Wars of Gods and Men - Zecharia Sitchin-pages

Page 73 of 368

Page 73 of 368
Wars of Gods and Men - Zecharia Sitchin-pages

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As if the similarities of the genealogies and warfare between the Greek and Hindu gods were not enough, tablets discovered in the Hittite royal archives (at a site nowadays called Boghazkoi) con- tained more tales of the same story: how. as one generation waned unto the other, one god fought another for supremacy. The longest texts discovered dealt, as could be expected, with the Hittite supreme deity Teshub: his genealogy; his rightful as- sumption of dominion over Earth's upper regions; and the battles launched against him by the god KUMARBI and his offspring. As in the Greek and Egyptian tales, the Avenger of Kumarbi was hidden with the aid of allied gods until he grew up somewhere in a "dark-hued" part of Earth. The final battles raged in the skies and in the seas; in one battle Teshub was supported by seventy gods riding in their chariots. At first defeated and either hiding or exiled, Teshub finally faced his challenger in god-to-god combat. Armed with the "Thunder-stormer which scatters the rocks for ninety furlongs" and "'the Lightning which flashes frightfully," he ascended skyward in his chariot, pulled by two gold-plated Bulls of Heaven, and "from the skies he set his face" toward his enemy. Though the fragmented tablets lack the tale's ending, it is evident that Teshub was finally victorious. Who were these ancient gods, who fought each other for su- premacy and sought dominion over Earth by pitting nation against nation? Fittingly, perhaps, treaties that had ended some of the very wars launched by men for their gods provide important clues. When the Egyptians and the Hittites made peace after more than two centuries of warfare, it was sealed by the marriage of the daughter of the Hittite king Hattusilish HI to the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses IL. The Pharaoh recorded the event on commemorative stelae which he placed at Kamak, at Elephantine near Aswan, and at Abu Simbel. Describing the journey and the arrival of the princess in Egypt, the inscription relates that when "His Majesty saw that she was as beautiful of face as a goddess," he at once fell in love with her and 70 THE EARTH CHRONICLES