Life
Birth and Early Life
Born in 1922, in Baku, Azerbaijan1, Sitchin was raised in Palestine, and acquired some knowledge of modern and ancient Hebrew, as well as other Semitic and European languages, the Old Testament, and the history and archeology of the Near East.
Education
Sitchin graduated from the London School of Economics, University of London, majoring in economic history.
Publications
* The 12th Planet (Earth Chronicles, No. 1), New York: Harper, 1976, ISBN 038039362X
* The Stairway to Heaven (Earth Chronicles, No. 2), 1980, Avon Books (Bear & Company, 1992, ISBN 0939680890; Harper, 2007, ISBN 0061379204)
* The Wars of Gods and Men (Earth Chronicles, No. 3), 1985, Avon Books (Bear & Company, 1992, ISBN 0939680904)
* The Lost Realms (Earth Chronicles, No. 4), AVON BOOKS, 1990, ISBN 0-380-75890-3
* Genesis Revisited: Is Modern Science Catching Up With Ancient Knowledge?, (AVON BOOKS, 1990, ISBN 0-380-76159-9)
* When Time Began (Earth Chronicles, No. 5), 1993), (HARPER, 2007, ISBN 006137928X, ISBN 978-0061379284)
* Divine Encounters: A Guide to Visions, Angels and Other Emissaries, AVON BOOKS, 1995, ISBN 0-380-78076-3)
* The Cosmic Code (Earth Chronicles, No. 6), AVON BOOKS, 1998, ISBN 0-380-80157-4)
* The Lost Book of Enki: Memoirs and Prophecies of an Extraterrestrial god, Bear & Company, 2002, ISBN 1591430372
* The Earth Chronicles Expeditions, Bear & Company, 2004, ISBN 978-1591430766
* The End of Days: Armageddon and Prophecies of the Return (Earth Chronicles, No 7), William Morrow, 2007, ISBN 978-0-06-123823-9
* Journeys to the Mythical Past (Earth Chronicles Expedition) Bear and Company, 2007 ISBN 978-1591430803
Ideas
Zecharia Sitchin is an author of books promoting an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts, amidst other aspects of pseudoscience. Sitchin, like Velikovsky2, presents himself as erudite and scholarly in a number of books, including The Twelfth Planet (1976) and The Cosmic Code (1998). Both Sitchin and Velikovsky write very knowledgeably of ancient myths and both are nearly scientifically illiterate.
Sitchin attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the "Anunnaki" (or "Nephilim"), a race of aliens from a planet he calls Nibiru, which he believes to be in an elongated, elliptical orbit in the Earth's own Solar System and asserts that Sumerian mythology reflects this view.
His speculations are entirely discounted by professional scientists, historians, and archaeologists, who note many problems with his translations of ancient texts and with his understanding of physics.
