In the above I have only been able to reproduce the material collected by Assyriologists and the explanations given by them: but from this it clearly appears that the development of the series of months has proceeded in the same fashion here as elsewhere. At the beginning we find an indefinite number of names of months borrowed principally from natural phenomena. Among these a selection takes place, the result of which, however, is different in each city. At first it seems as though series of 13 months arose. But these series, as the examples from Lagash shew, were not fixed throughout. New names penetrate into them, even the position of the month can be altered. Finally the series becomes quite fixed, and with this seems to be connected the falling away of the thirteenth month: in the series of months now fixed at twelve the leapmonth becomes a doubling of the preceding month. While this development continues, the calendar takes on more and more an ecclesiastical stamp, since months named from festivals are constantly ousting those named from natural phenomena, and finally attain to almost exclusive predominance. This is easily to be understood in the case of ancient Sumer, since not only were the priests alone--here as elsewhere--in possession of the art of writing and the other higher branches of knowledge of the people, but the temples also had the largest landed property, with an extensive administration. Occupations and religious ceremonies, festival seasons and time-reckoning for practical purposes were more closely connected at that time than at any other. The Semitic calendars all present the same characteristics as the ancient Sumerian, a resemblance which is only slightly disguised by the fact that the signs of the now fixed Sumerian series of months are used as ideograms of the months. Everyone read the ideograms in accordance with his custom, so that a variety in the names of months still existed, as the phonetic writings testify. But the fixed writing naturally contributed to bring about fixed readings, i. e. a fixed series of months. 2. THE ISRAELITES.