148 Gr. Thibaut— Babylonian Origin of the Lunar Zodiac. [No. 4, 
his meaning—to identify those thirty-six Counsellor Stars with the 
normal stars selected by the astronomers. This is a not unlikely conjec¬ 
ture, and we, therefore, may expect to meet, by and bye, in Babylonian 
texts, with three further stars employed as normal stars. 
We now come to the special topic of the present paper, viz., a criti¬ 
cal examination of the views set forth not long ago by the distinguished 
Assyriologist, Professor F. Hommel, of Munich, on the connexion of 
the series of normal stars employed by the Chaldean Astronomers, 
with the lunar zodiacs acknowledged by the Arabs, Hindus, and 
Chinese. 1 
Professor Hommel is of opinion that the results of the researches 
carried on by Epping and Strassmaier suffice to raise beyond doubt, the 
truth of the conjecture first hazarded by Professor Weber, as to Baby¬ 
lon having been the place where a series of lunar stations was first 
established, and from which that series, more or less modified, was bor¬ 
rowed by the other nations. But as the Babylonian series on the one 
hand, and the series acknowledged by the Arabs, Hindus and Chinese, 
on the other hand, are by no means altogether identical — as indeed 
sufficiently appears from what has been said, so far, about the Babylo¬ 
nian normal stars, — there arises the necessity of accounting for the 
various discrepancies, and showing that they have to, or may, be 
viewed as later variations. We will follow Professor Hommel through 
the different steps of the argumentation by which he attempts to 
effect this. 
The point in which the series of Babylonian normal stars most 
obviously differs from the well-known lunar zodiacs is, of course, that 
the latter comprise twenty-seven or twenty-eight stars, or groups of 
stars, while the Babylonian series numbers thirty or'more stars. This 
discrepancy — Professor Hommel attempts to remove by undertaking to 
show — that the Babylonian series, as well as the lunar zodiac of the 
Arabs and other nations, originally comprised, all of them, twenty-four 
members only. First, as to the Babylonian series. Professor Hommel 
has compiled from Epping’s book, a series of thirty-one stai’s, 2 (of which 
one, however, viz., No. 26, is not actually met with in the Tablets, but 
due to an hypothesis of Professor Hommel’s) ; while, as remarked 
above, the list published by Epping and Strassmaier in the Z. F. Ass. 
1 ‘ Ueber den Ursprung und das Alter der Arabischen Sternnamen und insbeson- 
dere der Mondstationen ’ von Fritz Hommel; Zeitschrift der Dentsclien Morgenlan- 
dishoen Gesellscliaft, Yol. 45, pp. 592-619. 
2 Pp. 610-12; of Professor Hommel’s paper.—The list numbers thirty stars 
only, but this is due to the mistake of one star (PulukJcu = a Cancri) having re¬ 
ceived no running number. 
