214 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
and others than Gilgamesh might have his head and curls. It has been more than 
once suggested that the two streams which in the case of the Sargon seal, as usually, 
fall from the vase, represent the two rivers ‘Tigris and Euphrates; but it is more 
likely that the controlling principle of symmetry explains the two streams. For a 
number of other illustrations see the chapter devoted to “Gilgamesh with the 
Spouting Vase.” 
The design of the spouting vase is not found on the archaic cylinders which 
antedate the time of the Elder Sargon, unless an exception be made for fig. 102. 
This interesting seal shows a boat in a swamp of reeds frequented by wild boars. 
It is propelled by two boatmen, with poles, and between them stands a god in a 
horned hat, with two streams from his shoulders, and perhaps rays also. On each 
side are fish. ‘There is no vase visible and the streams are not waving, but they 
can hardly be anything but streams. This may be the Sun-god in his boat, or per- 
haps Ea in his native element. This design became quite frequent after this time. 
A very interesting old example, probably not much later than Sargon, is shown in 
fig. 648. The god is set in a recess surrounded by waters, and a stream of water 
falls from his body on each side. On either side, as an attendant, with a mace as 

648 649 
a badge of office, stands the figure of Gilgamesh. He often appears in this form and 
evidently represents not a principal god, but a subordinate divinity, like the two 
porters who stand by the gates of the Sun-god Shamash. M. Heuzey makes the 
brilliant suggestion that this sort of mace held by the Gilgamesh and Eabani figures 
is the door-post of a wattled gate, such as is seen in fig. 205 and elsewhere, 
so that this is really an attendant porter. We can conceive him to be, in the 
Sargon cylinder, the assistant or intermediary of Shamash in providing water; 
but there is every appearance that in fig. 648 the god in the recess is Ea, and 
not the Babylonian Noah, as George Smith suggested. 
For the seal shown in fig. 649 we are indebted to M. Heuzey, who has copied 
it from an “empreinte.”’ It is evidently taken from a cylinder of about the Gudea 
period. A standing deity, in a long flounced garment, stands on a goat-fish and a 
man-fish. In each of his hands he holds a spouting vase. From one of them the 
single stream falls into a vase held in the hands of the man-fish, while from the other 
two streams gush and fall into a vase on the head of the goat-fish. By the latter 
stream stands Gilgamesh holding a vase, which it might be supposed he was filling 
from the stream, unless the drawing from an imperfect impression has failed to 
show that there is a stream from the vase held by Gilgamesh. On each side of the 
head of the god the figures of the goat-fish and the man-fish are repeated. 
The meaning of this design is clear, and there can be little doubt that Heuzey 
is right in recognizing Ea. It can not be Shamash, as Shamash is figured on the 
