" as an intermediary between themselves and the human citizenry. All the Sumerian records attest that this major decision was taken during Anu's visit, at a Council of the Great Gods. One Akkadian text (the Fable of the Tamarisk and the Datepalm) de- scribes thus the meeting that had taken place "in long ago days, in fo 004 aM. The gods of the land, Anu, Enlil and Enki, convened an assembly. Enlil and the gods took counsel; Among them was seated Shamash; Among them was seated Ninmah. THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN far off times":