CHAPTER XV. 
THE SUN-GOD AND THE BIRD-MAN. 
The Chaldean art differs from that of Egypt in that while the latter often 
shows us human bodies with the head of animals or birds, this is very exceptional 
in Chaldean art. Here, on the contrary, we see the human head and arms, with the 
lower body of a beast, a serpent, or a bird. We have had illustrations of this fact 
in Eabani, and shall see it in the serpent-bodied god (Chapter xvuir). We are 
now to consider those cylinders in which a human body is combined with the lower 
body, tail, and legs of a bird. 
We will first consider a very large cylinder (fig. 291), unfortunately much 
worn, belonging to the Metropolitan Museum. Three officers of the divine court 
have arrested the bird-man and are conducting him to a standing god. ‘The god is 
nearly nude, is bearded, and is surrounded by streams of water by the side of which 
are fishes. “The streams seem to burst from vases above the god’s shoulders. His 
foot is lifted on an elevation, which, as we have seen in Chapter XIII, represents 
the mountain from which the Sun-god rises. As we have seen that streams of water 
are also characteristic of the Sun-god, it seems certain that the god is Shamash. 

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291 
Immediately in front of the god, leading the procession, is the chief of the officers, 
who holds two javelins, or clubs, over his shoulders. He is a bifrons, a peculiar 
convention acutely explained by Ménant (but questioned by Heuzey, “Origines 
Orientales de |’Art,” p. 77), who recognized that it was not intended to represent 
the personage as really having two faces, but as directing his attention both to the 
god whom he approached and also to the prisoner whom he was conducting to 
the god. In Eduard Meyer’s “Sumerier und Semiten in Babylonien,”’ p. 55, a 
bifrons is figured from a bas-relief. We shall see this simple convention shown in 
a number of other cylinders, even down to the time of the Hittite art. It had a 
very early origin and passed over to the Roman Janus. What was first a mere 
artistic convention came to be, we know not how early, a creature with two faces, 
a new god begotten by a naive drawing. Just so the unicorn had its origin in a 
bull drawn in profile with one horn showing; and the divine bull conquered by 
Gilgamesh may have had a similar artistic origin. We have numerous cases in 
which the attendant god, instead of courteously facing the chief seated god, 
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