THE WINGED DRAGON SUBDUED. 51 
In fig. 132 we have the god alone standing on a dragon, and holding the thunder- 
bolt in his hand. ‘The remaining design is discussed in Chapter xxvul. 
In these cases we have seen the fuller form of the myth represented, these cyl- 
inders being of the earlier period. But there is another class of cylinders of a some- 
what later period, which will be treated subsequently and in which the dragon be- 
comes a subordinate accessory of the goddess Ishtar. Such a case is fig. 134, where 
the goddess sits on the dragon. ‘This is probably a goddess, although she is in 
profile and holds the triple thunderbolt, which became the emblem of Adad. An- 
other case is seen in fig. 135, where the goddess, with her characteristic Babylonian 
caduceus, stands on two dragons, although usually she is represented as standing 
with one foot on a lion, often very much crouched; but for this, see designs in the 
chapter on Ishtar. We have a similar cylinder shown in fig. 135a, which we 
know only from its impression on a tablet of the Gudea period. Here, again, we 
have the flounced goddess standing on a dragon, while before her we see a wor- 
shiper and a crescent, and behind her another animal, perhaps a dragon, and three 
lines of filiary inscription. Occasionally the dragon appears unrelated to the other 


135b 
figures on the design, as in fig. 135+, where Gilgamesh is repeated, fighting a 
lion and a buffalo. The cylinder bears the inscription: “Urdumu, patesi of Ud- 
nunki” (Adab, modern Bismya)—Price. 
We now must raise the question, who are the deities represented in connection 
with the walking dragon? We best know the dragon from its relation to the story 
of Bel Marduk and Tiamat. We can hardly doubt that the later representations, 
from the Assyrian period of the fight between a god and a composite creature of 
this same type, represent the contest between Bel Marduk and Tiamat, even 
although in the most elaborate of these designs (fig. 564) the dragon 1s distinctly 
masculine. But these designs that we are considering are of a period anterior to 
the rise of Babylon and the supremacy of Marduk, the tutelar god of Babylon, in 
the pantheon. We must look to the older forms of the myth. In the earliest form 
of the story, as Mr. King has shown, it was Ea who was the champion of the gods. 
When the primacy passed from Eridu, or Erech, to Nippur its tutelar god Enlil 
became the hero demiurge that overthrew the dragon; and later the primacy 
passed, as we have said, to Marduk at Babylon, and to him was assigned the victory 
over the elements of chaos personified now in Tiamat, wife of Apsu, who was slain 
and her body divided to make the firmament of heaven. It is not clear that in the 
earlier form of the cosmogonic myth it was Tiamat who was the representative of 
chaos; it was more probably Apsu, the representative of the watery deep of chaos. 
As these designs on the cylinders are of a period long anterior to the supremacy of 
Babylon under Hammurabi, it is clear that the gods represented are not Marduk 
