GILGAMESH, EABANI, AND THE DIVINE BULL. 67 
in any way. While neither convention was fixed, different artists indulged their 
own preference, or took the form more familiar in their own town. We must there- 
fore consider them together. 
An example of Gilgamesh alone is shown in fig. 160, where, beside the two 
symmetrical figures of Gilgamesh mounting on a lion’s back, a third Gilgamesh is 
seen between the two lions grasping each by a paw. It was past the skill of the 
artist to represent the legs of the third Gilgamesh in symmetrical position. Very 
much like it is fig. 161, where again Gilgamesh appears once on the back of a lion 
and once on the back of a buffalo. Another is seen in fig. 162, where we have also 
a graphic suggestion of the swamp reeds which were the haunt of the lion. In fig. 
163 we have Gilgamesh in his waist-cord, fighting buffaloes, but a bull is tethered 
near by, an evidence of the early period at which it was domesticated. In fig. 164 
Gilgamesh lays his foot on the neck of the reversed lion. In fig. 165 Gilgamesh 
lifts a lion quite over his head. But here the hero is more clothed, in accordance 

with later conventionality, and the material, a bluish chalcedony, suggests also a 
later period. In fig. 166 Gilgamesh actually rides on the back of the lion. We have 
another example of Gilgamesh fighting a buffalo in fig. 167, a finely cut red jasper 
cylinder.* 
Among the cylinders which show us Gilgamesh alone with his face in profile, 
fighting wild beasts, is one of the somewhat unusual material, syenite (fig. 169), 
in which we see the hero standing between an ibex and a bull, each of which is 
attacked by a lion. One recalls the feat of David, who killed a lion attacking a 
sheep, and at another time a bear. In this seal a second clothed figure appears 
carrying a branch. On another cylinder (fig. 168) Gilgamesh is repeated, once 
fighting a lion and once a bull. Gilgamesh is also repeated in fig. 170, fighting 

* This cylinder I have retained in my own possession, from among those collected by me and which have been acquired 
by the Metropolitan Museum and Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan. It was obtained many years ago from a French consul in the East 
by the famous French Orientalist, de Saulcy, and was presented by him to M. J. Ménant on his birthday when the latter was a 
young man. It was thus the beginning of M. Ménant’s invaluable work in gathering and studying the cylinders. On his death 
I obtained the cylinder from Mme. Ménant. See Ménant, “ Pierres Gravées,” 1, p. 77. 
