A stela erected by the Assyrian king Esarhaddon shows the ruler holding the Cup of Life while facing the twelve chief Gods of Heaven and Earth. We see four gods atop animals, of whom Ishtar on the lion and Adad holding the forked lightning can definitely be identified. Four other gods are represented by the tools of their special attributes, as the war-god Ninurta by his lion-headed mace. The remaining four gods are shown as celestial bodies - the Sun (Shamash), the Winged Globe (the Twelfth Planet, the abode of Anu), the Moon's crescent, and a symbol consisting of seven dots.
Although in later times the god Sin was associated with the Moon, identified by the crescent, ample evidence shows that in "olden times" the crescent was the symbol of an elderly and bearded deity, one of Sumer's true "olden gods." Often shown surrounded by streams of water, this god was undoubtedly Ea. The crescent was also associated with the science of measuring and calculating, of which Ea was the divine master. It was appropriate that the God of the Seas and Oceans, Ea, be assigned as his celestial counterpart the Moon, which causes the ocean's tides. What was the meaning of the symbol of the seven dots?
Many clues leave no doubt that it was the celestial symbol of Enlil. The depiction of the Gateway of Anu (the Winged Globe) flanked by Ea and Enlil, represents them by the crescent and the seven-dot symbol. Some of the clearest depictions of the celestial symbols that were meticulously copied by Sir Henry Rawlinson (The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia) assign the most prominent position to a group of three symbols, standing for Anu flanked by his two sons; these show that the symbol for Enlil could be either the seven dots or a seven-pointed "star." The essential element in Enlil's celestial representation was the number seven (the daughter, Ninhursag, was sometimes included, represented by the umbilical cutter). Scholars have been unable to understand a statement by Gudea, king of Lagash, that "the celestial 7 is 50." Attempts at arithmetic solutions - some formula whereby the number seven would go into fifty - failed to reveal the meaning of the statement. However, we see a simple answer: Gudea stated that the celestial body that is "seven" stands for the god that is "fifty." The god Enlil, whose rank number was fifty, had as his celestial counterpart the planet that was seventh.
Which planet was the planet of Enlil? We recall the texts that speak of the early times when the gods first came to Earth, when Anu stayed on the Twelfth Planet, and his two sons who had gone down to Earth drew lots. Ea was given the "rulership over the Deep," and to Enlil "the Earth was given for his dominion." And the answer to the puzzle bursts out in all its significance: The planet of Enlil was Earth. Earth - to the Nefilim - was the seventh planet.
In February 1971, the United States launched an unmanned spacecraft on the longest mission to date. For twenty-one months it traveled, past Mars and the asteroid belt, to a precisely scheduled rendezvous with Jupiter. Then, as anticipated by NASA scientists, the immense gravitational pull of Jupiter "grabbed" the spacecraft and hurled it into outer space. Speculating that Pioneer 10 might someday be attracted by the gravitational pull of another "solar system" and crash-land on some planet elsewhere in the universe, the Pioneer 10 scientists attached to it an engraved aluminum plaque bearing the accompanying "message."
The message employs a pictographic language - signs and symbols not too different from those used in the very first pictographic writing of Sumer. It attempts to tell whoever might find the plaque that Mankind is male and
female, of a size related to the size and shape of the spacecraft. It depicts the two basic chemical elements of our world, and our location relative to a certain interstellar source of radio emissions. And it depicts our solar system as a Sun and nine planets, telling the finder: "The craft that you have found comes from the third planet of this Sun."
Our astronomy is geared to the notion that Earth is the third planet - which, indeed, it is if one begins the count from the center 6f our system, the Sun.
But to someone nearing our solar system from the outside, the first planet to be encountered would be Pluto, the second Neptune, the third Uranus - not Earth. Fourth would be Saturn; fifth, Jupiter; sixth, Mars. And Earth would be seventh.
No one but the Nefilim, traveling to Earth past Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, could have considered Earth "the seventh." Even if, for the sake of argument, one assumed that the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia, rather than travelers from space, had the knowledge or wisdom to count Earth's position not from the central Sun but from the solar system's edge, then it would follow that the ancient peoples knew of the existence of Pluto and Neptune and Uranus. Since they could not have known of these outermost planets on their own, the information must, we conclude, have been imparted to them by the Nefilim. Whichever assumption is adopted as a starting point, the conclusion is the same: Only the Nefilim could have known that there are planets beyond Saturn, as a consequence of which Earth - counting from the outside - is the seventh. Earth is not the only planet whose numerical position in the solar system was represented symbolically. Ample evidence shows that Venus was depicted as an eight-pointed star: Venus is the eighth planet, following Earth, when counted from the outside. The eight-pointed star also stood for the goddess Ishtar, whose planet was Venus.
Many cylinder seals and other graphic relics depict Mars as the sixth planet. A cylinder seal shows the god associated with Mars (originally Nergal, then Nabu), seated on a throne under a six-pointed "star" as his symbol. Other symbols on the seal show the Sun, much in the same manner we would depict it today; the Moon; and the cross, symbol of the "Planet of Crossing," the Twelfth Planet.
In Assyrian times, the "celestial count" of a god's planet was often indicated by the appropriate number of star symbols placed alongside the god's throne. Thus, a plaque depicting the god Ninurta placed four star symbols at his throne. His planet Saturn is indeed the fourth planet, as counted by the Nefilim. Similar depictions have been found for most of the other planets. The central religious event of ancient Mesopotamia, the twelve-day New Year Festival, was replete with symbolism that had to do with the orbit of the Twelfth Planet, the makeup of the solar system, and the journey of the Nefilim to Earth. The best- documented of these "affirmations of the faith" were the Babylonian New Year rituals; but evidence shows that the Babylonians only copied traditions going back to the beginning of Sumerian civilization.
In Babylon, the festival followed a very strict and detailed ritual; each portion, act, and prayer had a traditional reason and a specific meaning. The ceremonies started on the first day of Nisan - then the first month of the year - coinciding with the spring equinox. For eleven days, the other gods with a celestial status joined Marduk in a prescribed order. On the twelfth day, each of the other gods departed to his own abode, and Marduk was left alone in his splendor. The parallel to the appearance of Marduk within the planetary system, his "visit" with the eleven other members of the solar system, and the separation on the twelfth day - leaving the Twelfth God to go on as King of the Gods, but in isolation from them - is obvious. The ceremonies of the New Year Festival paralleled the course of the Twelfth Planet. The first four days, matching Marduk's passage by the first four planets (Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn), were days of preparation. At the end of the fourth day, the rituals called for marking the appearance of the planet Iku (Jupiter) within sight of Marduk. The celestial Marduk was nearing the place of the celestial battle; symbolically, the high priest began reciting the "Epic of Creation" - the tale of that celestial battle. The night passed without sleep. When the tale of the celestial battle had been recited, and as the fifth day was breaking, the rituals called for the twelvefold proclamation of Marduk as "The Lord," affirming that in the aftermath of the celestial battle there were now twelve members of the solar system. The recitations then named the twelve members of the solar system and the twelve constellations of the zodiac.