Note 676 — Chapter VI · LUNAR CALENDARS AND THE WEEK

This arrangement—διὰ τεσσάρων—may be illustrated by means of the heptagram. Let the circumference of a circle be divided into seven equal arcs and the signs of the planets—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon—be placed at the points of division. If these points are connected by a series of continuous chords, then, beginning with Saturn, the lines of the chords will lead successively to the signs of the planets in the astrological order. The figure of a seven-branched star, inscribed in a circle, is an ancient device; indeed, the heptagram appears on a clay tablet recently unearthed at Nippur in Babylonia (H. V. Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible Lands, Philadelphia, 1903, p. 530), but in this case quite without any indication of its use.