Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization

by Graham Hancock

The story that Gilgamesh brought back had been told to him by a certain Utnapishtim, a king who had ruled thousands of years earlier, who had survived the great flood, and who had been rewarded with the gift of immortality because he had preserved the seeds of humanity and of all living things. It was long, long ago, said Utnapishtim, when the gods dwelt on earth: Anu, lord of the firmament, Enlil, the enforcer of divine decisions, Ishtar, goddess of war and sexual love and Ea, lord of the waters, man’s natural friend and protector. In those days the world teemed, the people multiplied, the world bellowed like a wild bull, and the great god was aroused by the clamour. Enlil heard the clamour and he said to the gods in council, ‘The uproar of mankind is intolerable and sleep is no longer possible by reason of the babel.’ So the gods agreed to exterminate mankind.’2 Ea, however, took pity on Utnapishtim. Speaking through the reed wall of the king’s house he told him of the imminent catastrophe and instructed him to build a boat in which he and his family could survive: Tear down your house and build a boat, abandon possessions and look for life, despise wordly goods and save your soul … Tear down your house, I say, and build a boat with her dimensions in proportion – her width and length in harmony. Put aboard the seed of all living things, into the boat.3 In the nick of time Utnapishtim built the boat as ordered. ‘I loaded into her all that I had,’ he said, ‘loaded her with...