Note 88 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

François Lenormant, Les Bétyles (extracted from the Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, p. 12):—"The cuneiform inscriptions mention the seven black stones worshipped in the principal temple of Urukh in Chaldæa, which personify the seven planets." In the same paper a vast number of facts are brought together which show how widely spread this worship was in Syria and Arabia, and with what persistence it maintained itself, at least until the preaching of Islamism. It would be easy to show that it still subsists in the popular superstitions. As to this worship among the Greeks, see also the paper by M. Heuzey, entitled, La Pierre sacrée d'Antibes (Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France, 1874, p. 99).