62 FLORA OF ASSYRIAN MONUMENTS. 



venerated the oak tree. It may have been some 

 tradition they got from Orientals. If it be a vine, 

 then it would probably represent their dri7ik tree, the 

 wine giving new life to those who drank it. That 

 these two necessaries, food and drink, must have been 

 uppermost in the minds of their artists seems plain 

 from a god shown in the ' Monument of Ivriz ' — Pre- 

 Hellenic Monuments of Cappadocia, in the ' Recueil 

 de Travaux ' relatifs a la Philologie et I'Architecture 

 Egyptiennes et Assyriennes ; by G. Maspero, vol. 14, 

 liv. I and 2 (1892). It consists of a stout figure, 

 with Semitic features. On the head there is a cap, 

 studded with several pairs of horns. Another pair of 

 horns decorates the margin of the skirt. Then, in the 

 right hand, it holds a vine branch, with bunches of 

 grapes, and in the left a sheaf of corn. It has Hittite 

 inscriptions. This figure seems clearly of the agri- 

 cultural period, emblematical of their food and drink^ 

 under the protection of their horned deity. 



