 The legend of Tiamat and Marduk tells the story of a great celestial battle between deities and the shifting of the position of power from the original primordial gods to their children, who in the end create humans to continue their work in maintaining creation. This legend is often observed as an allegory for the forces of nature and in it we find the source code of many modern religions today. However, there are those who believe this story is far more than an allegory, but an encoded myth describing an actual event that took place in our solar system long, long ago. This theory has become wildly popular in recent years, and it all began when a young boy became obsessed with a burning question. In the early 1920s, a young boy named Zechariah Sitchin found himself in school listening to his teacher reading from the Bible. It was in Genesis 6 that he heard his teacher say, There were giants on the earth in those days. To which Zechariah raised his hand and asked, Um, why do you say giants? The older Hebrew says Nephilim. Who are the Nephilim? His teacher replied, sit down Zechariah. You do not question the Bible. And so it began. Who are the Nephilim became this burning obsessive question in the mind of this young inspired boy? Following his experience with his teacher, Zechariah realized that he had full faith in the Bible all along. What he was questioning was the translation of the Bible and the individual interpretations of that translation. Not being able to ask his teachers for help, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Growing up, he searched for answers and soon learned about the discovery of the Sumerian tablets. It was here that Zechariah found the origins of the Old Testament, along with a large volume of supporting works that had never made it into the official release of the Bible. He realized in order to understand the answer to this question of the Nephilim, he would have to learn Sumerian cuneiform. This began Zechariah's lifelong journey of dedication to reading and deciphering the meaning within the text. And the answer to the question, who are the Nephilim? In 1976, Zechariah released his first book, The Twelfth Planet, which shocked the world with what he had found in his years with the tablets, and began bringing people together around a new idea of Earth's history. By 1998, he had completed the Earth Chronicles with the Cosmic Code, and then released numerous other books all the way up to his passing away in 2010. To him, he was overcome with an interpretation of the tablets that he believed was attempting to explain a series of actual physical events that took place in our history, and explain the reason that things are the way they are in our solar system and on our planet today. Of course, many critics have put forth that Sitchin, while he may have laid a lot of groundwork here for the discussion of the tablets, also added and embellished the story quite a bit with his own theories and ideas, sometimes drawing conclusions that others were not able to find written in the ancient tablets. Nevertheless, following Sitchin's interpretations, we find several remarkable correlations both within our solar system, on our planet, and even in our very own DNA, which simply cannot be ignored. As always, please have your own experience as we go through this story. Even if you don't believe this to be historical fact, you may enjoy it for the fascinating tale that it is. Now, let us explore one of the most unique interpretations of this great celestial battle, and truly see if it stands up to scientific scrutiny today. In order to discuss this theory, we begin by exploring how a solar system is formed. There are still a lot of mysteries in science as to how a solar system comes to be, but today, planetary scientists and cosmologists have presented ideas that do seem to convey a basic idea that explains it pretty well. A star is born in the vastness of the arms of a galaxy when a large collection of cosmic dust and gas becomes compressed by gravity into a singular point. Made of increasingly compressed dust and gas, it begins to emit a massive amount of light and heat, and ends up creating a large disk spiraling all around it. Deep inside the cloudy disk, clumps of dust are flash-heated into droplets of molten rock, the building blocks of the solar system. As they spiral around to the forming star, these clumps of matter begin to merge together and grow into larger and larger bodies, which form the basis of asteroids and planets. Sometime during this development, the protostar undergoes fusion and ignites itself into a baby star, which emits a tremendous amount of something called solar wind, blasting away the dusty cloud, leaving behind only the solid and denser matter, which continues to merge and form together into planets until they become the celestial bodies of a solar system. One curious thing we should mention is that there is a great mystery about how our watery planet got here, because in the early formation of the solar system, it is believed it would be too hot for water to not evaporate and get blasted out with the dust by the solar wind. One of the leading theories about how we could have got all of this water is by flying space rocks called carbonaceous chondrites, which can carry water on them and crash down to the planet. This, however, still leaves many questions for us to answer, because if this is the case, why don't we see the same amount of water anywhere else in the solar system? Except, of course, in the asteroid belt. At any rate, the reason why this conversation is important is because in Sitchin's theory of the Sumerian tablets, the story begins in the very early days of our solar system. The opening lines of the Enuma Elish begin when the heavens above did not exist and earth beneath had not come into being. There was Apsu, the first in order, their Begetter. Most commonly, Apsu is interpreted by scholars as the god of fresh water, believing him to relate with underwater aquifers under the surface of Mesopotamia. Sitchin, on the other hand, believed this line to be describing the Sun, the first in order, Begetter of them all. Mumu, Apsu's vizier, was Mercury, a small body of matter orbiting very close to the bright star. And of course, there was the beautiful goddess called Tiamat, the glistening one, the maiden of life, which was the planet that eventually became the Earth. However, in the beginning it was not the same as we know our Earth to be today. Tiamat was a particularly special planet, for it was entirely covered with water, the only planet like it in the solar system. It was also quite a bit larger than the Earth is today, approximately the size of Neptune, and it had a different orbit as well. It was a little bit further from the Sun, in an orbit that we would locate where the asteroid belt is today, between Mars and Jupiter. Regarding the formation of Tiamat, observations of interstellar clouds and other basic sciences show that hydrogen and oxygen, building blocks of water, are some of the most abundant elements in the universe. And so it would make sense that as the solar system was forming, there was likely tons of water ice, or at least hydrogen and oxygen, that was getting pulled in from all directions, colliding together, and forming into what was likely a rather large field of water ice and other debris, which may have even been partially liquid, solid, and gaseous all at the same time, spinning around in a fury of deadly winds and storm. In a document titled Origin of Water Ice in the Solar System, a scientist of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory explains that the origin of water ice during planetary formation comes from at least two sources. It condenses beyond a certain distance from the proto-Sun, no more than five astronomical units, but perhaps as close as two, and it falls in from the surrounding molecular cloud. This is especially interesting to us as it relates with our theory, because the asteroid belt is 2.2 to 3.2 AU away from the Sun, which is where Tiamat was said to be, according to this story. This will also make more sense by the time we conclude our exploration of this theory. Returning to the Babylonian Epic, Sitchin goes on to explain that the formation of the following six deities in pairs of two describe the formation of the other planets in our solar system out of the early debris that spiraled around the Sun. The first, for example, Lamu and Lahamu are believed to describe Mars and Venus. Curiously, the names Lamu and Lahamu etymologically derive from the Sumerian word for war. Sitchin explains that the Mesopotamians knew Mars to be the God of War, and Venus was the God of Love and War. And so the concept that Lamu and Lahamu were Mars and Venus fit both mythologically and etymologically. Then, Kishar and Anshar form, were said to surpass or excel beyond Lamu and Lahamu. These were, of course, Jupiter and Saturn. The Babylonians make a special note to describe that Anshar had a first-born emissary or vizier named Gaga which is believed to be a particular moon of Saturn which would one day become Pluto and we'll look at how that happens momentarily. After that, we have our final two deities coming into being Anu and Ia. Anu is said to represent Uranus and Ia, Neptune. These two are also known by other names An and Anki from the original Sumerian telling of the story. I find it extremely curious that Neptune is also a name for the God of the Sea in Roman mythology, synonymous with the Greek Poseidon. It's curious because Ia, or Anki in Mesopotamia was firstly called the God of Water. It's also curious that the planet Neptune wasn't actually even discovered until 1846. Hmm. Now, the way that Sitchin interpreted this story is that in those early days of the solar system the orbits of the planets were not established or harmonious yet. As the tablets tell us, they surged back and forth and disturbed Tiamat's belly. Sitchin writes, the newly created family of planets was far from being stable. The planets were gravitating towards each other. They were converging on Tiamat, disturbing and endangering the primordial bodies. We have here obvious references to erratic orbits. The new planets surged back and forth. They got close to each other. They interfered with Tiamat's orbit. While it was Tiamat that was principally endangered, Opsu too found the planet's ways loathsome. The tablets describe that Opsu, caring for Tiamat, expresses the idea of destroying the children. This part is curious when relating it with planets. Perhaps it refers to the young star emitting blasts of radiation which could potentially destroy these young planets completely or at least send them flying off into space. During this part of the story and what follows next with the death of Opsu, Sitchin theorized several ideas with the basic premise being that something, whether relating with Ea, the planet Neptune emitting waves of radiation or even just time itself caused the Sun to settle its turbulent energy. Nevertheless, it's interesting that after this point Opsu is no longer referred to as a deity but rather a location. Ea is said to claim Opsu's throne and as he lay in his quarters he names them Opsu. This act in the story could be referring to the Sun's radiation and cosmic wind which had now finally settled. It's not entirely clear but generally the interpretations of this scene describe a shift in the early solar system where now any new planets to come into the system had to come from the outside of which Neptune was sort of like a gatekeeper for being at the outermost edge of the solar system. Therefore, Ea took over the role of Opsu. As far as the story goes this is where we see the older deities beginning to be taken over by the younger ones and that's exactly what happens because shortly after this Ea gives birth to Marduk and Tiamat grows angry towards her children. Marduk, as you might have guessed was interpreted to be a new planet that entered into our solar system from the outside. To avoid confusion let me briefly mention that in Sitchin's interpretations Marduk, especially when referring to it as a planet is commonly known by the name Nibiru which has become a rather popular name in recent years for a supposed missing planet which is said to exist in the far reaches of our solar system. However, the word Nibiru in the ancient tablets is written about in a number of ways. It's a word used to sometimes describe a planet usually Jupiter and one-time Mercury. It's used to describe a god, specifically Marduk which could be a planet. It's also used to describe a star in the sky specifically Marduk's star. In Babylonian astronomy Nibiru also seems to refer to the equinox and the astronomical objects associated with it. Finally, Nibiru is referred to as a location a place in which the gods who are called the Anunnaki, come from. It's for this reason that scholars of cuneiform astronomy have not been able to determine with certainty what Nibiru is. But it's because of Sitchin's work that Nibiru is often regarded as a name for this additional planet that's in our outer solar system of which Marduk is seemingly a more appropriate name. Then again, there are interpretations out there that account for both Marduk and Nibiru as their own individual characters or things. But interpretations get very complex when we go there. So for now, let's return to our story. As we've discussed, Marduk was said to be born of Ia and his wife Damkina who is sometimes referred to as a great queen or goddess of nature. This is another confusing part of the Babylonian epic because nowhere in the Enuma Elish does it describe where she comes from. She's just kind of there, but you do get more of an origin story when referencing other tablets from ancient Mesopotamia. If we're looking at the story from the planetary perspective, it's very possible that she could be representing the vacuum of space and that Marduk was pulled through the womb of space by the gravity of our solar system and entered into our system passing by Neptune, essentially becoming Ia's son. Sitchin proposed that, based on what was written about Marduk, that it was a large planet approximately the size of Neptune that entered into our solar system in the opposite direction compared to the other planets. He said that it had a long elliptical orbit going way out into the far reaches of our solar system and returned back in a time frame of approximately 3,600 years. When this planet passed through, it was always a great event in the solar system as it affected the gravity of the other planets, causing earthquakes and tidal waves. Then it would go way out, past the distant planets and disappear from sight. Some theories suggest that this planet could have come to our solar system in the first place when its own local star exploded and it careened off into space on its own. Nevertheless, Sitchin believed that Marduk must have been a very young planet for the tablet said that he was belching fire, which could have been a sign of tremendous volcanic activity and radiation. The drama of this great celestial battle begins when Marduk first entered into our solar system and as it passed by Uranus, something intense happens. The tablets write, Anu formed and gave birth to the four winds. He delivered them to Marduk. My son, let them whirl. These lines were interpreted as depicting several large chunks of planet matter beginning to tear away from Uranus' body and pulled towards the passing Marduk which resulted in the formation of four satellites. These were the four winds which were thrust into a fast orbit around the planet, swirling as a whirlwind. This would have been the theorized event causing numerous anomalies with Uranus including its sideways tilt and warped magnetic field. Continuing to move into our solar system the planet was soon seized by the tremendous gravitational forces of Saturn and Jupiter and its path was bent inwards towards the center of our solar system and Tiamat. In the story, when Marduk comes to visit Anshar who is supposedly Saturn Anshar sends his vizier Gaga off to see Lamu and Lahamu, Mars and Venus. This, Sitchin believed, was that Marduk's gravity pulled one of Saturn's small moons away from it loosening its orbit and sent it off into space establishing a rather curious orbit of its own which today we know as Pluto. It's possible that along its path Marduk may also have influenced the creation of Chiron the small planetoid between Saturn and Uranus. As it drew closer Marduk's gravity soon began to disturb all of the inner planets most of Altiamat whose water and rocks began to break apart and tear from her body creating 11 satellites that spiraled around the planet as if acting as a shield. These were the 11 dragons and monsters that Tiamat summoned in the story. Sitchin wrote that the tablets described Marduk and Tiamat to have been crowned with halos giving the appearance of gods. Of particular importance in the Mesopotamian cosmogony was the largest of Tiamat's satellites Kingu, the first born among the gods who formed her assembly. It is significant because as Marduk approached Kingu was pulled closer to Marduk from Tiamat's orbit. Sitchin believed that Kingu being pulled away like this was Tiamat giving Kingu the tablet of destinies. In this interpretation, the tablet itself was actually a planetary orbit of its own, of which Kingu almost adopted. Nevertheless soon Marduk was set on an unalterable collision course with Tiamat. Tiamat and Marduk, the wisest of the gods, advanced against one another. They went on to single combat. They approached for battle. When it passed by it was not Marduk itself but one of the swirling winds around it that crashed into Tiamat and severed a phenomenal chunk splicing her in half. All of Tiamat's satellites with the exception of Kingu were instantly shattered and their remains continued to spiral around the sun in Tiamat's orbit. Her body became distended and opened wide. He shot there through an arrow. It tore her belly. It cut through her insides tore into her womb. Having thus subdued her, her life breath, he extinguished. Tiamat was left fissured and lifeless but her fate had future encounters between the two planets in store. Marduk went sailing off into space yet now gravitationally bound to return to the scene of this event. It was on the second pass through our solar system that Marduk's satellites once again crashed into Tiamat's remains cleaving her in two. This heavy blow sent one massive chunk destined to become the Earth into an orbit where no planet had been orbiting before. The fragments of Tiamat that were shattered formed what we now call the asteroid belt which the Sumerian tablets called the hammered bracelet. With the passage of time and a lot of extreme tectonic activity the remains of Tiamat eventually returned to a spherical shape this time with more land on its surface than it had before. Kingu which hovered in the region of Tiamat since their first encounter with Marduk followed Tiamat to her new location between Mars and Venus and became the moon. Marduk once again shot out into space and continued to orbit around the Sun from a long distance away. This according to Sitchin's interpretations of the tablets is how the Earth got to be where it is today. What we've covered here was closer to the original interpretation from Sitchin's first book, The Twelfth Planet and both Sitchin and a wide array of other authors have discussed and played with variations of the story. For example, there is a version where the smashed Tiamat had to be repaired and realigned by the beings called the Anunnaki and reseed the planet with life afterwards. Ultimately, today what we've covered is the basic story and encourage everyone to explore this as you see fit. Now, the reason that Marduk or Nibiru was called the Twelfth Planet was because to Sitchin's understanding of the ancient Sumerians they observed the moon and the sun as planets when counting them all. Which, in addition to Pluto, gives us eleven and Marduk then is the twelfth. Further, we would be remiss if we didn't share that this is contested by skeptics who put forth that the Sumerians didn't actually know of any planets beyond the ones that are visible. This would then imply that the story was not one about planets and a story. However, one possible explanation for this is that if the stories historically are true and that the legend was handed down to the Sumerians and Babylonians by another species beyond our own then they could have encoded the story of the origin of our solar system inside the myth of Tiamat and Marduk even if these ancient people didn't fully understand what the story was truly saying. We'll revisit this idea as we continue on for this is only the beginning of our exploration with these tablets. After this, we get to hear the story of the creation of humanity on the newly created Earth. But before we go further into that let's investigate this whole Planet Marduk thing further. The topic of Marduk or Nibiru is not a new one and has received attention and thought from around the world over and over since Sitchin's first book came out in the 1970s. There are also plenty of conspiracy theories on the internet that respond to these ideas and not to mention it's received a fair share of debunkings as well. Remarkably Sitchin's version of the story does a fairly decent job at explaining a number of anomalies in our solar system such as the formation of the asteroid belt and why there's so much water in it the tilt of Uranus and its warped magnetic field It also describes how the moon was formed and Pluto's crazy orbit among other things. Of course, the theory is not without its holes and challenges and a lot of critics have pointed out inconsistencies and other aspects of Sitchin's theories that don't always seem to stand up well to scrutiny. But I mean look the skeptics have a point too. In the story written in the Enuma Elish it describes that at one point all of the gods gathered together to discuss the situation with Tiamat. They had a big table drinking beer eating grain and agreed that Marduk would be their Avenger. There are so many ways we could interpret those lines perhaps they're not planets but actual beings in a cosmic space battle or perhaps it's just an embellishment of the Babylonians to make the gods seem more human or just maybe the entire story is the result of a bunch of ancient people discovering psychedelic mushrooms in the wild and then describing to each other what they saw on their journey and their religion. Ultimately our goal shouldn't be fighting each other over which theory is correct but openly investigating all of the possibilities until we arrive together at the truth. With all of this in mind there's one way we might just be able to prove that this story is true and that would be if we could actually find this missing planet that according to the story should be lurking in our outer solar system. At their innermost level stories of the ancient gods are filled to the brim with symbolism and ideas that can help us evolve as people by deepening our understanding of humanity. For example, Tiamat wasn't evil. She was overcome with upset for the loss of her husband and the other gods weren't evil either. They were doing their best to protect themselves from being destroyed. When we look at life from this lens we might even see that other people in our lives that we struggle with could actually just be going through their own heavy emotional challenges causing them to act disconnected from the rest of society. That's why today I want to end this by recommending Patch Turro and the Book of Patch which makes simple a complex system of human states of being and makes it easy to see and know deeper where people are coming from in any moment. Both the deck and the book are available on the eShop or you can get the cards in an app for iOS and Android. The story of Nibiru the missing planet become known to millions of people around the world spawning a wide number of conspiracy theories as a result of it. Despite the popularity of these stories is there actually any truth to it? Modern science goes toe to toe with ancient myth. Next time on Spirit Science The Case for Nibiru.