of
the chief deity, the cult of the minor ones who constituted the
family or court of the chief god." A "list of temples in Lagash,
recently published by Scheil, ... furnishes the name of no less than
thirteen sacred edifices, and we are certain that as many as four or
five smaller chapels surrounded the precinct in which stood the
great temple E-ninnu ..." (Jastrow, _op. cit._).

93 These facts shed additional light and interest upon the Mt. Meru of
India, where the Brahmans sought union with their god Brahma.

94 "Diodorus Siculus maintains that the E-kur was employed as an
astronomical observatory. The antiquity of Babylonian astronomy is
indicated by the testimony of Simplicius and Porphyrius who relate
that Callisthenes, the companion of Alexander the Great during his
campaigns, brought back from Babylon and communicated to Aristoteles
a series of observations which had been made there for a period of
1,903 years. Accordingly, the Chaldaeans must have begun to make
astronomical notes more than 2,200 years before the Christian era.
It stands indeed to reason that they must have made observations
during countless centuries, since they discovered the Saros, known
as the Chaldaean period of 6583-1/3 days, which served for the
prediction of eclipses and were also acquainted with the precession
of the equinoxes."

95 Professor Jastrow tells us that the name Shamash merely signifies
vassal or servitor. I venture to point out what is doubtlessly a
fact familiar to Assyriologists, that the name closely resembles the
Babylonian-Assyrian name Shame=heaven, the equivalent of the
Sumerian an, a word of which the most ancient cuneiform signs were
four crossed lines, forming eight lines proceeding from a common
centre.

96 A striking corroboration of the view that China derived its
civilization from Asia Minor is afforded by the resemblance between
the Assyrian Anu and the Chinese Shang, both signifying Heaven, and
the Assyrian Ea and Chinese Lea, both applied to "the Below."

97 An analytical study of the Babylonian and Assyrian divinities
enumerated in Professor Jastrow's hand-book enables us to detect
some of the natural associations of ideas that influenced the
formation of one artificial theological system after another, al