THE KASSITE CYLINDERS. 191 
Sumerian prayer. In the upper register is the figure of Aa, and before her six 
small oval objects over two slender branches or trees. In the lower register is a 
tree which suggests the later tree of life, though less regular and ornate, each branch 
ending in a sort of fruit or blossom; and above, on each side is a very graceful bird. 
The designs in both registers are quite unlike the old Babylonian or the Assyrian, 
nor is it to be matched among the other Kassite cylinders; not only the inscription, 
but the unusual size of the cylinder and its general cutting would suggest Kassite 
as its period, although the apparent tree of life makes this very doubtful. 
The introduction of this style of Kassite cylinders marks the transition from the 
older to the newer Assyrian and Babylonian fashion in this branch of glyptic art. 
It was a reversion from the small cylinders that had been in use from the time of 
Gudea to the more generous size that had preceded them. At the same time new 
motives came into use, and new emblems, with longer inscriptions, whose precatory 






CMY, 
Bao ey) 
a Bh) 






WS27 GS 4) yy) 
Vat i 
oh (ea MH Au 7 
x 2) | 7m tp V 
eT UM 
942 
character suggests that they had begun to have something of the nature of an amulet. 
It is at this period also that we begin to observe the general use of a new method of 
engraving, by means of revolving drills and disks, but not yet of tubular drills. The 
emblems offer the chief difficulty. Once we have seemed to see a rude form of the 
winged disk, which had been brought from Egypt. The cross is nothing more than 
a variation of the old conventional representation of the sun, which was made of 
four radiating angles with which alternated streams. Here the streams and the 
circumference were omitted, and there remained a, cross which was decoratively 
modified. ‘That the cross came from the sun-disk is made almost certain from 
fig. 543. This is a Syro-Hittite cylinder on which we see the representation of the 
sun inclosed in the moon’s crescent; but instead of the earlier form of the included 
rays and streams we have a cross of two lines in an enveloping cross such as we 
have on these Kassite seals. The dots on the extremities of the included cross are 
perfectly paralleled by the similar dots at the ten extremities of the star of Ishtar 
as shown, with the cross, in fig. 542, where the gods mentioned in the inscription 
