156 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
A cylinder of an early period is shown in fig. 411, where the weapons about 
the goddess all end in clubs, without the alternate serpent scimitars. A wor- 
shiper, an attendant with a pail, and the seated god with streams also appear. 
This cylinder is figured in Ménant, “Pierres Gravées,” 1, p. 106, but the clubs 
are drawn as simple rays. 
These six cylinders are all that I know that bear the figure of the seated Ishtar 
with weapons from her shoulders. They are all of an early age. 
We have seen that Shamash with his rays from his shoulders is represented 
both as sitting and standing. The same is true of Ishtar. But we have no example 
from the oldest period of the standing Ishtar, unless it be of the goddess who accom- 
panies the god Inlil in his subjugation of the dragon and who stands on the back of 
a dragon (fig. 127). But we must also consider fig. 387, where there appears, with 
other gods, a standing Ishtar flounced, in a high headdress, with one foot and leg 
protruded from her garment, not raised or resting on any animal, and with alternate 
clubs and serpent-weapons from her shoulders. This cylinder has various unusual 
features. Such are the female attendant with the spouting vase, the ring in the 
stream from the altar, the single foot of Ishtar, and the lion’s skin, with lion’s paws, 




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412 
fastened at the neck and worn by the god with the bow. This cylinder is so peculiar 
that its genuineness, in part, must be received with caution. ‘he only other case 
of a standing Ishtar of the supposed earlier period is shown in fig. 412, but this is a 
forgery.* For the cylinders representing Ishtar on a subject dragon, see Chapter VIII. 
The seated Ishtar passed early out of use on the cylinders, and was succeeded 
by the conventional form of the standing Ishtar, which distinguished her from Bau, 
who was always represented as seated. She is distinguished, in Babylonian art, 
by her head always en face, the weapons from her shoulders, the lions associated 
with her, and lifting in one hand the caduceus of two serpents with bulging necks, 
like asps, and a vase between them. She may carry the scimitar in her other hand. 
Her characteristic animal is the lion. We have seen the seated Ishtar with lions 
about her seat (or under her feet); so the later Ishtar sometimes stands on two lions, 
or in the more conventional form she rests one foot on a crouching lion, which is 
generally so reduced as to be hardly recognizable, as scarcely more than the head 
appears. On the monuments she is described as “on the lions’ (Lenormant, 
ee Berose, mal 1O). 
While she sometimes carries the scimitar of Marduk, the apxm of Perseus, 
her characteristic weapon, or emblem, is the caduceus. Both of these objects either 
originated in the serpent or were figured in the serpent form. ‘The weapons from 


* For a discussion of this cylinder see Athenaeum, March 10, April 7, April 28, June 2, 1900. 
