THE SERPENT GODS. Isl 
dragon attacked by Bel becomes a serpent in certain varieties of the Assyrian legend, 
as we shall see in figs. 578, 579. 
An interesting fragment (paraphrased by Bezold, Zeitschrift fiir Assyriologie, 
IX, p. 116) tells us that the goddess Belit-ili carries a horn, that her breast is filled 
with milk, that with her left hand she lifts an uncertain creature to her nipple, that 
the upper part of her body is that of a woman and the lower part that of a serpent. 
In the same text we are told that Ea has a serpent’s head. 
It is not easy to identify the early Babylonian seated deity that is represented 
by the human figure and the coiled serpent-body shown in figs. 362-8. The 
Babylonians had various serpents, such as we find on the kudurrus, also the seven- 
headed serpent. Serpents are very frequent on the cylinders, either standing upright 
on their tails or made into a weapon held by a god, or in the double caduceus (No. 30 
of Chapter Lx1x). We have seen the two serpents arranged symmetrically on 
the bronze vase of Gudea (fig. 368c), and the change of the dragon into a serpent 
has been mentioned. There was a serpent-god Siru, of whom we know simply his 
name (Jastrow, ‘Religion,’ p. 170), who is not likely to be this figured deity inas- 
much as he is the serpent of the kudurrus. The identification with Ea may be 
suggested, although we seem to see him surrounded by streams in figs. 648-650; 
but that may be because we know so little of the art of Eridu. And yet we may 
think of the Elamite Kadi, who was the mother of Siru, according to the list 
of gods in the kudurru of Nazimaruttash. An archaic figure of the Athenian 
Cecrops (Benjamin Powell, “Erichthonius” in “Cornell Studies,” fig. 2; Miss 
Harrison’s ‘‘ Mythology and the Monuments,” fig. 2) deserves comparison. Inas- 
much as in the period just following that of this seated serpent-god we have Nin- 
gishzida as a god with serpents from his shoulders, he, or his father, Ninazu, 1s 
to be considered. The older seated god, with serpent-body, may have been trans- 
ferred in the time of the higher art of Gudea into an anthropomorphic deity, with 
serpents simply rising from the shoulders, as the quivers rise from the shoulders of 
Ishtar. 
