Zecharia Sitchin, an author of books offering an alternative history of the extraterrestrial origins of ancient humanity, was born in the 1920s in Baku, Russia. Soon after his birth his family moved to Palestine, where he grew up. He learned a variety of Near Eastern languages including Hebrew and Sumerian. He moved to England for college and attended both the London School of Economics and the University of London, from which he graduated with a degree in economics. He returned to Palestine, where he became a journalist. During World War II (1939-45) he served in the British Army. He moved to the United States in the mid-1950s.
In the 1970s, Sitchin’s lifelong interest in the archeology of the Middle East culminated in a book, The 12th Planet, published in 1976. It appeared at the height of the ancient astronaut controversy that had been generated by claims of Erich von Däniken that he had discovered evidence of the presence of UFOs and extraterrestrials in the artifacts from various ancient cultures. Sitchin, out of his knowledge of ancient languages, proposed a new option concerning ancient history and lifted the debate to a new level. While the debate generated by von Däniken was largely resolved, Sitchin’s hypothesis survived and has continued to be the subject of a series of books through the 1990s.
The von Däniken approach centered upon pictures from ancient sites that, taken out of context, could be seen as resembling contemporary astronauts and objects similar to items reported as unidentified flying objects. Sitchin started with a somewhat different hypothesis, that ancient mythology should be read as historical documents, as reports of actual occur-rences. His starting point was the biblical book of Genesis, chapter 6, and the cryptic references to the sons of God marrying the daughters of men and the giants or nephilim who were on Earth in the era prior to the biblical flood. Using a variety of ancient documents, though primarily the Babylonian epic known as “Enuma Elish,” he hypothesized the existence of another planet in our solar system, which he named Nibiru, that travels an eliptical orbit that brings it into the area between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars every 3,600 years. The planet is inhabited by a humanoid race called the Anunnaki, who created homo sapiens.
A war in the heavens, as described in the ancient Sumerian chronicles and the Bible, Sitchin believes, accounts for the ancients’ knowledge of information that had only become available to modern science in recent centuries, especially the existence of the outer planets, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto. He believes that the Anunnaki first arrived on Earth almost half a million years ago, their arrival motivated by the problem of an eroding atmosphere. They established a large gold mining operation in South Africa, and gold was shipped to Mesopotamia where the space port was set up to transport it to Nibiru. The Anannaki created humans to work the mines, then later inter-married with their creation. The near approach of Nibiru around 11,000 B.C.E. led to the destructive flood recounted in Genesis. Noah and his family escaped in a submersible ship. After the flood, life began again with the Anunnaki’s assistance.
Given the hypothesis of human interaction with the Anunnaki, Sitchcin has been able to present an alternative reading of ancient history that, while ignored by the mainstream of modern archeologists and astronomers, has found a broad popular audience. The 12th Planet has been followed by five additional volumes, collectively termed the Earth Chronicles, that expand and undergird the original hypothesis. The most recent volume, The Cosmic Code, appeared in 1998.
Sitchin’s hypothesis was given additional credibility by a lively debate among astronomers in the 1970s over the possible existence of an additional planet in the solar system, commonly referred to as Planet X. Sitchin identified Nibiru with the hypothesized Planet X. The astronomical debate, however, proceeded without reference to Sitchin, and by the 1990s astronomers had abandoned the search for Planet X. At the end of the 1990s, Alan F. Alford, whose 1998 book Gods of the New Millennium had been most supportive of Sitchin, attempted independently to verify Sitchin’s hypothesis with his own research. In the end, however, he too abandoned Sitchin after encountering astronomical data suggesting the impossibility of some of Sitchin’s claims about the way that Nibiru’s close approach affected the Earth. He subsequently has produced a significant variant hypothesis that nevertheless retains much of Sitchin’s alternative approach to history.
An alternative theory on the origins of mining
Mining is one of the oldest activities practised by man, the oldest traces of the activity dating back more than 40 000 years.
The exact origin of the occupation, in terms of when and where mining started, is not known and it is this uncertainty that has led to a number of theories on the origins of the activity flourishing.
While most theories are fairly educated assumptions based on archaeological evidence, there are a number of more fascinating theories that border on the realms of science fiction.
One of the most popular alternative theories suggests that mining was first undertaken some 400 000 years ago by the Anunnaki, a race of alien miners who hailed from the planet Nibiru and who, incidentally, are also credited with the creation of the human species on earth.
This theory has largely been expounded by Azerbaijani-born American author and self-proclaimed scholar of ancient languages Zecharia Sitchin, who wrote a number of controversial books proposing an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts.
The most popular of these books, which deals extensively with the subject of the origins of mining and the creation of mankind, is The 12th Planet, first published in 1976. Sitchin’s theory on the origins of mining and of mankind itself, which he states is based on ancient Sumerian texts, largely goes as follows:
according to the ancient Sumerian texts, a twelfth member of our solar system (if one is to include the sun, the moon and the dwarf planet Pluto, as well as the eight planets) exists – a planet called Nibiru, or ‘Planet of the Crossing’. This planet has an independent elongated elliptical orbit which passes through the planets Mars and Jupiter every 3 600 years.
It was from this planet that the advanced civilisation of the Anunnaki, a term that literally means ‘those who from heaven to earth came’, came to earth some 445 000 years ago. Their visit to earth was no tourist expedition: the Anunnaki came specifically to exploit the planet’s extensive gold resource.
Sitchin states: “On their planet Nibiru, the Anunnaki were facing a situation we on earth may also soon face – ecological deterioration was making life increasingly impossible. “There was a need to protect their dwindling atmosphere, and the only solution seemed to suspend gold particles above it, as a shield.”
However, gold was an exceptionally rare metal on Nibiru and so it was decided to exploit the earth’s more abundant gold resource. Thus, the Anunnaki “launched Mission Earth to obtain it”.
Sitchin goes on to explain that at first the Anunnaki tried to obtain the precious metal effortlessly from the waters of the Persian Gulf. But, as is well known, the extraction of the earth’s natural resources cannot be achieved without significant time and effort. Thus, when Operation Persian Gulf failed, the Anunnaki embarked on toilsome mining operations in Southern Africa, a region that was known to be host to extensive gold deposits.
For many thousands of years, the Anunnaki exploited the rich gold deposits in what is today South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania.
However, some 300 000 years ago, the Anunnaki assigned to the African mines mutinied over their dissatisfaction with their working conditions (Sound familiar?).
The Anunnaki were still in desperate need of gold so, in order to circumvent the dissatisfaction of the miners, it was decided to create a breed of miners who would effectively be slave workers on the Southern African gold mines. Sitchin states: “It was then that the chief scientist (Enki) and the chief medical officer (Ninhursag) of the Anunnaki used genetic manipulation and in vitro fertilisation techniques to create ‘primitive workers’ – the first Homo Sapiens – to take over the back-breaking toil in the gold mines.”
According to Sitchin, Homo sapiens were made in the image or likeness of the Anunnaki, although it was not an achievement that resulted overnight. Working in a creation chamber, the ‘essence’ of the blood of a young Anunnaki male was mixed with the egg of an earth-born female hominid. The fertilised egg was then implanted into the womb of a female Anunnaki in a process similar to modern day in vitro fertilisation. Through trial and error, Enki’s desired result was reached. Once perfected, the mass production of Homo sapiens took off.
However, ‘production’ of Homo sapiens could not continue indefinitely and this new breed of primitive man was given the ability to procreate. Eventually, this new breed became so numerous that some were expelled from the Anunnaki city centres and gradually spread over the planet.
According to Sitchin, the Anunnaki eventually decided to leave the earth some 6 000 years ago. He states that ancient Sumerian inscriptions report that the human civilisation in Sumer, Mesopotamia, was set up under the guidance of the Annunaki ‘gods’, and human kingship was inaugurated to provide intermediaries between mankind and the Anunnaki.
While Sitchin’s theories may be considered incredibly far-fetched and one may scoff at the idea that Homo sapiens were genetically engineered by aliens to mine gold to support the atmosphere of a far distant planet, his books have nevertheless sold millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into more than 25 languages.
I have come across increasing numbers of people who subscribe to this alternative theory and it need only be said that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.