146 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
With these cylinders must be compared another much like them, but which 
does not contain the man astride the eagle. It is shown in fig. 396. It is in two 
definite registers throughout, the two separated by a line. In the lower register 
we have the pastoral scene, a sheep-pen so minutely engraved that we can discover 
how the upright reeds are bound together; and the two posts of the gate are care- 
fully indicated, with the rings that serve as fastenings. Out of the gate comes a 
shepherd with a whip following two goats and three sheep. Between the goats 
and the sheepfold a man is sitting, with a pail or basket tipped in front of him and 
a dog sitting down and looking up at him, very likely waiting to be fed with milk 
from the pail. 
Thus far the scenes are as in the cylinders previously considered, the shepherd, 
the sheep and goats, and the sheepfold the same, and the dog and the man with 
the pail or basket being the same that we there saw looking up at the man on the 
eagle. In the upper register the scene is equally pastoral, but corresponds only in 
a less conspicuous but important part with the other cylinders. A man holds two 
goats, one of which is being milked by a second man. Unfortunately the milk-pail 
is not drawn, or more likely is lost in the decay of the material, but it will occur to 
one that what we have called pails or baskets, with a handle at the top, may be 
milk-pails. Three other goats are shown, one of them lying down and one with 
its kid and scratching its back, as goats do, with its horn. With his back to the 
man milking the goat sits another, perhaps ready to milk the goat that is lying 
down in front of him, or watching the flock. Above this goat are two little creatures 
which appear to be two kids at play, as kids do. For the elucidation of the other 
cylinders particularly important is the small scene above three of the goats, where 
we see the same rows of round cakes or loaves, if such they are. It is possibly fruit, 
here twelve in three rows of four each, incased in a rectangle of which one side ts 
preserved. An even more likely suggestion is that these are round cakes of cheese, 
made from the milk which had been curdled in the jars. A small figure, almost 
lying down, reaches his hand forward apparently to take one of the objects. Here 
it is almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that while the herdsmen are caring 
for their flocks this personage is furtively helping himself to food that is left un- 
guarded. The single line of inscription is of an archaic period. 
Another cylinder, very archaic, of shell, which suggests the same myth is 
to be seen in fig. 397. Here we have a tree with fruit, perhaps a fig-tree, in which 
case it is the oldest case known of the fig-tree in art; and a human figure, nude, 
appears in three scenes; once reaching forward, as if furtively to take food from a 
vessel; once bending down a reed, or branch; and once in an attitude as if drawing 
water from a well with a bucket, and an animal near by. If it be a well, the con- 
trivance for raising the water 1s of the simple sort familiar in modern times, called 
the shaduf. 
Yet one more cylinder (fig. 398) must be added for comparison, although it 
is much corroded, being of shell, and the figure fails to show all I see on the seal. 
One scene is the frequent design of a worshiper approaching a seated deity. The 
rest of the seal is taken up with the pastoral scene, the sheepfold, here a narrow 
opening, for a gate, between the vertical reeds. Out of it proceed three animals, the 
first a goat, but the erosion does not allow us to be sure whether the others are goats 
or sheep, probably the latter. Before the goat, and behind the worshiper, is a dog, 
