ngth a cubit. Nor has the span been forgotten, especially by boys in
their games with marbles; the space from the end of the thumb to the
end of the little finger when the hand is extended must have been an
important measurement from the earliest times.

As he made progress in calculations, the primitive Babylonian appears
to have been struck by other details in his anatomy besides his sets
of five fingers and five toes. He observed, for instance, that his
fingers were divided into three parts and his thumb into two parts
only;[329] four fingers multiplied by three gave him twelve, and
multiplying 12 by 3 he reached 36. Apparently the figure 6 attracted
him. His body was divided into 6 parts--2 arms, 2 legs, the head, and
the trunk; his 2 ears, 2 eyes, and mouth, and nose also gave him 6.
The basal 6, multiplied by his 10 fingers, gave him 60, and 60 x 2
(for his 2 hands) gave him 120. In Babylonian arithmetic 6 and 60 are
important numbers, and it is not surprising to find that in the system
of numerals the signs for 1 and 10 combined represent 60.

In fixing the length of a mythical period his first great calculation
of 120 came naturally to the Babylonian, and when he undertook to
measure the Zodiac he equated time and space by fixing on 120 degrees.
His first zodiac was the Sumerian lunar zodiac, which contained thirty
moon chambers associated with the "Thirty Stars" of the tablets, and
referred to by Diodorus as "Divinities of the Council". The chiefs of
the Thirty numbered twelve. In this system the year began in the
winter solstice. Mr. Hewitt has shown that the chief annual festival
of the Indian Dravidians begins with the first full moon after the
winter festival, and Mr. Brown emphasizes the fact that the list of
Tamil (Dravidian) lunar and solar months are named like the Babylonian
constellations.[330] "Lunar chronology", wrote Professor Max Mailer,
"seems everywhere to have preceded solar chronology."[331] The later
Semitic Babylonian system had twelve solar chambers and the thirty-six
constellations.

Each degree was divided into sixty minutes, and each minute into sixty
seconds. The hours of the day and night each numbered twelve.

Multiplying 6 by 10 (pur), the Babylonian arrived at 60 (soss); 60x10
gave him 600 (ner), and 600x6, 3600 (sar), while 3600x10 gave him
36,000, and 36,000x12, 432,000 years, or 120 saroi, which is equal to
the "sar" multiplied by the "soss"x2. "Pur" signifies "heap"--the ten