Free The 12th Planet by Zecharia Sitchin Page A

another time, an invading Syrian army fled upon hearing a rumor that "the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians." These brief allusions to the Hittites reveal the high esteem in which their military abilities were held by other peoples of the ancient Near East.
     
    With the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs—and, later on, of the Mesopotamian inscriptions—scholars have come across numerous references to a "Land of Hatti" as a large and powerful kingdom in Anatolia. Could such an important power have left no trace?
     
    Forearmed with the clues provided in the Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts, the scholars embarked on excavations of ancient sites in Anatolia's hilly regions. The efforts paid off: They found Hittite cities, palaces, royal treasures, royal tombs, temples, religious objects, tools, weapons, art objects. Above all, they found many inscriptions—both in a pictographic script and in cuneiform. The biblical Hittites had come to life.
     
    A unique monument bequeathed to us by the ancient Near East is a rock carving outside the ancient Hittite capital (the site is nowadays called Yazilikaya, which in Turkish means "inscribed rock"). After passing through gateways and sanctuaries, the ancient worshiper came into an open-air gallery, an opening among a semicircle of rocks, on which all the gods of the Hittites were depicted in procession.
     
    Marching in from the left is a long procession of primarily male deities, clearly organized in "companies" of twelve. At the extreme left, and thus last to march in this amazing parade, are twelve deities who look identical, all carrying the same weapon. (Fig. 25)
     
    The middle group of twelve marchers includes some deities who look older, some who bear diversified weapons, and two who are highlighted by a divine symbol. (Fig. 26)
     
    The third (front) group of twelve is clearly made up of the more important male and female deities. Their weapons and emblems are more varied; four have the divine celestial symbol above them; two are Winged. This group also includes nondivine participants: two bulls holding up a globe, and the king of the Hittites, wearing a skull cap and standing under the emblem of the Winged Disk. (Fig. 27)
     
    Marching in from the right were two groups of female deities; the rock carvings are, however, too mutilated to ascertain their full original number. We will probably not be wrong in assuming that they, too, made up two "companies" of twelve each.
     
    The two processions from the left and from the right met at a central panel which clearly depicted Great Gods, for they were all shown elevated, standing atop mountains, animals, birds, or even on the shoulders of divine attendants. (Fig. 28)
     
    Much effort was invested by scholars (for example, E. Laroche,
Le Pantheon de Yazilikaya)
to determine from the depictions, the hieroglyphic symbols, as well as from partly legible texts and god names that were actually carved on the rocks, the names, titles, and roles of the deities included in the procession. But it is clear that the Hittite pantheon, too, was governed by the "Olympian" twelve. The lesser gods were organized in groups of twelve, and the Great Gods on Earth were associated with twelve celestial bodies.
     
    That the pantheon was governed by the "sacred number" twelve is made additionally certain by yet another Hittite monument, a masonry shrine found near the present-day Beit—Zehir. It clearly depicts the divine couple, surrounded by ten other gods—making a total of twelve. (Fig. 29)
     
    The archaeological finds showed conclusively that the Hittites worshiped gods that were "of Heaven and Earth," all interrelated and arranged into a genealogical hierarchy. Some were great and "olden" gods who were originally of the heavens. Their symbol—which in the Hittite pictographic writing meant "divine" or "heavenly god"—looked like a pair of eye goggles. (Fig. 30) It frequently