ARCHAIC CYLINDERS: THE EAGLE OF LAGASH. 35 
bd 
lation: “The divine bird Im-gig, the emblem of his king,” which is in all prob- 
ability this lion-headed or eagle-headed emblem. This. eagle of Lagash, with an 
eagle head, was carried on a military standard (fig. 76) or with a lion’s head over 
lions, in the hands of the king (fig. 75). This may well have been the symbol of 
Ishtar similarly represented with lions, as Heuzey suggests (7b., p. 115), when he 
says that the eagle standard “appears to represent a warrior goddess.”’ ‘These 
figures come from the “Stele of Vultures,” made by King Eannadu, and now in 
the Louvre. 
It may, I think, be presumed that the eagle-headed eagle and the lion-headed 
eagle, and also the eagle with two eagle heads, have the same significance, when 
figured in front view with wings spread on each side. Unlike the grifin-dragon, 
it is a beneficent emblem, representing a protecting power. We find it in the art of 
the earlier Chaldean period, but in the middle and later period it quite disap- 
pears, although it is retained in the art of the Hittite region to the north and 
east of Assyria. Illustrations of it appear in figs. 188, 228, 229, 230, 776. 



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