200 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA, 
associate in the battle. In fig. 570, again, we see the god with his favorite trident 
arrow and the two rays from his shoulders. We have a peculiar scene in fig. 571 
where the frequent confusion appears by which the god Marduk is replaced by the 
usual type of Gilgamesh, who attacks the dragon with a spear. There is a rampant 
ibex, also a bird, and a monkey on the top of a tree. In fig. 572 the god seizes the 
dragon by the leg. It is not quite easy to explain the calf lying down so quietly before 
the god and showing no excitement over the conflict, unless it be by its raised tail. 

: Sl Gai 
Among other illustrations of this design may be shown fig. 573 and fig. 575. 
It is well here to consider fig. 574, on a very much worn and large cylinder of hema- 
tite, but of a style usual on soft serpentine, which seems to indicate that it belongs 
to a class of early Assyrian or neighboring cylinders which I have been inclined 
to regard as being earlier than 1000 B. C. It has the wide herring-bone border. 
The god is on one knee and shoots at the dragon with a bow. ‘The dragon’s tail 
is more that of a scorpion. ‘The condition of the cylinder is such that it is not pos- 
sible to make out the full details. ‘The seal is interesting as an indication of the 
early appearance of this design in Assyrian art, but with a winged, bird-headed god. 

LSS Se 
574 
A peculiar and very interesting cylinder is given in fig. 576. Here we find that 
the deity, usually figured as Marduk, is replaced by a composite figure with the 
lower body of a scorpion. On one of the kudurrus (fig. 1287, W.A.I., V, 57) isa 
scorpion-man shooting with a bow. He has been supposed to represent the Sagit- 
tarius of the sign of the Zodiac. This appears to show us what was the foe at which 
his arrow was directed. Unfortunately, it is not certain who was the god that takes 
the form of the scorpion-man. It is, of course, not the same as the simple scorpion, 
which represents the goddess Iskhara. And the scorpion Sagittarius can not be 
Marduk, since his emblem appears on the kudurrus. But just as Marduk, in his 
victory over Tiamat, supplanted earlier gods whose réle this was, so in later times, 
or in other regions, when the hegemony of Babylon had come to an end, the conquest 
may have been ascribed to other local deities. Another illustration of the confusion 

