rian planisphere has been found in the palace of
Sennacherib.[104]

Even if classic authors had been silent on the subject, and all the
original documents had disappeared, we might have divined from the
appearance of the figured monuments alone, how greatly the Chaldaeans
honoured the stars and how much study and research they devoted to them; we
might have guessed that they lived with their eyes fixed upon the firmament
and upon the sources of light. Look at the steles that bear royal effigies,
at the representations upon contracts and other documents of that kind (see
Fig. 10), at the cylindrical or conical seals which have gravitated in
thousands into our museums (Figs. 11 and 12); you will see a personage
adoring a star, still oftener you will find the sun's disk and the crescent
moon figured upon the field, with, perhaps, one or several stars. These
images are only omitted upon reliefs that are purely narrative and
historical, like most of those in the Assyrian palaces. Everywhere else,
upon every object and in every scene having a religious and sacred
character, a place is reserved for the symbols in question, if we may call
them so. Their presence is evidence of the homage rendered by the Chaldaeans
to the stars, and of the faith they placed in their supposed revelations.
Further evidence to the same effect is given by the ancient writing, in
which the ideogram for _king_ was a star.

"The imaginations of the Egyptians were mainly impressed by the daily and
annual circlings of the sun. In that body they saw the most imposing
manifestation of the Deity and the clearest exemplification of the laws
that govern the world; to it, therefore they turned for their
personifications of the divine power."[105] The attention of the Chaldaeans,
on the other hand, was not so absorbed, and, so to speak, lost, in the
contemplation of a single star, superior though it was to all others in
its power for good or ill, and in its incomparable splendour. They watched
the sky with a curiosity too lively and too intelligent to permit of a
willing sacrifice of all the stars to one. _Samas_, the sun, and _Sin_, the
moon-god, played an important _role_ in their religion and theology, but it
does not appear that the gods of the other five planets were inferior to
them in rank. If we accept the parallels established by the Greeks and
Romans, these were _Adar_ (Saturn), _Merodach_ (Jupiter), _Nergal_ (Mars),
_Istar_ (Venus), and _Nebo_ (Mercu