It has been pointed out above that the Sumerian months completely correspond in character to those of the primitive peoples[917]. The establishing of the months in their definite places followed originally from the reference to the seasons, not from the position in the series of months. The seasons on their part were, as always, brought into relation to the phases of the stars. There is indeed little information as to this point, but what little there is is sufficient to establish it. It is however much to be desired that specialists should pay more attention to the matter and if possible procure more information. The Pleiades are brought into connexion with the annual inundations, which took place about the time of the invisibility of these stars, i. e. between their evening setting and morning rising[918]. The name of the constellation Virgo means ‘root of the sprouting wheat-stalk, or corn’, that of the star Spica ‘proclaimer of the sprouting wheat-stalk’. These names agree with the evening rising of this constellation, which at the date 2,000 B. C. took place about the 28th of February of our modern calendar, and with the morning setting, which took place some 16 days later. Circumstances exclude the ripening, which took place in the second half of April.[919] Consequently the months were also determined by the phases of the stars: among the names of months there is one which points to this fact, ‘the month in which the white star (_bar-zag_) sinks down from the culmination-point’[920]. The naming of the months from the stars has not been carried through consistently, but each month, just as e. g. among the Maoris, was fixed by one or more risings of stars. There are several lists in which now one, now two, or even three of the fixed stars are assigned to each of the twelve months[921]. In the Creation epic, Tablet V, 4 ff., we read:--“For twelve months he set down three constellations, according to the times of the year fashioned he the groups of stars.” Among the Maoris all the stars suitable to the time in question are used in the fixing of the month: in Babylonia there was probably a gradual limitation to the stars of the ecliptic, i. e. the 12 signs of the zodiac, the number of which points to the fact that they owe their origin to the endeavour to fix the twelve months astronomically[922]. This is an important advance of Babylonian stellar science, that the constellations of the ecliptic should be separated from the others. Weidner, p. 21, inverts matters when he says, with reference to a list in which, instead of the fainter constellations of the zodiac, neighbouring bright stars are given (e. g. Sirius instead of Cancer):--“The system of the _paranatellonta_ is also found already, i. e. the system which allows neighbouring bright stars or constellations to step in instead of less bright constellations of the zodiac. But this is no longer primitive astronomy, it marks rather, as Weissbach has already pointed out with reference to