CHAPTER IX. 
THE GOD ATTACKING AN ENEMY. 
We shall have occasion to study in Chapter xxi the design which shows 
us a god attacking a goddess under a bent tree, and which must be interpreted as 
probably representing Nergal conquering and then wedding Allatu, goddess of the 
underground cave in which dwell the spirits of the dead. We have to consider 
another design which, although not frequent, is yet less rare, and which shows us 
a similar god attacking a male enemy. Such a scene is shown us in fig. 136. We 
shall consider this cylinder in the chapter on Agricultural Deities (fig. 382), and 
it must here be examined for its second design. A god in a high headdress, holding 
a long-handled war-club, or mace, in 
one hand, seizes with his other hand 
the head of an enemy prostrate against 
a mountain, and steps on his body. 
The conquered enemy appears to be 
nude, except for the headdress. It is 
not positive from this design that the 
enemy is a god, inasmuch as on the 
cylinders of this early period men are 
represented as also wearing this kind of turban, and, indeed, the dress of the deities 
had to be copied from the dress of men and women of high rank. In this very 
cylinder we see the worshiper who is led to the seated goddess with such a turban. 
The de Clercq collection is rich in cylinders of this design. One of these is 
shown in fig. 136a. Here we have three scenes depicted in which probably the 
same god attacks the same victim. In the first scene, to the right, the god, in a 
short garment, seizes by the head and arm his naked enemy who is armed with a 
war-club. In the next scene the enemy has dropped his club and is pushed forward 



SSS—S'9 
A 
f 
A 
US! 
ie 
! 
2 Wim fy lbs 
i, 



= 


= 
in an attitude of submission. In the last scene the god, now illumined with rays, 
representing that he is a Sun-god, crowds his victim against a mountain. 
A similar conflict is shown in fig. 136). Here are two scenes. In one of them 
the god attacks with an ax, or hammer, his conquered foe, and in the other the foe 
is pushed against the mountain. In this second scene the god, with rays, is dupli- 
cated simply for the sake of symmetry. If the drawing, copied from Ohnefalsch- 
53 
