GILGAMESH, EABANI, AND THE DIVINE BULL. 65 
which was, according to the calculation of Nabonidus, about 3750 B. C., although 
we may have to reduce by five or ten centuries the chronology accepted by the last 
of the Babylonian kings. But this is not the only evidence we have that this was 
the flourishing period of glyptic art. On a tablet belonging to the Louvre is the 
impression of another fine royal cylinder which also bears the name of Sargon I. 
(fig. 157), for the knowledge of which we are indebted to M. Heuzey. Here we 
have the hero Gilgamesh himself, in his favorite occupation or sport, grasping a 
bull or lion by the head and breaking its back over his knee. The type of the hero 
and the vigor of the art are maintained in the time of Sargon’s son Naram-Sin, 
as appears from the impression of a cylinder on another tablet, also published 
by Heuzey (fig. 158), in which Gilgamesh seizes the rampant lion by the fore legs 
(see also figs. 48, 49). 
A choice example of this type is seen in fig. 159, taken from one of the chief 
treasures of the collection in the British Museum, of red and white jasper, in 
which the hero is lifting the lion on his shoulder. It was certainly an artist of the 
first rank who designed and engraved this seal. We here have Gilgamesh in his 



rail 
hic : Mihi 
distinctive representation, with head in front view, the hair parted in the middle, 
the beard long and curled at the ends, the body naked with only a narrow girdle 
about the waist, from which an end hangs down by his side, and not even having 
on a breechcloth. In the case of no other god except Gilgamesh is the phallus 
drawn; for the early Chaldean art was usually most modest, as were the Assyrian 
and Persian—in contrast, as Greek authors observed, with the freedom of personal 
exposure among the Greeks. The story of Noah’s drunkenness in his tent illustrates 
what was the similar feeling among the ancient Hebrews. Where in a number of 
passages in the Hebrew Scriptures, as I Samuel 25: 22, general slaughter is threat- 
ened, including every one “mingentem ad partetem,” the coarse expression does 
not refer to all males, but to the humblest unclad slaves unencumbered by long 
garments. And equally in a Babylonian sacrificial scene, if we see a naked figure 
it is always that of a slave. It is, however, true that one of the Babylonian goddesses 
who typifies fertility is represented as nude. 
When represented apart from his companion Eabani, on the cylinders of the 
centuries following the time of Sargon, Gilgamesh fights a lion, or swings one over 
his head, or rides on its back, but perhaps more frequently fights a water-buffalo 
with long rugose horns that lie down on its neck, or occasionally he fights a bison, 
5 
