520 The Sabeans, a pagan Aramaic sect of Mesopotamia at Harran, are said to have assigned a metal to each planet. Since a considerable part of their religion was derived from Babylonia we may consider this direct evidence for the Babylonian origin of the entire tradition. For an account of the metals assigned to the planets by the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Sabeans, see Bousset in _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_ 1901, article on “Die Himmelreise der Seele.” The order of the planets, taken from the Byzantine list above, is based upon their relative distances from the sun. 521 Restoration from Zim. Rt. 27. 522 Conjectural restoration from ASKT. 96, 21. ZIMMERN, Rt. 27 I 3-4 has a longer description of _[Ninḫabursildu a-ḫa-lat [__d__ A-gub-ba bêlit] mê(?) ša nâri_(?). 523 This deity appears in incantations as the queen of the holy waters _bêlit egubbê_, IV R. 28*b 16; _Bab._ III 28, Sm. 491, 3. Although placed in the court of Enlil the earth god as sister of Enlil by the theologians, CT. 24, 11, 40 = 24, 52, where she is associated with a special deity of holy water, _d__A-gub-ba_, yet by function and character she belongs to the water cult of Eridu. Her symbol is the holy water jar (_duk_) _agubba_ and the deity _d__Agubba_ is _šu-luģ lăg-lăg-ga Erida-ge_, Purifying handwasher of Eridu, CT. 24, 11, 41 = 24, 53. The river goddess _d__Iă_ is also _bêlit agubbê_, CT. 16, 7, 255 where in l. 254 _Ninḫabursildu_ is _aḫat __d__A-[gub-ba]_, sister of _Agubba_, and the river goddess is mother of Enki, or Ea, god of the sea, CT. 24, 1, 25. The reading _ḫabur_ for _A-ḪA_ is most probable, and the cognate or dialectic form _ḫubur_ is a name for the mysterious sea that surrounds the world. See BL. 115 n. 2. The holy water over which she presides is taken from the _apsu_ or nether sea, which issues from springs, hence _egubbû_ is spring water, CT. 17, 5 III 1. The name, then, really means “Queen of the lower world river, she that walks (_du_) the streets (_sil_).” The Semitic scribe of CT. 25, 49, 6 renders the name in a loose way by _bêlit têlilti bêlit ālikat sulê [rapšāti]_, Queen of lustration, queen that walks the [wide] streets (of the lower world). For the title _bêlit têliltī_, see CT. 26, 42 I 14. For a parallel to the description of her walking the streets of inferno, cf. _d__ Kal-šág-ga sil-dagal-la edin-na_, Lady of purity who (walks) the wide streets of the plain (of inferno), consort of Irragal, god of the lower world, SBP. 158, 59. A variant, KL. 16 III 8 has _sil-gig-edin-na_, the dark street, etc. 524 Variant of _kân-tūr_, V Raw. 42, 39.