Newcomb-Engelmann, the beginnings of a scientific astronomy.” On the contrary, as the examples from the primitive peoples shew, in the utilising of stars to fix a point of time or a month no notice is originally taken of the position of the star within or without the ecliptic, but the most easily recognisable stars and constellations are naturally preferred, wherever they may be situated. A list of fixed stars which determine months, including also stars situated outside the ecliptic, is primitive; it is out of the question that a constellation outside the ecliptic is referred to instead of a sign of the zodiac in the proper sense--that in which the constellations of the zodiac are to be regarded as the _prius_. After the signs of the zodiac have been fixed, so that a systematic duodecimal division of the year has been obtained, the stars situated outside the ecliptic are compared with the signs of the zodiac in order to indicate with accuracy to which month they belong, or in other words the system of the _paranatellonta_ is found. It is indispensable to enter into the all-important question of the intercalation, but here opinions are so directly opposed to one another that Weidner establishes a very accurate 38-year intercalary cycle as early as the time of the dynasty of Ur, while Kugler denies the existence of any intercalary cycle before the year 528 B. C.; Kugler again publishes a document in which an intercalary rule is recognised as dating from a time after 504 B. C.[923], while Weidner regards this as a copy of a much older original. An impartial opinion can only be arrived at by working through the material, and this is impossible for anyone who is not an Assyriologist: I am all the more compelled, therefore, to limit myself to suggestions and to the comparison with primitive conditions[924].