of which was
assigned a god, a mountain house, a color, an animal, a celestial body, a
day and a symbol.

An extremely suggestive juxtaposition of the numeral seven and a circle
containing a group of five circles, resembling a flower with four petals,
occurs on the Bavian tablet already cited, on which are also carved two
emblems: the moon and winged disk; one compact detached group consisting
of four altars (three surrounded by horns and one surmounted by a ram's
head) and a second detached group consisting of a base into which four
staffs or sceptres are inserted. These recur on the fine Sendschirli stela
of Esarhaddon about which a few words remain to be said. It exhibits the
numeral seven=the "seven in one" sign before the king, accompanied by four
divinities mounted on animals, the first two being the god riding a double
monster, and the seated goddess, both wearing the cone on the high royal
cap. Carved close to the king's hand is the group of four staffs or
sceptres, inserted in a horizontal base, which appear to be the emblems of
his lordship over the four regions. Three of these are the same as on the
Bavian relief: the first surmounted by a cone-shaped object(103) beneath
which are two hanging ends of ribbons; the second consisting of a plain
single staff, split so as to form two; the third surmounted by two animal
heads, each with a single horn. The fourth sceptre on Esarhaddon's stela
is like that represented as inserted into one of the altars on the Bavian
stela, and terminates in a recurved ram's head. The fourth in the Bavian
group of sceptres somewhat resembles the trident tripartite emblem which
occurs on the Sargon stela and the Esarhaddon stela of Nahr-el-Kelb
(_figured_ by Dr. Luschan, _op. cit._ p. 20).

A fresh examination of the bas-relief of Maltaya, described by Layard and
already alluded to, reveals a suggestive differentiation in the
representations of the seven divinities in a row, at each end of which,
facing the procession, stands a king. Considering that in Assyria there
were governors, the _limmi_, who held offices of limited duration and gave
their names to their years of office, the query naturally suggests itself
whether the two "kings" may not also have ruled for fixed periods of seven
years, each one of which bore the name of one of the seven divisions.

It being an accepted fact that the institution of the Sabbath was of
Chaldean and Babylonian origin, it is permissible to assign t