106 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
worn, so that it is not possible to make out the construction of the object under this 
little figure’s seat, or to interpret with accuracy what was intended to be represented. 
There is an extremely interesting variation of this design in fig. 287. In fig. 
297 one of the approaching figures carried on his shoulder a bag suspended from 
a stick. But in the former case the two approaching figures each carry such a 
stick over his shoulder, and from the first one hangs a bunch of dates and from 
the second the bird-man himself hangs suspended by his foot. These are preceded 
by the bifrons figure. It will be observed that while it is a plain stick from which 
the dates hang, the bird-man is suspended from a club. ‘The seated god is sur- 
rounded with streams. ‘This excellent cylinder is of black serpentine. 
A case in which the seated god has no streams is shown in fig. 300). We have 
the Janus-faced god with his club, and two attendants following the prisoner. The 
sun as a star, over the crescent, has been shown in fig. 293. A head and a turtle 
are given, and dots, which may possibly represent the numbers ten, twenty, and 
thirty, and the corresponding deities. But a more unusual case is that seen in fig. 
3004, like the last from the Hermitage Museum of St. Petersburg, where the god has 
rays instead of streams, and his seat is made to represent a mountain. The god who 
introduces the culprit also has rays and is thus also a sun-god. But more peculiar 
and unique is the culprit, who is now not a bird-man, but has the head of a lion. 

ATT 
Z aifie 
ALT IY 



300° 
It has been usual to imagine that the bird-man, evidently a hostile being, is 
the Zu-bird, chiefly because the Zu-bird is represented as in conflict with the gods. 
The Elder Bel, or Enlil, held possession of the tablets of fate. Zu desired to have 
possession of them, and seized them from Enlil, snatching them from his hand 
while he was pouring out the brilliant waters. ‘The vase with the streams of water 
will be considered in Chapter xxxvuI. Suffice it to say here that Enlil was not 
usually considered the special god of the waters, but this function belonged to 
various deities. Possessed thus of supreme power Zu fled to the mountains. The 
gods were in consternation. Anu called first on Ramman, the Storm-god, to recover 
the tablets, but he was afraid. Other gods—the broken text fails to tell us who— 
in turn declined the task, but at last one of them accepted it and recovered them. 
Who it was is not clear from the fragmentary state of the text, possibly Shamash, 
but more likely, Jastrow thinks, Marduk. ‘There is, so far as the legend is preserved, 
no intimation that the Zu-bird was captured and brought to a god for judgment and 
punishment. 
We should naturally expect the seated god who pronounces judgment to be 
Shamash. He is the “ Judge of Gods and Men.” That is his characteristic title. 
The streams about the god, and in one case the rays, suggest Shamash. And yet 
we have no myth or story preserved in which we find the god performing this office. 
It is with the story of Etana and the Eagle, and of the serpent and the eagle, if the 
