ARCHAIC CYLINDERS: A DEIYrY IN A BOAT. 43 
Clearer than in any other case in which we have a human-bodied boat is the 
meaning of the design in fig. 109. It is plain here that we have the seated Shamash 
in a boat, as we see him in fig. 293. He holds the emblems of chief authority, the 
ring and the rod. Under him, as a footstool, are two bulls, possibly with human 
heads. ‘They are a sort of cherubim for his throne, for at the date of this cyl- 
inder the winged bull was not known to Babylonian art. They rather correspond 
with the footstool of the god seen in figs. 320, 323. ‘The boat itself is clearly divine 
and, with its human form at the two ends, is the throne- 
bearer of the god over the waters, doubtless the upper 
waters of the heavens. The accessories are the sun in 
the crescent, repeated, a small worshiper behind the god, 
another figure rising from the water in front of the boat, 
and perhaps another following behind. 
In a country like Phenicia or Palestine it was not natural to think of a god as 
riding in a boat. Accordingly we see the deity in a chariot, as in figs. 976-983. 
But in a land of canals, like Egypt or Babylonia, where all traffic was by water, it 
was natural to imagine the god borne over the sky in a boat, and not, like Phoebus, 
in a chariot. But as the chariot of Phoebus was drawn by horses, so here the boat 
must have the intelligence to go as required, and hence it was partly human, and 
the design is related to the biblical representations of the throne-bearers of Yahveh. 
If the boat itself was not a living creature it must have means to row or, rather, to 
pole it, as in fig. 102. 

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2 


110 

There may here be added the remarkable cylinder shown in fig. 1104, although 
it is not of the extreme archaic period. We have a not unusual design of Gilgamesh 
fighting a human-headed bull which is attacked on the other side by a lion. The 
second scene gives us two figures clad in short garments, in a boat of the shape of 
the coracle, or kufa, still in use on the rivers of Babylonia. The figure rowing 
may be the god Sin, and so represent the moon sailing through the heavens; or it 
may be Shamash represented in the same way. 
