THE LATER BABYLONIAN PERIOD. 195 
we have a cylinder much like that in fig. 554 where the worshiper stands before the 
emblem of Sin and a bird. 
We have seen the goat-fish already on the impressions of cylinders or tablets. 
An unusually fine cylinder with this design is shown in fig. 557. The cylinder is 
remarkable for its unique material, a rich blue quartz, nof lapis-lazuli, as given by 
Ménant. Here the worshiper stands before the divine seat, on which is the goat- 
fish emblem of Ea, with the column of the 
goat’s head above it, and above them the 
crescent. Then we have, as a fresh emblem, 
two human-headed scorpions facing each 
other. These scorpions seem to be men- 
tioned in the Gilgamesh epic. Another cyl- 
inder with a similar design is shown in fig. 
1278. Here the worshiper stands before the man-scorpion in an attitude of worship. 
The scorpion represents Ishkhara. There is also the goat-fish of Ea, and above it 
we see the supreme Ashur, somewhat in the Persian shape, with the circle lost from 
the winged disk. ‘This may be a somewhat later cylinder of the Persian period. 
At times these cylinders carried nothing but emblems of gods, with the wor- 
shiper before them. Such a case appears in fig. 558. Here we have the emblems of 
Marduk with his fantastic animal before it, and that of Nebo to the right. The 
divine seat is quite reduced. 

556 



558 
557 
The various emblems are the peculiar characteristic of the cylinders of this 
period which begins from the time of Nebuchadnezzar, or his father, and extends 
into the period of the Persian kings, when the cylinder was passing into the cone 
seals, which were generally engraved simply with columns or asheras, symbolizing 
the gods, more frequently Marduk and Nebo, as in fig. 558. Its simpler forms may 
not easily be distinguished from those of the Kassite style, which, indeed, doubtless 
merged into that of the last Babylonian empire. The symbols themselves will have 
to be treated more at length in a separate chapter. 
