Enlil and Ninurta thus defeated the Astronauts, asserted their authority within the Enlil lineage and could now, with unmatched firepower from the multi-headed missiles, intimidate the Nibirans working the goldmines Enki was supposed to be supervising in Africa. Enlil and Ninurta thus defeated the Astronauts, asserted their authority within the Enlil lineage and could now, with unmatched firepower from the multi-headed missiles, intimidate the Nibirans working the goldmines Enki was supposed to be supervising in Africa.

The Nibirans had been on Earth 40 revolutions of Nibiru (Shars) around Solaris--144,000 Earth years--when the Astronauts working the southeast African goldmines challenged Enlil [Sitchin, Z., 1995, Divine Encounters, page 43].
 

* Sitchin shows that Ea, allied through his marriage to Alalu's daughter Damkina and their son Marduk to the Alalu's lineage (matrifiliated), was part of the plot.  "It was with Ea's connivance" that Anzu, kinsman of Alalu, is admitted to Enlil's inner sanctuary for energy source crystals, vital computer chips, orbital data panels, and control buttons for Earth and Earth-Nibiru, Mars communication.  Ea suggested Enlil entertain Anzu as a stall to responding to the demands of the Igigi.

Sitchin, in The 12th Planet had earlier said the role of Anzu in The Lost Book of Enki's account of the revolt of the Igigi [pages 117 - 121] was actually the role of Nannar (Enlil's son by his half-sister and legal wife, Sud) was Legal Heir on Earth.  Nannar's was a challenge to Ninurta (Enlil's Firstborn and heir on Nibiru) to succeed to Enlil's command of Earth.  In The Wars of Gods and Men, too, Anzu, the leader of the revolt is a descendent of Alulu (his grandson); in this version Anzu's an orphan adopted by the Mars Service, rather than Anzu the pilot who took Ea to Earth and stayed on Mars to die with Alalu [page 97].   

Both Nannar and Ea would have benefited if Anzu vanquished Ninurta.  But it was Nannar, not Ea, that Enlil exiled in the aftermath of the Igigi revolt. [The 12th Planet, pages 107 -116].  

Anthropologists will recognize Enki's description as a classical system of segmentary patrilineal (agnatic) lineages.  In segmentary patrilineages, collateral lines (like those that descend from Ea and Enlil) cite alliance through different mothers to other royal patrilineages.  The Ea lineage within the Anu clan, and especially the Marduk line of the Ea's lineage, is allied with the Alalu clan for leverage against the Enlilites within the Anu clan).  Marduk's line is a matrifiliate of Alalu's clan.  Matrifiliated alliances give lineages external allies as they vie for precedence in authority within their patriclans.