190 . FLORA OF THE 



With the exception of {q) they have all been taken 

 from cylinders, mostly reproduced in the plates of 

 M. Felix Lajard's ' Introduction a I'etude du Culte de 

 Mithra.' It will readily be seen that many of them 

 are merely modifications of the ' fleur-de-lys,' and this 

 only a degradation of the tree and horns of {d). 



{b) is a ' fleur-de-lys ' with a handle, and when held 

 in the hand, as in (/ and k), it officiates as either 

 a iridejit or a sceptre, while (<?) is a double trident, 

 one up and one down. {f, g, and ;«) appear to 

 be mere modifications of the same symbol. It will be 

 noticed that (;;/) is the ' ankJil often seen in the hand 

 of Egyptian statues. 



{(i) is a pentadent and clearly only a modified form 

 of the ' fleur-de-lys ' or trident {U) ; {c, d, e, h, I) are 

 clearly the same thing, {e) being supported by two extra 

 pairs of horns ; and (/>), the open hand, possibly stands 

 for the same symbol, [r) being only a modified form 

 of hand. 



{h), if placed in the hand of Jupiter, might be inter- 

 preted as a pair of thunderbolts ! but placed between 

 two figures it means a pair of spiral antelope horns. 

 The zigzaginess, which was supposed to be in imitation 

 of conventional lightning, is, after all, the way these 

 primitive engravers had of delineating the horn spiral. 



(/) is clearly a double pair of horns held by a 

 stem. 



