The circumstance that each month had its patron deity, has a partial connexion also with the Division of the Zodiac, which originated in Babylonia before m . ."000. At th.at early date the principal constellations, and especially tho.se that are traversed by the sun, moon, and planets, were already known by nearly the same names as they bear to-day. They formed twelve 'stations' (manzaztu, hence mazzartu and mazznltu, from which are borrowed llcb. ^i^^P, ^''^\~ [Job 38*-, 2 K 2.3''] and .Arab, manznl). From n.c. 2(HI0 onwards it can be demonstrated tb.at the order of t)ie months was Nisan, lyyar, etc. This reckoning starts with the Ham (Aries) as the vernal point, but there was an older order which began with the Hull (Taurus, the .symbol of the god Merodach). The latter system, which finds the vernal point in the Pleiades, carries us back at least to somewhere .about 11.1 4000. The Zodiac was also divided into a region of .\nu ( T.aunts, (iemini, Cancer, Leo), a regicm of Bel (Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius), and a region of the earth-and-water god Ea (Cai>ri- cornu.s, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries). These last four
218
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BABYLONIA
constellations, lying between Sagittarius and tlie I'leiades (''J't, cf. Hab. khntu, ' family '), and form- ing the path of Ea, are what are called in Job 9' ' tlie cliauibers of the south ' (i^" "'^1'?). Along this path of Ea (Sumer. sil si(/(/a, written with the signs tar and pa), lay, according to Bab. notions, the entrance to the under-world ; hence the constella- tion Sagittarius was calleil ka-sil ' opening of the path,' and the corresponding month Kisilivtt (Ki.slev). But as the Babylonians were fond of applying one and the same designation to stars in opposite quarters of the heavens, Orion was also named ka-sil (Heb. '''Df) and the month Sivan, wliich belonged to Gemini, was called Kusnllu. It is certainly no fortuitous circumstance that pre- cisely at the point where the path of Ea begins (between Sagittarius and Capricornus), another path, the Milky Way, intersects the ecliptic, and that the ecliptic is again crossed by the Milky Way at the point where the path ends, exactly between Gemini (month Sivan) and Orion (Bab. shn-gi or shibu, also ka-sil, Heb. ^^°^). The Great Bear was called by the Babylonians 'Wagon-star' (more precisely ka/ckab sumbi, ' star of the baggage- wagon '), by the W. Semites ' Lion-star ' (Heb. '•^"X, cf. Syr. "^"''1 Arab, 'ayiith), for the Arab, na'sh (Bab. neshu) also meant originally 'lion.' The unilerlying explanation is probably that the Lion of the Zodiac (Bab. 'dog-star'), on account of his nearness to the sign of llie Great Bear, was thought of as harnessed to the latter as his wagon. At a later period the Babylonians designated the Dog (our Leo) aril (' lion ' ) ; in Sumer. Ug means ' dog,' anil lig-magh 'lion' (literally 'big dog').
The oldest reliable evidence for tlie Bab. origin of the zodiacal signs is derived from tlie ancient Bab. boundary-stones with their pictorial repre- sentations. These date from the 12th cent. B.C., and from them we obtain the following series : — Kam, Bull, two dragons = Gemini, Hydra (south of Cancer) with a spindle, Dog, P^ar of corn with a cow (the symbol of the virgin Istar), Balance (Yoke), Scorpion, Scorpion - man with a bow (Sagittarius), Goat-fish (a goat with the body and tail of a lisli) or Tortoise, Pitcher, and Water-hen (Ibirse), to which the Uaven, as symbol of the intercalary month (originally a second Elul), is added as a thirteenth sign (hence the raven is viewed as a bird of evil omen). That the real origin of this system goes back, however, to a far remoter antiquity, is proved not only by the star- names found in the so-called astrological wcn'k (c. H.(-. 201J0), but by the circumstance that tlu'oughout the latter the Pleiades (Taurus) appear as the first of the zodiacal signs. Tlie exact astronomical proof was rendered possible by the Planet-tables of the Arsacid perio<l (2nd cent. n.C), and the laborious task was undertaken by the Jesuit fathers Epping and Strassmaier. It turned out,* moreover, that the Babylonians were aciinainted not only with the twelve signs of the Zodiac, Init ((juite in accord with tlie testimony of Diodorus, ii. 30) also with 24 (afterwards 27) stations of the moont and 3G stations of the planets (the so-called dfcani). That is to say, they divided the ecliptic as the path of the sun into 12, as that of the moon into 27, and as that of the planets into 3(5 parts, and distiiignishcil each part by certain stars. The same investigation makes it probable that the 24 ' hour-stars ' and the 30 ' rfccan /-stars' of the ancient Egyptians were borrowed in the remotest antiquity from Baby- lonia. (We shall presently describe [p. 220 f.] how the Babylonians wove the signs of the Zodiac into
* The proof of this will he fouiwi in llotntiiersort. * t^r.spriint' u. Alter il. anlb. ?terrin:iliUMi ' in ZDMG, l!il. 4.\ pp. 592-«l!>.
t The names of these passed in course of time from the Baby- lonians to the Arabs, Persians. Hindus, and Chinese.
the composition of both their great epic poems, the one concerning the Creation, the other concerning Nimrod.) Of remaining stars we have yet to men- tion Sirius, 'bow-star' (kakkab kashti) ; Procyoii {kakkab mishri, lit. ' north star ' or ' northern weapon,' in contradistinction to the 'soutliern weapon,' viz. Sirius) ; ashkar or iku (Arab, 'aipjuk) = Capella ; ' king-star ' = Kegulus in Leo ; ' jackal- star' = Antares in Scorpio; sig-bil-sagga = Myia, Ce.ti, south of Aries, the 'fire-star' (or star of Nimrod or Gisdubar) ; etc. etc. In the whole list there are only a few names which cannot now be identified.