206 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
due to the memory that Tiamat was feminine. It is quite as likely that in following 
the Egyptian form the Assyrians retained its usual convention. ‘The Greeks natu- 
rally assumed that the beardless sphinx was feminine. 

, 605 3 606 
Yet occasionally the vagary of the artist led him to give the sphinx a beard. 
Such would naturally be the case when it was developed from a bull, as in fig. 605, 
where the bull’s horn is retained in a way to suggest the unicorn. Here we have 
Ashur’s winged disk over the sacred tree. Also in fig. 606 the sphinxes seem to be 


nude, though the wings of the god and his peculiar dress show that this is not a purely 
Assyrian seal, and the little dogs suggest the same thing. But in a large and vigor- 
ous design shown in fig. 607 it is clear that the sphinx is bearded, while the god 
carries the weapon of Marduk. To be sure, he has his foot on the bull of Adad, 
which again illustrates the confusion of the mythology of this late period. 
