Skyfall
Knowledge (Gnosis):
- Da’ath (in Hebrew)
- Tantra (in East)
- Alchemy (in West)
- Al (Arabic, as in Allah) means “God.”
- Chem or Khem is from kimia (Greek) which means “to fuse or cast a metal.”
- Also from Khem, the ancient name of Egypt.
- The synthesis is therefore Al-Kimia: “to fuse with God.”
The greatest minds of antiquity believed that Gnosis was the foundation of all religion.
According to the ancient philosophers, knowledge was only attainable through the inspiration of heavenly powers.
Their writings state that mankind’s first knowledge had descended from the heavens.
The mystery religions also preserved a legend: When heaven and earth joined together, gods descended to earth.
The gods possessed the knowledge of the universe: the whole continuum of what can be known.
They bestowed on men the art of civilization: government, agriculture and science, inventions that we in modern times hold to be human achievements.
All science and learning was developed in the time when gods and man dwelt together.
The gods existed from the formation of the solar system and traveled between its worlds.
Their planetary civilization was unparalleled, their edifices and cities were magnificent.
Then, at some point in the dim past the realm of the gods was destroyed by a horrific cataclysm.
The most extensive remains of the once great cities of the solar system were frozen in time on a decimated planet in the 4th orbit from the sun…Mars.
Modern space proves, Pioneer, Viking and recently the Mars Odyssey have sent images of Mars back to earth that reveal artificial structures on its surface.
The images from the Martian region known as Cydonia are the most intriguing.
After the destruction of their kingdom the heavenly messengers did not die.
They continued interaction with mankind and helped to shape the course of history.
This communication intensified during the period of several earth cataclysms.
Knowledge lost after each destructive episode was subsequently resurrected with the help of the gods.
Through time the symbols have endured, preserved in earth’s megalithic monuments and in systems of time and measurement, “hidden in plain sight”.
They have been incorporated in the dogma of Alchemy, Gnosticism, Theurgy, Philosophy and Religion and used in modern society as emblems of trade, war and nationality.
The illiterate man cannot understand the meaning of letters, even if he encounters them every day, year after year.
The meaning of letters must be taught; their use in words must be explained.
Only through instruction can one use writing to communicate.
Mars preserves the evidence of an ancient kingdom hidden from our modern age.
The symbols of the mysteries lead back to Mars.
The fruit of the tree of knowledge is considered the foremost symbol of gnosis according to the mystery schools.
It unravels the secrets of the monuments of Cydonia.
The ancients believed that remnants of this symbolic fruit remained on earth.
CHAPTER 1: THE SECRET CHRONICLES OF MARS
‘The Roman people profess that their Father and the Father of their Empire was none other than Mars.’
Livy’s Early History of Rome.
- The Land of Mu
- Atlantis
- Arcadia
- the Golden Age
- the Golden Fleece
- the Holy Grail
- the Philosopher’s Stone
These are all legends of a quintessential “something” that was sought after, lost but still possible to restore.
Myth speaks of a former time and place, of fabulous deeds by men of renown, and of an object of wisdom that was highly prized but dangerous to procure.
A tree with golden fruit is the symbol of that lost quintessence; the “god” of the fruit tree is the bestow-er of lost knowledge.
In Celtic myth the immortal Arthur of the shining city Camelot, along with his supernatural sister Morgan of the fairies, will return at some future time from the isle of Avalon, the “isle of Apples.”
Avalon is an island that manifests in this reality at certain points in time, only to fade into history again.
Arthur is called the “once and future king,” and he abides on the island that wanders through time.
The Greek “Apple Man” Apollo was the god of wisdom and divination, bestowing the knowledge of music medicine and future events.
Phoebus (the shining one) Apollo was born with his twin sister Artemis, goddess of the moon, on the wandering floating island called Asteria (a star) or Ortygia (quail island).
The ethereal island of Apollo’s birth was appropriately renamed Delos (manifest, visible) at the advent of the god of wisdom.
In myth we see the shining god and his female aspect having originated on an island, possessing the powers of future intervention in the affairs of men.
Often the location of the primordial apple-god possessing the powers of future intervention in the affairs of men.
Often the location of the apple-god is not an island, but a garden; often the power of the apple-god is manifest in the form of a serpent-god.
Apollo’s knowledge of future events was dispersed through the Pythian Priestesses at Delphi, where the young apple- god had defeated and absorbed the characteristics of the serpent Python.
One of the labors of the hero Hercules was find the hidden Garden of the Hesperiedes (the Daughters of King Atlas of the Isle of Atlantis), to defeat the dragon guarding the garden, and retrieve the Golden Apples.
The golden apple of myth, the symbol of hidden knowledge, is more appropriately depicted as a quince-the golden fruit referred to by its scientific name Pyrus Cydonia.
The legend of a place of origin-an island or garden that is not always visible or accessible-indicates that this is not only a place but also a place in time. “the “time of origin” was once a concrete concept, alluded to in myth as an island in the midst of the chaotic primeval waters.
A city, like a garden, is the result of the manipulation of nature according to a plan, an island-of architecture in the midst of the chaos of nature.
Cain, the first murderer, as the first to cultivate crops, and the first to build a city after the expulsion from the Garden.
Gen 4:13-17
This passage concerning the first city-builder Cain presents one of the riddles this book hopes to answer.
Adam, Eve and Cain were not the only beings on the earth at that time.
Cain feared someone who was not a member of his family would “findeth and slay” him.
The mark on Cain was to prevent outsiders from doing him harm.
God sentenced Cain to wander the earth as a ‘vagabond’, and it was from those other non-Adamic beings that he took a wife-from other families outside of Adam’s household, in keeping with the law against incest.
Extra-Biblical legends of Cain, the first human city-builder, hint that he is actually a demi-god, fathered by a fallen angel.
This echoes the most prominent them related to the origins of a city. “the God of the city who fell from the heavens.’
Acts 19:35
The citizens of Ephesus believed that a deity had descended to their city from the sky.
This fallen “image” became the god of the city and the consort of Artemis (one of the many incarnations of the virgin/mother/warrior goddess.
The Athenians held a similar reverence for their patron Athena, the goddess of war and wisdom.
The city of Athens was originally named after the serpentine god of the city Cecrops-the founder of Athens who still leaves his name upon his temple mound the Acropolis.
Homer recorded the Greek legend of Athena’s descent from the celestial realm:
Like a blazing star which the lord of heaven shoots forth, bright and scattering sparks all around, to be a portent for sailors or for some great army of men, so Pallas Athena shot down to earth and leapt into the throng.
And even as crook-witted Chronus son sendeth a star-a sign to mariners or some broad host of men-a brilliant star, where from springs many a spark, like unto that Pallas Athena darted down to earth (Iliad 4:73)
The initial appearance of Athena as she came from heaven to earth was likened to a shooting “star”, a meteorite.
The Egyptian creation myth also refers to a fallen stone from heaven.
Ben-Ben stone: “the stone which flowed out”- was said to be a meteorite upon an obelisk revered in the Het-Benben temple of Heliopolis.
They believed it played an essential role in the foundation of the world.
The vital essence hike was brought to earth form The Isle of Fire.
The place of origin of the gods was associated with what the Egyptian Book of the Dead called Neter-khert (Island or Mountain of God).
The Phoenix was the chief messenger from the heavenly land of the gods, and the Ben-Ben stone was considered the part of heaven associated with regeneration.
The Egyptian creation story was found among the many ancient inscriptions called the Pyramid Texts referred to collectively as the 759 Utterances chiseled upon the walls of ten pyramids.
Utterance 600: O Atu-Khoprer, you became high on the height, you rose up as the Ben-Benin the Mansion of the Phoenix.
Phoenix in Egyptian and Greek refers to the color red. Mansion of the Red.
The name Phoenicia was a Greek transliteration of the word they inherited from the sea traders off the east coast of the Mediterranean although it is said this land was called Phoenicia because of the plentitude of palm trees-from phoenix (the date palm)-this conception belies the truth behind the name.
The Greek word phoinos (blood red) is the root of the Phoenicia, the “Land of the Red”.
Homer and Plato refers to the Phonecians as “Sidonians”.
The city of Sidon has been called “the mother of Phoenician cities” and the Bible calls the city of Tyre the “daughter of Sidon” in Isaiah 23:12.
The famous Sidonian city of Tyre (the Stone), revered a god who had fallen like a stone from heaven.
Melkart (King/Angel of the City) was worshipped in Tyre as the consort of the goddess Astarte.
According to Sanchniathon, the god Melkart came to be the god of the city after he was found be Astarte as “a star falling through the air, which she took up and consecrated in the holy island of Tyre.”
The culture of the Phoenicians-The Sidonians-has been praised in historic records as the most civilized in the ancient world.
The cities of Tyre and Sidon were considered the pinnacle of sophistication, the template for urban aspirations of subsequent civilizations, especially the Greek and Roman.
The founding gods of old taught tech and a civilizing influence, established laws, and built cities and temples according to a plan brought to earth from their former dwelling place in the heavens.
The Sidonian myths of the origins of cities and their gods were connected to a previous time and place that had passed away due to a cataclysm.
Heavenly objects that fell to earth, like the Egyptian benben stone meteorite, were seen to be the physical remains of the destroyed world, and were reveres as pieces of the “lost age of the gods”.
The Black Stone of Kaaba is another heavenly stone that fell to earth.
The actual stone was set up in a shrine in the Mosque at Mecca.
According to legend, the Kaaba stone was given to Adam by the angel Gabriel while in the Garden of Eden.
It was considered a piece of the original paradise.
It is venerated with a ritual seven-fold circumambulation.
This rite, still performed by Islamic pilgrims, is said to be a mirror of a place in the heavens around which the angels continued to circumambulate -to revolve like the planets in the solar system.
Muhammad said, “Indeed the Islamic teachings of the origin of Adam say that the paradise in which he lived and was subsequently expelled was not even on the earth.”.
The common thread within most ancient creation stories was the union of the celestial and terrestrial at a particular time of unparalleled upheaval and change.
The “marriage of heaven and earth” ave birth to the worldwide legends of the gods who descended from the heavens.
THE MOUTH OF THE OUROBORUS (The Cosmic Clock)
Old Sages by the Figure of the Snake Encircled thus, did oft expression make of Annual-Revolutions; and of things, Which wheel about in everlasting-rings;
There ending, where they first of all begun….These Roundells, help to shew the Mystery of that immense and blest Eternitie, from whence the creature sprung, and into whom it shall again, with full perfection come.
The sun and moon and five other starts, which are called the planets, were created in order to distinguish and preserve the numbers of time (plato’s timaeus)
Gen 1:14 Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.
Plato lends his name to the major cyclical movement of the sky called the Platonic Year, or “Precession of the Equinox”.
At the present time the North Pole points to the star Polaris in the constellation Ursa Minor.
12000 years ago the North Star was Vega in the constellation Lyra.
6000 years ago the North Star was thuban in Draco.
the pole of the earth is inclined off perpendicular 23.4 degrees, tracing a very slow circle in the heavens.
Because of this arrangement of the “pole star” and the positions of the constellations relative to the seasons constantly move.
The constellations of the zodiac move with respect to the occurrence of the spring equinox, but only by one degree in 72 years.
The time of the spring and fall equinox moves continually through the constellations; one complete procession of the equinox is known as the “Platonic Year,” occurring every 25,920 years.
Priests and astrologers of antiquity carefully guarded the secret of the most important heavenly cycles;
Beyond the knowledge of the skies that could be learned through a lifetime of observation, there was a secret knowledge of the heavens that could not be documented unless preserved and handed down through generations.
Though visible in the heavens for nearly 1000 years, the mechanism of this cycle caused its appearance to be manifest at 6480 years intervals.
This cycle has been alluded to in myth in various guises, such as “the island that wanders through time and space.”
The Greek’s referred to this greatest heavenly cycle as an AION.
They defined it the cycle of an AIONas the cosmic period between the creation and destruction of an age.
They used a symbol-the Ouroboros.
The concept for the rise and fall of history between the cataclysmic destruction of one age and the rebuilding of cities and the foundation of new civilizations. T
he Greek Ouranos (father of heaven) shared many traits with the Egyptian primordial snake god Urounus.
Interestingly, the name share the Chaldean root Ur(fire), and both deities are connected to the idea of the earliest times in earth’s history.
The root of the Greek Ouranos is related to Ourea meaning “to make water”. and to the Hebrew root Or meaning, “to be or become light”.
Ur and Or have connotations of both water and light, and association with time-the dawn, the coming of the light.
The symbol of the ouroboros embodies the concepts of a serpent of light, a serpent from the dawn of time, a serpent of heaven, a fiery serpent that is also a sea serpent.
The “lifestpan” of the ages is appropriately depicted as the Ouroborus, the serpent of light living in the heavenly river of the Milky Way.
Uerounus is depicted in the Egyptian stone zodiac of Dendera as the primordial serpent with his tail in his mouth, encircling Harpocrates (Young Horus) poised on top of the scales of Libra.
In the Egyptian papyrus of Dama Heroub, the young Egyptian god Horus is surrounded by the Ouroboros resting on top of the dual-headed lion, Routi, the god of future and the past….also Janus.
In Greek myth the Milky Way was deified as Oceanos, the celestial river that flowed in a circle around the earth.
This celestial river deity was associated with the early Greek titan Opohion (Native Serpent).
Oceanos is called the oldest of the Titans, an orphic god who ruled the world with this mother Eurynome, before the reign of Chronos. Oceanos was also, according to the ancient Greeks, the inventor of the arts and magic, and later associated with Poseidon.
Homer’s Iliad refers to Poseidon as “He who circles the earth” and “earth shaker”.
Poseidon ruled not only the waters of earth but also the waters of heaven.
The Milky Way was especially connected to him.
The Greeks considered Poseidon responsible for earthquakes because he “held up the earth in his celestial waters.”
‘The Phonenicians have represented it in their temples as a dragon curled in a circle and devouring it tail, to denote the way in which the world feeds on itself and returns on itself. (Macrobius Saturnalia).
According to ancient Hebrew esoterism Leviathan represents cyclic tiem as the great serpent of the waters of the galaxy.
Leviathan is also associated with the various forces in the heavens manifested by electricity in lightning or thunderbolts.
Who can open the doors of his face? (Job 41:9-14)
The clothing of the high priest of Israel was designed to represent the heavens and the Leviathan.
The Apocryphal Acts of Thomas characterized Leviathan as a dragon who lives beyond “the waters of the Abyss”.
This is the serpent that led astray through passions the angels from on high; this is the serpent that lead astray the first adam and expelled him from Paradise.
The fiery serpent of light in the milky sea.
Sagittarius resides on one of the two place the Milky Way intersects the ecliptic, the circuit of the heavens across the signs of the zodiac traveled by the sun and planets in their orbits as viewed from the earth.
The ecliptic, the path of the plantets, crosses the Milky Way between Gemini and Taurus, and between Sagittarius and Scorpio, with the two most prominent signs on the ecliptic being Sagittarius and Gemini.
The arrow of Sagittarius delineates the union of the serpent’s head and tail; the celestial archer indicates the proper place to “Divide the Ouroborus”.
While the sun “rises in Sagittarius” and emerges from the serpents mouth yearly, the demarcation of the beginning and ending of the cosmic cycle of an aion occurs every 1/4th of a platonic year of 25,920 years.
The sign of the passing away of one aion and the beginning of the next “life span” occurs only when the sun rises in the outh of Ouroboros during a solstice or an equinox.
When the sun rises in the mouth of the Ouroboros, it is necessarily in the sign of Sagittarius, during one of the four “cardinal points” of the year.
“The primordial island, mountain or mound” rising form an “ocean of stars”.
The entire Milky Way surrounds the horizon in 360 degrees, creating the illusion of the earth as an island in the midst of the milky sea.
This illusion of the earth embraced by the Ourobros during these quarterly processional alignments is visible for about 1000 years, but occurs only for that relatively short period of time every 6480 years.
On the morning of the summer solstice, June 21st 12960 years ago, the sun appeared to rise out of the mouth of the Ouroboros with Sagittarius looking on This “sign in the heavens” was visible to the ancient culture flourishing on the earth 6480 years ago, occurring at that time during the equinox, September 21st.
The time is now that the Ouroboruos is again encircling he earth; the arrow of Sagittarius points to the rising sun in the mouth of the ouroborus on the morning of the winter solstice.
The time cycle of the Aion-divided at the mount of the Ouroborus-will have taken place 5 times during he course of one Platonic year of 25920 years.
The Greeks called the conjuction of these ages the sunteleia, marking the end of of one age and the beginning of another.
After usurping the powers of the previous deities:
Okeanos, Ouranos, Chronus (all manifestation of the ouroborus), Poseidon in turn became the deified representation of the Milky Way and the aion-Poseidon was frequently depicted in the art of the Greeks with a “trident” which is the symbol of the 23rd Greek Letter Psi.
The earth orbits the sun tilted at an angle of , on average 23 degrees.
Because the earth’s axis of rotation is not perpendicular to its plane of orbit, the earth receives more sunlight in one hemisphere and less in the other alternating every 6 months.
This variation of sunlight of the earth’s hemispheres causes the seasons to change.
During one Platonic year the earth’s obliquity will vary by only +or- 1.8 degrees between the 3 degree range of 21.5 and 24.5.
The earth’s current anle of obliquity is 23.5 Poseidon, the “Earth Embracer,” was aptly associated with the 23rd letter-the axis of the earth he embraced was tilted 23-degrees during the age of the Greeks, providing the celestial mechansism that made the Ouroboral alignment possible.
The 23 degree tilt of the earth causes the death and birth of season, and the death and birth of aions.
Poseidon was literally a Sidonian god.
The myth of the trident-baring Poseidon, the god who encircled earth as a serpent and presided over the birth and death of the ages, had a counterpart in the apple-man Apollo, the god of the tripod and divination of the future, embodiment of the serpent at the omphalos of the earth.
The Hindu Shiva is another intriguing deity wielding the trident and associated with “fire” and “red”.
The symbols of Shiva are the cobra, trident, and phallus, and he is often pictured as a dancer clothed in red.
The Ramayana describes the time when the Ganges River existed only in the heavens.
Shiva assisted the descent of the celestial river, bringing it down from the heavens to the earth in his serpentine hair.
Shiva had a “son”, the two natured hybrid Ganesh, the god of doorways and beginnings. Shiva is associated with the “destruction of the old to make room for the new.”
The word Shiva is an Indo-European root meaning “seven”.
From the Puranas we learn that Vishnu descends from heaven and is incarnated among men as an avatar, when the “end of an Age” occurs and “time has lost its strength.”
As the Mastya Avatar, Vishnu became a fish who warned King Manu of the impeding Global Flood.
Vishnu instructed Manu to gather the Seven Sages, animals and seeds, and to board a huge boat which he then tied to his body using the royal serpent Vasuki, taking the passengers to Mt. Himavan in order to survive the cataclysm in the next aion.
The name “Dagan” appears frequently in the Assyrian records from earlier dates in place of UanaAdap or Oannes.
The constellation Pisces the fishes is called in Hebrew Dagim.
The earliest records of the Hebrews in the time of the judges of Israel describe a Canaanite and Philistine fish-go called Dagon.
Samson is often depicted wearing is lion’s pelt as he destroys the pillars of Dagon, an image virtually identical to the avatar of Vishnu called Narashimha.
Vishnu as Narasimha- half lion, half man- emerges from a broken pillar, during evening time, neither night nor day.
A popular depiction of Vishnu resting atop the sleeping serpent is reminiscent of the ouroboros itself, encircling the youthful time-god Horus(hours) resting on top of the dual-headed Routi, lion-god of the future and past in Egyptian Myth.
The two-headed deity Janus, the Roman god who presides over doorways and arches, the dualistic god of war and peace, the past and future, after whom the month of January was named.
These deities associated with entryways, arches, pillars and doorways are also “time gods”- their dualistic nature to a transitional place and time, or a place of endings and new beginnings.
Dual-aspect gods commemorate in myth that the transitional period in time described in Plato’s Timaeus, when the former age passes away and the new age begins.
The hybrid deities of myth associated with pillars and entryways allude to the four cardinal points in the zodiac as the vernal equinox proceeds through the Great year of Plato.
The Ouroborus (Leviathan) is the connection that binds the creatures of the zodiac together.
The whole world, as well as the “Great Sea” which compasses it, rests on four pillars and these pillars rest on one of the fins of Leviathan.
During the course of the Great Year, four distinct zodiacal “ages” will have seen the sign of the suntenalia (the fifth age is the same as the first, in a complete Platonic Year).
The cardinal points of the zodiac are the four signs of the previous suntelias: Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius.
The four creatures of these constellations comprise the hybrid gods of myth, and commemorate those cataclysmic times of transition between the aions.
Plato describes the cardinal points of the zodiac-the “four pillars”-forming a cross in the circle of the heavens:
This entire compound he divided lengthways into two parts, which he joined to one another at the center like the letter X, and bent them into a circular form, connecting them with themselves and each other at the point opposite to their original meeting-point; and, comprehending them in a uniform revolution upon the same axis, he made the one the outer and the other the inner circle.
In antiquity the four cardinal points of the heavens were symbolically portrayed as a creature called a cherubim.
This creature was considered not only a reference to the mechanics of the heavans but also a representation of the deities inhabiting the celestial realm.
Similar Akkadian or Assyrian beings karibu (one who intercedes) were arbitrators who presented the prayers of earthly men to the gods in the heavens.
In the OT, cherubim were described as the foundation of the throne of God, and these beings were depicted on the Ark of the Covenant and Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.
Two cherubim supported the throne of the Sidonian King Hiram.
Winged Lions with Human Heads.
They were placed at the gateway to the Garden of Eden, to guard the tree of the fruit of eternal life.
Cherubim were beings whose physical appearance reflected their duty of messenger between heavens and earth, hbrid creatures embodying a celestial union.
While the cherubim referred to the four cardinal zodiacal signs of the year in which the sunteleia sign of the changing aion had occurred, more significant was the hybrid sphinx, which signified the transitional zodiacal ages of the sunteleia.
The symbol of the sphinx-from the Greek root meaning “to bind together”-is a hybrid creature combining the constellation Leo and Virgo.
Images of the mythical sphinx were placed at entryways to temples, and at the thresholds of doorways.
The most common depiction of the sphinx is the creature posing the riddle to Oedipus: the subject of the sphinx’s riddle-the life span of mankind-dislcoes the link between the sphinx and the ouroborus, symbol of the aion.
The sign of the suntelia of 10948 BC occurred while the Milky Way aligned with the horizon of the earth, and the sun rose in the mouth of the ouroborus during the Autumn Equinox, Sept 21st-during the age between Leo and Virgo.
It was during that transition from the age of Virgo to Leo, embodied by the sphinx, that the Great Flood of legend occurred.
The Egyptians and the Sumerians described the first land after the deluge as a primordial mound that rose out of the cosmic sea.
The time referred to in myth as the Floo was the time demarked by the Ouroboral cosmic clock.
The cosmic waters aligned to surround the earth while at the same time the world was actually destroyed by a flood; this heavenly portent and the earth’s destruction by water occurred at the same time.
THE UNION OF HEAVEN AND EARTH
The passing of the great aion cosmic cycle that was kept by the suntelia alignments of the Milky Way-the Ouroboros-is chronicled in myth.
Pre-Olympian time-god,Cronus, devoured his own offspring, just as the serpent ouroboros devoured its own tail.
It was a stone double of Zeus that thwarted the elder god Cronus. The Olympian gods Zeus and Poseidon emerged to usurp the characteristics of their “father Time,” Chronos.
The combined qualities of Oceanus the “encircling ocean of origins,” Ouranus “the sky,” and Chronus “the god of time,” would be embodied in Poseidon himself.
The them of the ctaclysmic shifting of the aion, from the age of the Titans to the age of the Olympians, represented the overthrow of the former to be replaced by a new and improved version of what came before.
According to the myths of the earliest civilizations, the first ancient gods were born when heaven and earth joined together.
It was during this “marriage” of the earth with the heavens that the deities of the ancient pantheons were created.
Ouranos, the eldest god-symbolized by the Ouroboros and also known as Oceanus-was recorded as the father of all the Gods.
He was conceived during an age when heaven and earth united. Homer called Oceanus “theon genesis,” that is, “source of the gods”.
Myth preserves the arrival of super beings, their descent to the earth and habitation among men.
The earliest records of Mesopotamia describe the time immediately after the joining of heaven and earth.
Seemingly a result of this union, the gods began to descend to the earth for the purpose of civilizing mankind.
The union of heaven and earth-when the Ouroboros surrounded the horizon and the earth appeared as a mountain or island rising from the sea of stars.
Verses of the Epic of Gilgamesh described the mountain of the arth formed in the sea during the “perfect union” of the god of heaven, called Anu, and the goddess of earth, called Ki.
The Sumerian word for universe was the compound of these two gods An and Ki, or En-ki, heaven and earth.
According to Berossus, the seven Abgal or Apkallu sages were sent by En-ki to teach civilization to human beings and were credited with building the first walled cities.
The name abgal means “Planet Elder” from ab (elder) and gal (round, planets).
Abgals were also know as Ummianu (craftsman) and some were poets who composed the epics of Erra and Gilgamesh, others were ministers to the go En-ki.
As the head of the temple organization of the god Marduk, the Babylonian historian Berossus had access to the cuneiform texts of the ancient archives of Esagila.
He wrote 3 books on the history of Babylon for Alexander the Great.
He wrote that the first Abgal sage set by En-ki was called Uana-Adapa, worshipped at the oldest Mesopotamian city of Eridu. Una-Adapa was better known by his Greek name “oannes”:
At first they (human beings) led a somewhat wretched existence and lived without rule after the manner of beasts. But, in the first year appeared an animal endowed with human reason, named Oannes, who rose from out of the Erythian (Red) Sea, at the point wher it borders Babylonia. He had the whole body of a fish, but above his fish’s head he had another head which was that of a man, and human feet emerged from beneath his fish’s tail. He had a human voice, and an image him is preserved unto this day. He passed the day in the midst of men without taking food; he taught them the use of letters, sciences and arts of all kinds. He taught them to construct cities, to found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them the principles of geometrical knowledge. He made them distinguish the seeds of the earth, and showed them how to collect the fruits; in short he instructed them in everything which could tend to soften human manners and humanize their laws. From that time nothing material has been added by way of improvement to his instructions. And when the sun set, this being Oannes, retired again into the sea, for he was amphibious. After this there appeared other animals like Oannes.
Berossus listed ten legendary kings who ruled before the worldwide flood. During the reign of Ammenon, the fourth king, the hybrid demi-god Oannes appeared.
The antediluvian kings listed by Berossus were said to have ruled Sumer for 120 period of 3600 years-a combined total of 432,000 years.
While the kings of Berossus pre-flood list seem exaggerated, there is corroborating evidence in the Sumerian King List.
The ancient list of Sumerian kings stated that the “kingship”-the design establishing civilized rule over man-descended from heaven to earth..
In the cuneiform fragment referred to as “The Sumerian Flood Story,” the divine order of civilization is described as beginning with construction of cities in “holy places”:
After the (sic) of kingship had descended from heaven, after the exalted crown and throne of kingship had descended from heaven, the divine rites and the exalted powers were perfected, the bricks of the cites were laid in holy places, their names were announced and the (sic) were distributed.
Praising Gilgamesh’s accomplishment’s, the narrator of the Epic invites the reader to survey the city of Uruk:
Of ramparted Urkuk the wall he build, of hallowed Eanna (the temple ) the pure sanctuary. Behold its outer wall, which none can equal! Seize upon the threshold, which is of old…Go up and walk on the walls of Uruk, Inspect the base terrace, examine the brickwork: Is not its brickwork of burnt brick? Did not the seven (sages) lay its foundations?
Like the Sumerian and Egyptian King Lists, the Puranas also describe certain human kings as having ruled for thousands of years.
The 7 sages of the Puranas were the first builder-gods, those demi-gods who descended to educate humans with the heavenly plan for civilization.
Similar to the Sumerian Abgal Sages, these Saptarsis, from Sanskrit sata (seven) rishi (Sage), were considered the 7 great planetary spirits.
The first of the Seven Abgal Sages, Oannes, was sent by the Sumerian unified heaven–earth deity En-Ki t o civilize humans.
The Egyptian story of creation involves the “marriage” of heaven and earth as well, and Osiris is often described as the first of the Sages.
The primordial serpent-god Ptah-Ra produced the twins Shu and Tefnut.
These twins supported and connected the sky and the earth, and their union produced Nut (heaven) and Geb (earth):
I (Ra) sneezed out SHu…I spat out Tefnut…Next Shu and Tefnut produced Geb and Nut…Geb and Nut then gave birth to Osiris…Seth,Isis, and Nephtys…Ultimately they produced the population of this land.
Nut and Geb, the gods of heaven and earth, married against the wishes of Ptah-Ra.
The union of heaven and earth produced the twin gods who then reigned as kings of Egypt: Isis and her sister Nephthys, and Osiris and his brother Set.
The Turin Papyrus is a primary source for the chronology of the pre-dynastic period in Egypt.
It was written during the reign of the Pharaoh Sethos (Ramses I) in the 19th Dynasty and was discovered in the temple of Osiris at Abydos by the Italian traveler Bernardino Drovetti in 1822.
The papyrus is broken into over 160 after very small fragments, many of which have been lost and is currently in the Egyptian Museum at Turnin.
The Turin “List of Kings” records the reigns of ten Neteru, “gods” who reigned for hundreds of years each, totaling 23,200 years: “PTAH-RA-SU-SEB-OSIRIS-SET-HORUS-THOTH-MA-HORUS”.
After these Neteru rulers, the Turin list continues with the Shemsu Hor, “the followers of Horus” who reined a total of 13,400 years beginning in 9,850 BC.
The papyrus then list the historical kings that are accepted as actual Pharaohs by conventional archaeology.
The first ruler in the Turin list, the god Ptah, was the deity of the Ta-tenen, “the primordial mound,” called the “Island from the Dawn of Time” and “the first land”.
Ptah was a builder-god, the Egyptian patron of architecture and stone masonry.
One of the symbols of Ptah was the transit, an indespensable tool of building with stone.
An epitaph of Ptah’s High Priest was the title wr khrp kmw “Great Leader of Craftsmen.”
The Book of the Dead describes Ptah as: “…a master architect, and framer of everything in the universe.”
Osiris was the fifth “god-king” of the Turin list, also considere a builder-god, the original “sage” who taught civilization to all the earth.
Osiris, Isis and Horus formed the great triad of Abydos (Abdu, about 520 km south of Cairo).
The Roman historian Diodorus Siculus of Sicily (a contemporary of Julius Caesar 1st C B.C.) recounts the Egyptian myth of Osiris:
Of Osiris they say that, being of a benficent turn of mind, and eager for glory, he gathered together a great army, with the intention of visiting all inhabited earth and teaching the race of men. Osiris, they say, founded in the Egyptian Thebaid a city with a hundred gates, which the men of his day named after his mother, though later generations called it Diospolis, and some named it Thebes on the stele of Osiris the inscription is said to run: I am Osiris the king, who campaigned over every country as far as the uninhabited regions of India and the land to the north, even to the sources of the river Ister, and again to the remaining parts of the world as far as Oceanus. There is no region of the inhabited world to which I have not come, dispensing to all men the things of which I was the discoverer.