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Chapter 24
Echoes of Our Dreams
Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS
In some of the most powerful and enduring myths that we have inherited
from ancient times, our species seems to have retained a confused but
resonant memory of a terrifying global catastrophe.
Where do these myths come from?
Why, though they derive from unrelated cultures, are their storylines so
similar? why are they laden with common symbolism? and why do they so
often share the same stock characters and plots? If they are indeed
memories, why are there no historical records of the planetary disaster
they seem to refer to?
Could it be that the myths themselves are historical records? Could it be
that these cunning and immortal stories, composed by anonymous
geniuses, were the medium used to record such information and pass it
on in the time before history began?
And the ark went upon the face of the waters
There was a king, in ancient Sumer, who sought eternal life. His name
was Gilgamesh. We know of his exploits because the myths and traditions
of Mesopotamia, inscribed in cuneiform script upon tablets of baked clay,
have survived. Many thousands of these tablets, some dating back to the
beginning of the third millennium BC, have been excavated from the
sands of modern Iraq. They transmit a unique picture of a vanished
culture and remind us that even in those days of lofty antiquity human
beings preserved memories of times still more remote—times from which
they were separated by the interval of a great and terrible deluge:
I will proclaim to the world the deeds of Gilgamesh. This was the man to whom all
things were known; this was the king who knew the countries of the world. He was
wise, he saw mysteries and knew secret things, he brought us a tale of the days
before the flood. He went on a long journey, was weary, worn-out with labour,
returning he rested, he engraved on a stone the whole story. 1
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,
1 The Epic of Gilgamesh, Penguin Classics, London, 1988, p. 61.
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