50 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
grasp by the hair two human figures, one of which is naked and kneeling, while 
both have their hands raised above their heads as if in supplication to the deity 
above them. Such a winged deity with a human body, frequent enough in the later 
Assyrian art, is almost, if not quite, unknown in the primitive Babylonian art, and 
I have been a little inclined to suspect that in this cylinder the wings of this god are 
not original. But we must compare the next figure. 
In fig. 131 we have a very rude cylinder, excellently preserved, of mottled 
green serpentine. Here the dragons seem to have the head of a lion, but no two- 
parted tongue. The two hind legs have claws pointed backward as well as forward, 

like an eagle’s, and the tail and wings are those of a bird. But the general form of 
the dragon is that of a crocodile, apart from the tail, and the legs are distributed 
evenly along the length of the body in a most unnatural way. Between the wings 
of the front dragon stands a god with a weapon in one hand and a whip in the other. 
Between the wings of the other dragon stands apparently a goddess with both 
hands raised and with three horizontal lines on each side from her head, as if in 
place of the usual horns. Facing the first dragon is a winged human figure, naked, 
with no arms, with one leg, and a wide projection in front of the body, which may 
be the stump of another leg. There is a star between the two deities. I should 
have been strongly inclined to doubt the genuineness of this cylinder if it were not 


135 
that it appears from the accompanying label to have been in the possession of the 
Museum for about a century, and yet strangely enough it has never been published, 
not even by Lajard or Ménant. Forgeries are only of a comparatively late period. 
Yet one other of this general type may be cited in fig. 133. M. Heuzey does 
not mention in which collection it is, and I did not see it in the Louvre. The two 
dragons carry their heads to the ground; and, as figured by Heuzey, instead of having 
a forked tongue, a stream of three lines is vomited from their mouths. The god 
is on the front creature and lifts his bare leg, like Shamash, on the wing of the 
dragon. He carries a serpent rod. The nude goddess on the second dragon holds 
what appear to be thunderbolts in each hand. Between the two dragons is a stand- 
ing figure carrying a weapon which is a boomerang, or better a serpent rod. A 
short inscription finishes the design. 
