CHAPTER XIV. 
THE SEATED SHAMASH: WITH RAYS OR STREAMS. 
We have seen in Chapter xu the standing Shamash issuing from the gates of 
the morning and climbing the mountains of the East. We shall also study the scene 
in the next chapter, where he is represented as a seated god judging the bird-man. 
We now have to consider one of the more usual scenes in which human beings 
approach the same or a similar god in worship or for judgment. But first, in this 
chapter, we recognize the god by his rays or streams. 
The Sun-god mounting the hills and starting on his day’s journey through 
the heavens was represented in the last chapter as a god of battles armed with 
weapons of war. He was also distinguished by the rays from his shoulders. When 
represented as seated in judgment on the bird-man he usually has the streams alone. 
Both of these attributes, the rays and the streams, we shall find in the cylinders we 
now must study. When we come to consider the emblems of the gods we shall find 
that the usual emblem of the Sun-god was a disk with alternate rays and streams, 
as so definitely shown in the bas-relief of Abu-habba (fig. 310). 
My 

It is not at all usual to have Horieats and streams represented; the artist 
was satisfied with a single one of the attributes. We have an example of the two 
in fig. 270. Indeed, I know of only one other, also in the Metropolitan Museum, 
in which the two are found together. The cylinder fig. 270 is of pink marble and 
does not give us the usual procession. Before the seated god is a crescent and 
behind him is the character which on the earlier seals designates the sun. The 
remaining space is taken up with the conquest of a lion by two figures which may 
well represent Gilgamesh, one of which seizes the reversed lion behind while the 
other attacks it in front with an ax. The other, fig. 270a, is rude and shows a wor- 
shiper led to the god, also a simple tree, a scorpion, and two stars. 
The cases in which the god is represented with rays from his shoulders, if not 
as numerous as those with streams alone, are not rare. A beautiful small cylinder 
of lapis-lazuli (fig. 271) is particularly instructive, as it shows us the god seated on 
a mountain instead of on his usual throne or, rather, stool. Before him are two 
emblems which will be considered later (Chapter Lx1x, No. 31), the upper a vase 
representing the waters of the heavens, while the other is of an unusual form and 
of a less certain significance. 
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