lts of Heaven
and Earth in Babylonia and Assyria. Going back to the dawn of astronomy in
Babylonia let us note some facts which show that, as elsewhere, in
remotest antiquity the periodical disappearance and reappearance of the
Pleiades produced a deep impression upon the primitive star-gazers. These
phenomena marked natural divisions of the year and the constellation
appeared to belong alternately to the visible or upper world and to the
invisible or lower region. A recognition that the Pleaid was _the_
constellation at that remote period when Taurus led the year, may be
established by the common Euphratean name by which it is said to have been
designated: Kakkab-mul=_the_ constellation or star. The Akkadian and
Assyrian names which had probably also originally designated Polaris
signified that it and the Hyades were the foundation stars or
constellations. In the Ptolemy star charts, the Pleiades are designated by
the name Ki mah (see Robert Brown, _op. cit._ p. 57). While it appears
that whereas the Pleiades long exerted its influence and, with Polaris and
the circumpolar constellations, regulated and marked the primitive year,
its cult was gradually superseded by that of morning and evening stars and
of the sun and moon which became the emblems of the rapidly developing
divergent cults of the diurnal and nocturnal heavens, of light and
darkness, of the Above and Below.(97)

In connection with the cult of the Pleiades I draw attention to R. G.
Haliburton's interesting investigations on this particular subject, and to
his publication in the Proceedings of the A. A. A. S. 1895, on "Dwarf
survivals and traditions as to pigmy races," which contains the following
statements: "We find that the Atlas dwarfs and the Nanos predict the
future by watching the reflection of the 'Seven Stars' in a bowl. The
famous cup of Nestor, supposed to have been a divining cup, had two groups
of Pleiades on its handle...." On examining the archaic designs engraved
in the centre of the fine collection of Phoenician and Assyrian bronze
bowls, which were found in the S. E. Palace, Nimroud, and are exhibited at
the British Museum, I recently ascertained that they appear to be mostly
variations on the theme of the centre and four or seven-fold division,
some exhibiting a marked quadruplicate division, others a seven-pointed
star surrounded by seven smaller stars. In one case a face is repeated
four times, in opposite positions, on the central desig