account of its likeness to a serpent's fang.

[+] Notwithstanding medical opinion, their phallic origin is doubtful.
One is sculptured in the form of an Eastern castellated fortress.


Idols.

With the Babylonians, the gods were represented by means of stone
images at a very early date, and it is possible that wood was also
used. The tendency of the human mind being to attribute to the Deity a
human form, the Babylonians were no exception to the rule. Human
thoughts and feelings would naturally accompany the human form with
which the minds of men endowed them. Whether the gross human passions
attributed to the gods of Babylonia in Herodotus be of early date or
not is uncertain--a late period, when the religion began to
degenerate, would seem to be the more probable.


The adoration of sacred objects.

It is probable that objects belonging to or dedicated to deities were
not originally worshipped--they were held as divine in consequence of
their being possessed or used by a deity, like the bow of Merodach,
placed in the heavens as a constellation, etc. The cities where the
gods dwelt on earth, their temples, their couches, the chariot of the
sun in his temple-cities, and everything existing in connection with
their worship, were in all probability regarded as divine simply in so
far as they belonged to a god. Sacrifices offered to them, and
invocations made to them, were in all likelihood regarded as having