CHAPTER X. 
GILGAMESH, EABANI, AND THE DIVINE BULL. 
Among the very earliest designs found on the cylinders of Chaldea, of a period 
perhaps 4000 B. C., are those which represent the hero or demigod Gilgamesh and 
the half-man, half-bull, Eabani, fighting wild beasts. At least this is the interpreta- 
tion given to these figures ever since George Smith first made the identification in 
his “Chaldean Genesis.’ These two figures we have already seen in figs. 111, 120, 
121, 123, where we have met them with others in the discussion of the archaic 
cylinders. It is not necessary for us to follow George Smith in supposing that 
Gilgamesh is the Nimrod of the Bible, although this is quite possible and both 
Nimrod and Gilgamesh were “mighty hunters.” 
Gilgamesh is frequently represented en face, though by no means always so; 
and the same is true of Eabani. Both forms appear simultaneously, of the most 
archaic type, as we have seen, so that we can not differentiate the forms as from 
separate regions or races. , 

Following the examples shown in Chapter vu, another very archaic example 
occurs in a shell cylinder (fig. 141) of perhaps 4000 B. C., of the type of the figures 
of Eannadu, King of Lagash. Gilgamesh appears absolutely nude, not even with 
the girdle cord which is usual in the fine cylinders of about the time of Sargon I. 
He has two curls each side of his head, instead of the later three, and attacks a stag 
rampant with branching horns, another feature unusual in the next period ‘The 
stag is attacked from behind by another naked man in profile, who stabs it with a 
dirk. Two bulls (bisons), back to back, one with head in front view and the other 
in profile, are attacked each by a man in profile, with long hair falling behind, 
clad only in a short skirt consisting of two flounces. There is a line of inscription 
in very archaic characters. The bird-like heads of the profile men indicate their 
extreme antiquity. This cylinder shows that at this very early period the artist 
was able to draw both the human head and the head of the bull either front view 
or in profile; and so far it negatives the supposition that the front view indicates 
one local origin of deities thus represented and the profile another. I am inclined 
to think that this front-face bull is the origin of a figure frequent in later representa- 
tions, called by Smith and his followers the divine bull sent by Ishtar to punish 
Gilgamesh for rejecting her advances. Yet it may be that here the divine bull was 
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