CHAPTER XXV. 
ISHTAR. 
One of the cylinders that were first made known to scholars and one of the 
earliest is that one of the Rich collection (fig. 407) which gives us the seated Ishtar. 
A goddess in a flounced garment, with a high-horned headdress, sits on a seat 
ornamented with lions, and a lion is under her feet. Her most distinctive mark 
is the weapons that rise from her shoulders, alternate clubs and sickle-shaped 
scimitars. Before her are a crescent and a star, also an altar of peculiar construc- 
tion (see Chapter LXVI) apparently of bricks, on which is the head of aram. Three 
beardless figures approach in mii the middle one of which (perhaps masculine) 
Wee 
lata 

louie IX), Ne 
egal! CDs {minh 
Py ee OC} fem 
MO JS BER put 
407 408 
carries a victim for sacrifice. Behind them is a dog. An older cylinder, not so 
artistically designed and cut (fig. 408) belongs to the archaic period. Here the 
goddess is without her lions. She has on a two-horned headdress, a flounced 
garment, and the alternate clubs and scimitars rise from her shoulders. ‘Three 
figures approach in the attitude of worship. There is a lower register where we 
see four ducks swimming in the water, and as many fishes. Another excellent 
example is on an unfortunately broken cylinder belonging to the Morgan Collec- 
tion (fig. 409). This is of especial value, because it shows us the goddess with the 






fp Let) 

a0 
weapons, retaining the scimitar with its original form, which is a serpent like the 
Egyptian asp with the thick neck. The goddess is probably seated, but the broken 
cylinder does not allow us to be certain. There is a second two-horned female 
figure, also a worshiper with a goat. The remaining objects are too imperfect to 
be described. A fourth example appears in fig. 410. Here are three seated figures. 
One of them is Ishtar in her flounced dress and with her alternate clubs and scimi- 
tars from her shoulders. Before her appears to be an altar shaped like an hour- 
glass, beyond which two other female figures sit facing her. One of them seems 
to lift a large uncertain object in her hand. 
155 
