[Footnote 1: This is the original of the Syriac word for the Signs of the Zodiac _malwashe_ (plural of _malwasha_). The Syrians added to it an _m_, thus giving it a participial form.] [Footnote 2: [Greek: Dekanoi] also called [Greek: prosopa], [Greek: horoskopoi], [Greek: philokes] and [Greek: episkopoi]. They were well known to the Egyptians, who, as early as the fourteenth century B.C., possessed a full list of them. See Lepsius, _Chronologie_, Berlin, 1848, and Brugsch, _Thesaurus (Astronomische und Astrologische Inschriften)_, Leipzig, 1883.] [Illustration: Tablet inscribed with a list of the Signs of the Zodiac. [No. 77,821.]] At a later period, say about 500 B.C., the Babylonians made some of the gods regents of groups of stars, for Enlil ruled 33 stars, Anu 23 stars, and Ea 15 stars. They also possessed lists of the fixed stars, and drew up tables of the times of their heliacal risings. Such lists were probably based upon very ancient documents, and prove that the astral element in Babylonian religion was very considerable. The accompanying illustration, which is reproduced from the Boundary Stone of Ritti-Marduk (Brit. Mus., No. 90,858), supplies much information about the symbols of the gods, and of the Signs of the Zodiac in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I, King of Babylon, about 1120 B.C.. Thus in Register 1, we have the Star of Ishtar, the crescent of the Moon-god Sin, and the disk of Shamash the Sun-god. In Reg. 2 are three stands (?) surmounted by tiaras, which represent the gods Anu, Enlil (Bel) and Ea respectively. In Reg. 3 are three altars (?) or shrines (?) with a monster in Nos. 1 and 2. Over the first is the lance of Marduk, over the second the mason's square of Nabu, and over the third is the symbol of the goddess Ninkharsag, the Creatress. In Reg. 4 are a standard with an animal's head, a sign of Ea; a two-headed snake = the Twins; an unknown symbol with a horse's head, and a bird, representative of Shukamuna and Shumalia. In Reg. 5 are a seated figure of the goddess Gula and the Scorpion-man; and in Reg. 6 are forked lightning, symbol of Adad, above a bull, the Tortoise, symbol of Ea (?), the Scorpion of the goddess Ishkhara, and the Lamp of Nusku, the Fire-god. Down the left-hand side is the serpent-god representing the constellation of the Hydra.