88 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
single porter. At the same time we may presume that Tammuz and Ningish- 
zida are the two guardians of the gates of heaven. 
The Sun-god is surrounded by rays from his shoulders, as we have seen in the 
representations of Nergal (Chapter 1x), the god of the midday and midsummer 
heat. His weapon is peculiar, carried by no other god, and deserves special study. 
It has a sort of handle, is curved, and the whole edge of it is sharply notched. We 
are not to think of this as a branch, or palm (Heuzey, “Origines,”’ p. 299), nor as 
a weapon of metal, but as a relic of the stone age. It is, as explained by me in my 
article cited above, a wooden weapon, the edge of which is thick-set with flint, 
giving it a saw-edge. This is a style of weapon for which we have examples in primi- 
tive conditions of life and warfare. Thus Petrie gives (Nature, December 5, 1889) 
an account of a wooden scimetar with flint chips from a town of the twelfth dynasty. 
The Mexicans also made use of such a weapon, called maquahuitl; and indeed to 
the present day Eastern threshing-machines are set with flint. One of the Hittite 
hieroglyphs suggests.a similar weapon. 
We observe besides this notched weapon another in the field, which is the war- 
club so often seen on the early cylinders, the top or knob of which is often so cut as 
to suggest that it is of stone, but which was probably made usually of the bitumen of 
the country, such a weapon as the shepherds of the region so frequently carry to-day. 

The mountains here are represented in a usual way by imbricated curves. 
But we shall see that the mountains were represented in other ways, and nearly 
as frequently by superposed horizontal lines. In this case the god puts his foot on 
the mountain in front of him. On other cylinders we shall see him standing between 
two mountains, with his notched weapon in one hand, or lifting himself up between 
the mountains by resting his two hands on two mountains, in which case, of course, 
his hands are so occupied that he can not carry his weapon. 
In this cylinder we see a fourth figure with hands together and in a garment 
and headdress like those of the other figures. ‘This may represent a worshiper, 
perhaps, going back to a time when no distinction was made between the dress 
of gods and men. 
There remain to be considered the symbols before and behind the god. That 
in front of him can hardly be anything else than the early form of the character which 
represents Shamash, the sun, or Utu. We may take it as the designation of the 
god who is figured, and it stands properly before him. The other sign is less clear. 
It is translated in Ball’s “Light from the East,” p. 151, as “God of the Mountain,”’ 
which would make it an additional designation, or by-name, of Shamash; or it 
would seem to designate the porter. But more likely, as Prof. Ira M. Price tells 
me, it is the designation of Ningirsu. The star above indicates that it is a divine 
being. These are very archaic characters, and it is to be observed that few of 
these more ancient cylinders have any other inscription. 
