CHAPTER XXII. 
ETANA AND THE EAGLE. 
Of all the early Chaldean seals none gives more vivid indications of a story 
and a myth than those which show us a man astride an eagle, while dogs and men 
watch him as he sails away. ‘They are very few in number. When I made the first 
publication of them in 1886* I had found only two instances of their occurrence, 
both coming to my knowledge when on my visit to Baghdad; now I am acquainted 
with five such cylinders, besides two others that illustrate the composition, although 
not showing the man on the eagle. 
In the Babylonian literature preserved on the tablets to which we must look 
for the interpretation of these designs, the eagle figures in certain interesting myths 
which have been admirably collected by Professor E. T. Harper and Professor 
Jastrow. 
In the epic of Gilgamesh the eagle does not appear. The bright-colored 
Alallu bird that was one of Ishtar’s lovers was hardly an eagle. Of the legends, 
or myths, that do contain the eagle, the Etana story is of especial interest. This 
is considered in part in Chapter xv on “Shamash and the Bird-man.”’ From the 
fragmentary state of the tablets we can only learn that Etana, meaning “The 
Strong One,” was a hero whose wife was unable to bring forth the child she had 
conceived. Etana appealed to Shamash for help, who sent him to a mountain, 
for “the plant of birth.” How Etana reached the mountain by help of the eagle 
and secured the birth of his son is not known. We next find the eagle tempting 
Etana to visit the heaven of the gods. He mounts on the eagle’s body, grasps its 
pinions, and is borne upwards for many successive hours. A vivid picture is given 
of the reduced far-away aspect of the earth as he ascends, until he reaches the gate 
of Anu, Bel, and Ea. Then the eagle bids Etana visit the abode of Ishtar. But 
the goddess appears to be angry, and both the eagle and its rider fall to the earth 
and are perhaps dashed to pieces. 
With this portion of the Etana story is to be compared that told by Alian of 
the birth of Gilgamos (Gilgamesh), whose mother had been confined in a tower 
by her father Sokkaros, as he had been warned that his grandchild’s birth would 
be fatal to him. When the child was born he had it thrown from the tower, but 
an eagle caught it and carried it to a gardener who reared the child until grown. 
Jastrow is convinced that the child thus saved was Etana rather than Gilgamesh. 
It may even have been the Elder Sargon, who was reared by a water-carrier. 
Another chapter in the Etana legend tells us of the overthrow of the eagle by 
the serpent. The eagle had wickedly stolen and eaten the young of the serpent, 
against the warning of the wise young eagle. ‘The serpent appealed to Shamash, 
Judge of Gods and Men, for vengeance. Shamash told the serpent to hide in the 

* American Journal of Archeology, vol. 11, No. 1. One of the two was afterwards published independently by Dr. 
Pinches, who had not happened to see my paper. “ Babylonian and Assyrian Cylinder-Seals and Signets in the possession of Sir 
Henry Peek, Bart.,” by T. G. Pinches, London, 1890, fig. 18. 
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