2. Enlil, Zu, and Ninurta
Presumably the
Tablets of Destinies were passed on from Marduk to Enlil. Here, of
course, things took another turn for the worse, as the Tablets were
stolen again, this time by Zu. Ninurta, Enlil’s son, was sent to
lead the effort to recover them, and another terrible war ensues,
ending in the defeat and execution of Zu, Ninurta’s recovery of the
Tablets and his Inventory of the Stones. As was seen in the
previous chapter, however, a new association has entered the
picture, and this is the relationship:
Mountains ≈ planets ≈ gods ≈ pyramids(or “ekurs”).
While in possession
of the Tablets, Zu waged a war with Ninurta similar in its ferocity
and the types of weapons - some implying weather weapons - as was
used by Tiamat after her theft of the
Tablets. And this likewise implies once again that there possession
conveyed the “kingship” or power over those things. So, Zu
is
1. A Personal Ruler or succession of rulers (over)
2. A “mountain”, which is associated with
3. A planet, which is now also associated with
4. A pyramid, or “ekur”.
The obvious
association of the last item with stones should not be overlooked.
Similarly, Ninurta
after his victory and the recovery of the Tablets, performs his now
celebrated “inventory of the stones,” in which he destroys some and
preserves others. But let us recall the strange connections of
Ninurta, and the associations that
those connections bring to the light. Stephanie Dalley states that
Ninurta was not only a warrior God, but was “probably pronounced
Nimrod.”442 As such, Ninurta is
associated with that famous “tower that reaches to the heavens,” an
allusion clearly associating him with a pyramid.443 This tower, we
learn from Genesis, was of concern because it would enable mankind
to do whatever it had a mind to do. Its power, in other words, was
“universal,” and hence God took the decision to destroy it and to
confound mankind’s language. Let us recall that for the
Mesopotamians, this “ekur” or tower, or pyramid, was the DU-AN-KI,
the “bond heaven-earth,” coupling the earth to the heavens and vice
versa. This strange reference would seem to associate the DU-AN-KI
with the Tower of Babel, and both in turn to the only structure in
that region to clearly embody both celestial and terrestrial
geometries in its dimensions: the Great Pyramid.444