422 
ANTIQUITIES. 
reliefs of the pontiff-king at Persepolis. On the reverse is a 
range of towers and walls, supported, or faced by lions. No. 2. 
is a larger coin. Its obverse, a chariot drawn by two horses, 
resembling the same vehicle sculptured on the staircase of Chehel 
Minar. Two persons are in the chariot. Its reverse represents 
embattled towers, something similar to No. 1.; but a row of 
globular forms appears at the top of the wall, probably intended 
for the heads of trees. Lions support this wall also. It may 
be considered a curious portrait of an ancient city, and perhaps 
of Babylon itself! 
Nos. 3., 4., and 5. are cylinders, with their hieroglyphics drawn 
the size of the originals. The subjects engraved round them 
are exemplified in different groups of men and beasts. No. 3. 
shews merely an outline. Nos. 4. and 5. are in deep intaglio; 
but all exhibit symbolical combats between the lion and 
bull, sometimes as half-beast half-man, and otherwise against 
the perfect form of man. In No. 4. we have something of a 
centaur, with a lion in bonds. No. 6. represents a cylinder, 
containing a very remarkable group of personages, and an in¬ 
scription of cuneiform characters, in combinations, and there¬ 
fore producing forms, I had never seen before. The figures it 
accompanies are evidently connected with the rites of the lunar 
deity, who was worshipped by the Persians and the Chaldreans 
under the names of Mylitta and Alytta, or Anaites and Ananus; 
but who, in one attribute at least, seems to be rather a different 
goddess from the Cynthia of the Greeks. This Babylonian deity, 
according to Moses ben Maimonides, had numerous bands of 
young women devoted to her service; and here we find a 
priestess introducing a virgin to her temple, to receive the bene¬ 
diction of the priest. These dedicated females, we are told by 
