“As significantly as sigil-scripts, colors and mystical alphabets have played their parts in ritualized magical drama, spiritual incantations and other ceremonial applications, so, too, are numbers viewed as mystical signs in the realm of form, representative of endless wisdom and correspondences.” — Joshua Free

[This mardukite necrogate blog post is officially excerpted from Liber-51/52, also available with its prequel “Sumerian Religion” (Liber 50) by Joshua Free in the combined Liber 50/51/52 edition “Mesopotamian Religion” or the NEW Mardukite Core Year-2 anthology mardukite.com economy edition of the GATES OF THE NECRONOMICON edited by Joshua Free.]

Although traditional or “classical” numerology is derived from a base-10 (or by some interpretations, a base-9) system, the mathematics born in Mesopotamia is base-6, or more appropriately, base-60. While this might seem complicated, consider that you are probably most familiar with a base- 10 metric system – things are easily grouped in tens and hundreds: decades and centuries and “percents.” This type of math is quite familiar to western civilization.

Base-60 mathematics is something more closely identified with “time” in our world. Rather than the division of an hour into hundredths or percents, we see sixty minutes as the “whole pie.” A quarter of that “pie,” while still “25%” is not the quantified value of 25, but instead: 15. The measuring “foot” is divided by 12 [12 x 5 = 60]. This is the type of thinking that more closely resembles the Sumerian worldview. Sumerian religious mathematics that that the wheel (or more correctly, the circle) consisted of 360 degrees [6 x 60 = 360]. Thus was born “geometry,” the means of “earth-measuring,” as 360 being a perfect “earth” cycle (circle), was thought to compose the length of the year (in the Sumerian calendar).

Some of the most basic formulas:

6 x 1 = 6 = earth, fire, power [Marduk]
6 x 10 = 60 = command, heaven-earth, fire [Anu]
6 x 10 x 10 = 600 = chaos, void, abyss [Tiamat]
6 x 1 x 60 = 360 = earth-time, cycles [local planet]
6 x 10 x 60 = 3600 = heaven-time, spiritual cycles [sar]

This system of mathematics is called sexagesimal. The number sixty is sacred within its own system, having exactly twelve factors (three of which are prime) frequently occurring as “sacred” numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 and itself. It is actually the smallest whole number perfectly divisible by the numbers 1 through 6. This was very useful in the highly innovative form of multiplication by reciprocal used by Sumerians and Babylonians. Numbers were never actually divided by another number, they were instead multiplied by the reciprocal (or inverse) of the other number. In this system, the expression: “60 divided by 10” becomes “60 multiplied by one-tenth.”

[60 / 10 = 6] is the same as [60 x 0.1 = 6]

Commonplace uses of numbers also followed the sexagesimal formula. Where we might imagine the use of centimeters and inches, the basic unit of length in Mesopotamia was essentially the division of a “meter” into 360 parts called the she.

6 she = 1 su-shi
30 su-shi (360 she) = 1 kush
6 kush (2160 she) = 1 gi
12 kush (360 su-shi) = 1 nindan

The original hierarchy of Anunnaki designations runs in increments of five from 5 to 60, allowing space for the “Olympian Twelve” to be plotted thereupon. [The Sumerian Anunnaki Pantheon of Twelve consists of Anu (60), Antu (55), Enlil (50), Ninlil (45), Enki (40), Ninki-Damkina (35), Nanna (30), Ningal (25), Shammash (20), Inanna-Ishtar (15), Ishkur-Adad (10) and Ninhursag-Ninmah (5).]

The spiritual politics of post-Sumerian Mesopotamia resulted in the altering of the names or figures assuming the titles, but not the roles themselves (which were mathematically fixed). The designations of the Supernal Trinity: 60, 50 and 40, remain “master numbers.” The Babylonian fractional designations are inherited by the “younger pantheon,” some of which do not actually appear in the Olympian Twelve.

1 / 2 = 30 [Nanna-Sin] (moon)
1 / 3 = 20 [Utu-Shammash] (sun)
1 / 4 = 15 [Inanna-Ishtar] (Venus)
1 / 5 = 12 [Nabu] (Mercury)
1 / 6 = 10 [Marduk] (Jupiter)
1 / 8 = 7.3 (8) [Nergal] (Mars)
1 / 15 = 4 [Ninib, Adad or Ninurta] (Saturn)

Concerning the order of the Gates:

1 = 7 (Nanna – 30) [30 x 2 = 60] [30 = 1 / 2]
2 = 6 (Nabu – 12) [12 x 5 = 60] [12 = 1 / 5]
3 = 5 (Ishtar – 15) [15 x 4 = 60] [15 = 1 / 4]
4 = 4 (Samas – 20) [20 x 3 = 60] [20 = 1 / 3]
5 = 3 (Nergal – 8)*
6 = 2 (Marduk – 10) [10 x 6 = 60] [10 = 1 / 6]
7 = 1 (Ninurta – 4) [4 x 15 = 60] [4 = 1 / 15]

Since the allocation of the gate-system [Babili] was composed in Babylon, it is not surprising to see the Martian force “out-of-balance” with the remaining ones. Nergal (Erra) is not actually placed on the original post-primordial (excluding Tiamat, etc.) pantheon, nor is Ereshkigal, Aya (consort of Shammash), Marduk, Sarpanit, Nabu, Teshmet, or even Ninurta, who was next in line to receive Enlil’s designation of 50 before the “Tower of Babel” incident (Marduk in Babylon).

With the passing of each generation, the successive characters moved up their positions in the “Ladder of Lights,” leaving us with the system illustrated in the Necronomicon cycle, the relatively most “updated” post-Sumerian version of the pantheon.