prior to the rise of that city god of Babylon
as chief of the pantheon by displacing Enlil. At the same time it must
be recognized that long before the Hammurabi age the star-gazers of
the Tigro-Euphrates valley must have been acquainted with the
movements of the chief planets and stars, and, no doubt, they
connected them with seasonal changes as in Egypt, where Isis was
identified with Sirius long before the Ptolemaic age, when Babylonian
astronomy was imported. Horus was identified not only with the sun but
also with Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars.[314] Even the primitive
Australians, as has been indicated, have their star myths; they refer
to the stars Castor and Pollux as two young men, like the ancient
Greeks, while the African Bushmen assert that these stars are two
girls. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the prehistoric
Sumerians were exact astronomers. Probably they were, like the
Aryo-Indians of the Vedic period, "not very accurate observers".[315]

It is of special interest to find that the stars were grouped by the
Babylonians at the earliest period in companies of seven. The
importance of this magical number is emphasized by the group of seven
demons which rose from the deep to rage over the land (p. 71). Perhaps
the sanctity of Seven was suggested by Orion, the Bears, and the
Pleiad, one of which constellations may have been the "Sevenfold"
deity addressed as "one". At any rate arbitrary groupings of other
stars into companies of seven took place, for references are made to
the seven Tikshi, the seven Lumashi, and the seven Mashi, which are
older than the signs of the Zodiac; so far as can be ascertained these
groups were selected from various constellations. When the five
planets were identified, they were associated with the sun and moon
and connected with the chief gods of the Hammurabi pantheon. A
bilingual list in the British Museum arranges the sevenfold planetary
group in the following order:--

The moon, Sin.
The sun, Shamash.
Jupiter, Merodach.
Venus, Ishtar.
Saturn, Ninip (Nirig).
Mercury, Nebo.
Mars, Nergal.

An ancient name of the moon was Aa, A, or Ai, which recalls the
Egyptian Aah or Ah. The Sumerian moon was Aku, "the measurer", like
Thoth of Egypt, who in his lunar character as a Fate measured out the
lives of men, and was a god of architects, mathematicians, and
scribes. The moon was the parent of the sun or its spouse; and might
be male, or fem