When Time Began is the fifth volume of Zecharia Sitchin's Earth Chronicles series, published in 1993. It turns from the geographical scope of the fourth volume to a question of chronology: how did ancient civilisations measure and understand time, and what does their astronomical knowledge imply about its origins? Sitchin argues that the calendar systems of Sumer, Egypt, and the cultures that built Stonehenge reflect a shared astronomical framework introduced by the Anunnaki. The book opens with the concept of precession — the slow shift of the spring equinox through the zodiacal houses across millennia — and reads ancient monument alignments as physical records of celestial time.
The book's most sustained argument concerns Stonehenge, which Sitchin interprets as a functional analogue of Sumerian and Egyptian sacred precincts — all, in his reading, designed by the same Anunnaki architects to track specific astronomical cycles. He also examines the Nippur calendar, the Sumerian sacred calendar, arguing it was calculated for an epoch of Anunnaki activity on Earth rather than a human one. Archaeologists, prehistorians, and historians of ancient astronomy reject these interpretations, noting that the astronomical sophistication of Stonehenge's builders is now well documented through independent archaeological and genetic evidence, and that the Nippur calendar is consistent with Sumerian astronomical conventions. The book is considered the most technically ambitious volume of the Earth Chronicles series.
Contents
Chapter 1 — The Cycles of Time
Chapter 2 — A Computer Made of Stone
Chapter 3 — The Temples That Faced Heaven
Chapter 4 — DUR.AN.KI: The "Bond Heaven-Earth"
Chapter 5 — Keepers of the Secrets
Chapter 6 — The Divine Architects
Chapter 7 — A Stonehenge on the Euphrates
Chapter 8 — Calendar Tales
Chapter 9 — Where the Sun Also Rises
Chapter 10 — In Their Footsteps
Chapter 11 — Exiles on a Shifting Earth
Chapter 12 — The Age of the Ram
Chapter 13 — Aftermath
Reception
The fifth volume of the Earth Chronicles and the series' most focused astronomical argument. Sitchin's reinterpretation of Stonehenge as a Sumerian-style Anunnaki observatory was dismissed by archaeologists and prehistorians, who noted that the monument's builders are well documented and its alignments have conventional astronomical explanations. His reading of the Nippur calendar as calibrated for a pre-human Anunnaki epoch was similarly rejected by scholars of ancient astronomy. Within the ancient-astronaut genre the book is regarded as the most technically ambitious of the series, advancing chronological and calendrical claims not made in the earlier volumes.
Frequently asked
What is When Time Began about?
It is the fifth volume of Zecharia Sitchin's Earth Chronicles series. Sitchin argues that the calendar systems of ancient Sumer, Egypt, and the cultures that built Stonehenge reflect a shared astronomical framework introduced by the Anunnaki. The book focuses on precession — the slow shift of the spring equinox through the zodiacal houses — and reads ancient monument alignments as records of celestial time set by extraterrestrial beings.
How does Sitchin interpret Stonehenge?
Sitchin argues that Stonehenge was built by the same Anunnaki divine architects responsible for sacred astronomical precincts in Sumer and Egypt, making it functionally equivalent to those sites rather than a local British monument. He supports this by comparing its alignments to Sumerian temple orientations. Archaeologists and prehistorians reject this; the monument's builders are now well documented through archaeological and genetic research.
What is Sitchin's argument about the Nippur calendar?
Sitchin claims the Nippur calendar — the sacred Sumerian calendar — was not calibrated for any human epoch but for a period of Anunnaki activity on Earth approximately 450,000 years ago, corresponding to the Anunnaki's claimed arrival. Historians of ancient astronomy and Sumerologists do not accept this interpretation, finding the Nippur calendar consistent with ordinary Sumerian astronomical conventions.