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The central thesis of the book is that the ancient creation myths of Gods, giants and heroes were not myths at all, but actual history recorded on clay tablets for posterity.
Pulling together the best parts of his earlier books, Zecharia Sitchin presents an overview of the cosmology of our planet in which he makes the case for alien intervention causing the unexplained leap from homo erectus to homo sapiens and the rapid flowering of early civilizations.
While the various records use different names for the same gods and reflect different national perspectives, they reinforce each other's main story lines.
The detective work used to piece together a coherent chronology is breathtaking.
Weaving together ancient texts, including the bible, the Enûma Elish and the Gilgamesh epic with archaeological finds and artifacts from Mesopotamia to Egypt, the 90-year-old author of The 12th Planet presents the gods (conflated in the bible to one God) in a very "human" light.
Indeed, it is somewhat depressing to realize that these advanced beings, who became the lawgivers and models for our societies, had the same appetites, ambitions, jealousies and taste for sex, war and conflict that we see in ourselves.
Since, according to Sitchin, aliens used genetic engineering to introduce their DNA into that of the native hominids, I guess one could say that we come by it honestly.
The translation of ancient languages is often based on best guesses and there are disagreements and rivalries amongst the archaeologists - they are human after all.
While many of them ignore evidence that doesn't fit into the conventional worldview, Sitchin is fearless in reveling in inconvenient truths such as pictures of rocket ships and anachronistic artifacts like exquisite inlaid gold ornaments and musical instruments dated to the Bronze Age - before such technologies should have existed.
Given Sitchin's lifelong dedication to Mesopotamian archaeology, his interpretations are as plausible as any of them, and a lot more fun to read than most.
So that brings us to the uneaten dessert.
In 1922 Leonard Wooley, a British archaeologist dug up a royal cemetery in what was identified as the ancient city of Ur of the Chaldees.
One of the undisturbed tombs contained the skeleton of a woman on a bier covered in a jeweled cape and surrounded by a fortune in gold ornaments, ceremonial objects and the remains of almost a hundred attendants.
The skull was exceptionally large and elongated, and Sitchin traced the inscriptions on the seals in the tomb to an Anunnaki goddess, whose genealogy goes back to the first gods to land on Earth from the seed planet, Nibiru.
The find could finally prove Sitchen's claim of our alien ancestry, and for the past eight years he has been petitioning the curators of the British Museum repeatedly to conduct DNA tests on the bone, but they have refused.
A comparison with Neanderthal and modern human DNA would answer these questions once and for all.
Let's hope enough pressure is brought to bear by the community to get the tests done.
That would be a fitting dessert for us and for Zacharia Sitchin.
In the meantime, enjoy the feast!
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