Professor Jastrow draws attention to the fact that the division of the
earth into seven zones is a "conception that we encounter in India and
Persia, and that survives in the seven 'climates' into which the world was
divided by Greek and Arabic geographers. It seems clear that this
interpretation of the number seven is older than the one that identified
each story with one of the planets. Both interpretations have a scholastic
aspect, however, and the very fact that there are two interpretations
justifies the suspicion that neither furnishes the _real_ explanation why
the number seven was chosen ... it is because seven was popularly sacred
that the world was divided into seven zones and that the planets were
fixed at seven, not _vice versa_" (p. 620).

The preceding statements lead to the conclusion that, among Assyriologists
there is no current, generally-accepted view as to the origin of the
"sacred seven" of the Babylonians. The following details concerning the
zikkurat and the sanctuaries of Babylon will be found to furnish evidence
that their builders were imbued with the identical primitive set of ideas
or seven-fold division of the cosmos that is now so familiar to the reader
and is traceable to the observation of Polaris and Septentriones.

The astronomical association and cosmological symbolism of the zikkurat
become more and more evident when all evidence concerning it is carefully
sifted. According to the cosmogony of the Babylonians the earth was
pictured as a huge mountain. Khar-sag-gal-kurkura=the mountain of all
lands, is a designation for the earth. E-kur=mountain house, another name
for the earth, became one of the names for temple and, by extension, for
the sacred precinct which enclosed the zikkurat and sacred edifices.(92)

A plural formed of the word E-kur,=Ekurrati, was used for divinities, and
this association of the word mountain with the name for a god is
particularly interesting when it is also remembered that the cuneiform
character for god is a star and that therefore either a mountain, or a
star, signified a god in Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions. Bel, the
supreme star god of the Babylonians, whose name literally signifies merely
"lord or king," and under the form Ah-baal became current throughout Asia
Minor, was, as Professor Jastrow states (_op. cit._ p. 435), actually
identified with the polar star, and sometimes addressed as the "great
mountain."(93)

The famous temple, the E-