ASSYRIAN CYLINDERS: BEL AND THE DRAGON. OAT 
In the Sassanian period of Persia we have a very interesting illustration of the 
same thought of the conflict between the powers of light and darkness, order and 
chaos, the demiurge and Satan, in fig. 641. Here the dragon is again a serpent, 
as in Egypt, the two figures 578, 579, and in the Genesis story of the temptation 
of Adam. The god on horseback, like Saint George, pierces 
the seven-headed serpent with his spear. The foe of the gods 
was a serpent in the Avestan literature. Azi-dahaka was 
“three-mouthed, three-headed, six-eyed, who has a thousand 
senses, that most powerful, fiendish drug.” (“Sacred Books 
of the East,” Zend-Avesta, 11, p. 294.) And there was “the || 




snake Srvara, the horse-devouring, men-devouring, yellow, 639 
poisonous snake, over which yellow poison flowed a thumb’s breadth thick” (zb., p. 
295). With this should be compared a round seal with a god on horseback spear- 
ing a one-headed serpent figured by Levy, “Siegel und Gemmen,” Tafel 1, a, on 
which Mordtmann recognizes three probably Pahlavi, and Levy Sabean, characters. 





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——] 
We may here, though very doubtfully, consider a very few cylinders in which 
a god, or two gods, may'attack what seems to be a giant figure, partially or wholly 
human, that has been forced upon his knees. In fig. 642, a cylinder which seems 
to be of an early period and from the region about Assyria, the giant, if we may 
call him so, has fallen on one knee and rests his hands unresistingly on his hips. 
He is clad in a close garment about his body. He wears a crown of feathers, with 
two strange feathered curls on each side of his head, which is in front view. On 
each side he is attacked by a god (but very likely meant only for a single god treated 
symmetrically) with quivers from his shoulders, as Adad is represented with Ishtar. 
One of the gods smites with an ax and the other with a sword. There is a worshiper 
and also a small tree. With this is to be compared fig. 643, where the gigantic mon- 
ster has great clawed feet and his head has a single curl on each side. He 1s attacked 
by a god, presumably, with a sickle weapon and with curious spurs to his feet, who 
looks backward towards a fish. In this case the radiations from the head and the 
lack of beard on the monster, together with the sickle-shaped scimitar, naturally 
suggest that this is an early form of Perseus killing the Gorgon. But it is not likely 
