The three, Greek historians through whom we know what Berossus wrote, reported that such divine fish-men appeared periodically, coming ashore from the "Erythrean sea" - the body of water we now call the Arabian Sea (the western part of the Indian Ocean).
Why would the Nefilim splash down in the Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles from their selected site in Mesopotamia, instead of in the Persian Gulf, which is so much closer? The ancient reports indirectly confirm our conclusion that the first landings occurred during the second glacial period, when today's Persian Gulf was not a sea but a stretch of marshlands and shallow lakes, in which a splashdown was impossible.
Coming down in the Arabian Sea, the first intelligent beings on Earth then made their way toward Mesopotamia. The marshlands extended deeper inland than today's coastline. There, at the edge of the marshes, they established their very first settlement on our planet.
They named it E.RI.DU ("house in faraway built"). What an appropriate name!
To this very day, the Persian term ordu means "encampment." It is a word whose meaning has taken root in all languages: The settled Earth is called Erde in German, Erda in Old High German, Jordh in Icelandic, Jord in Danish, Airtha in Gothic, Erthe in Middle English; and, going back geographically and in time, "Earth" was Araiha or Ereds in Aramaic, Erd or Ertz in Kurdish, and Eretz in Hebrew.
At Eridu, in southern Mesopotamia, the Nefilim established Earth- Station I, a lonely outpost on a half-frozen planet. Sumerian texts, confirmed by later Akkadian translations, list the original settlements or "cities" of the Nefilim in the order in which they were established. We are even told which god was put in charge of each of these settlements. A Sumerian text, believed to have been the original of the Akkadian "Deluge Tablets," relates the following regarding five of the first seven cities: After kingship had been lowered from heaven, after the exalted crown, the throne of kingship had been lowered from heaven, he ... perfected the procedures, the divine ordinances. . . . Founded five cities in pure places, called their names, laid them out as centers.
The first of these cities, ERIDU,
he gave to Nudimmud, the leader,
The second, BAD-TIBIRA,
he gave to Nugig.
The third, LARAK,
he gave to Pabilsag.
The fourth, SIPPAR,
he gave to the hero Utu.
The fifth, SHURUPPAK,
he gave to Sud.
The name of the god who lowered Kingship from Heaven, planned the establishment of Eridu and four otherA cities, and appointed their governors or commanders, is unfortunately obliterated. All the texts agree, however, that the god who waded ashore to the edge of the marshlands and said "Here we settle" was Enki, nicknamed "Nudimmud" ("he who made things") in the text.
This god's two names - EN.KI ('lord of firm ground") and E.A ("whose house is water") - were most appropriate. Eridu, which remained Enki's seat of power and center of worship throughout Mesopotamian history, was built on ground artificially raised above the waters of the marshlands. The evidence is contained in a text named (by S. N. Kramer) the "Myth of Enki and Eridu": The lord of the watery-deep, the king Enki. built his house.
In Eridu he built the House of the Water Bank. The king Enki. . . has built a house Eridu, like a mountain, he raised up from the earth; in a good place he had built it.
These and other, mostly fragmentary texts suggest that one of the first concerns of these "colonists" on Earth had to do with the shallow lakes or watery marshes. "He brought . . . ; established the cleaning of the small rivers." The effort to dredge the beds of streams and tributaries to allow a better flow of the waters was intended to drain the marshes, obtain cleaner, potable water, and implement controlled irrigation. The Sumerian narrative also indicates some landfilling or the raising of dikes to protect the first houses from the omnipresent waters.
A text named by scholars the "myth" of "Enki and the Land's Order" is one of the longest and best preserved of Sumerian narrative poems so far uncovered. Its text consists of some 470 lines, of which 375 are perfectly legible. Its beginning (some 50 lines) is, unfortunately, broken. The verses that follow are devoted to an exaltation of Enki and to the establishment of his relationship with the chief deity Anu (his father), Ninti (his sister), and Enlil (his brother).
Following these introductions, Enki himself "picks up the microphone." As fantastic as it may sound, the fact is that the text
amounts to a first-person report by Enki of his landing on Earth.
"When I approached Earth,
there was much flooding.
When I approached its green meadows,
heaps and mounds were piled up
at my command.
I built my house in a pure place. ... My house -
Its shade stretches over the Snake Marsh. . . . The carp fish wave their tails in it among the small gizi reeds."
The poem then goes on to describe and record, in the third person, the achievements of Enki. Here are some selected verses:
He marked the marshland,
placed in it carp and . . . - fish;
He marked the cane thicket,
placed in it . . . - reeds and green-reeds.
Enbilulu, the Inspector of Canals,
he placed in charge of the marshlands.
Him who set net so no fish escapes,
whose trap no ... escapes, .
whose snare no bird escapes,
. . . the son of ... a god who loves fish
Enki placed in charge of fish and birds.
Enkimdu, the one of the ditch and dike, Enki placed in charge of ditch and dike.
Him whose . . . mold directs, Kulla, the brick-maker of the Land, Enki placed in charge of mold and brick. The poem lists other achievements of Enki, including the purification of the waters of the Tigris River and the joining (by canal) of the Tigris and Euphrates. His house by the watery bank adjoined a wharf at which reed rafts and boats could anchor, and from which they could sail off. Appropriately, the house was named E.ABZU ("house of the Deep"). Enki's sacred precinct in Eridu was known by this name for millennia thereafter.
No doubt Enki and his landing party explored the lands around Eridu, but he appears to have preferred traveling by water. The marshland, he said in one of the texts, "is my favorite spot; it stretches out its arms to me." In other texts Enki described sailing in the marshlands in his boat, named MA.gUr (literally, "boat to turn about in"), namely, a touring boat. He tells how his crewmen "drew on the oars in unison." how they used to "sing sweet songs, causing the river to rejoice." At such times, he confided, "sacred songs and spells filled my Watery Deep." Even such a minor detail as the name of the captain of Enki's boat is recorded.
The Sumerian king lists indicate that Enki and his first group of Nefilim remained alone on Earth for quite a while: Eight shar's (28,800 years) passed before the second commander or "settlement chief" was named.
Interesting light is shed on the subject as we examine the astronomical evidence. Scholars have been puzzled by the apparent Sumerian "confusion" regarding which one of the twelve zodiacal houses was associated with Enki. The sign of the fish-goat, which stood for the constellation Capricorn, was apparently associated with Enki (and, indeed, may explain the epithet of the founder of Eridu, A.LU.LIM, which could mean "sheep of the glittering waters"). Yet Ea/Enki was frequently depicted as holding vases of flowing waters - the original Water Bearer, or Aquarius; and he was certainly the God of Fishes, and thus associated with Pisces.
Astronomers are hard put to clarify how the ancient stargazers actually saw in a group of stars the outlines of, say, fishes or a water bearer. The answer that comes to mind is that the signs of the zodiac were not named after the shape of the star group but after the epithet or main activity of a god primarily associated with the time when the vernal equinox was in that particular zodiacal house.