SEATED ASSYRIAN DEITIES. 243 
shiper does not hold a fan above the stand. But we notice behind him, next to the 
small tree, the Egyptian emblem of the scepter, which would suggest that the cylinder 
is not earlier than 1500 B.C. Such an Egyptian emblem is unusual and unexpected. 
But in the large majority of cases the deity represented on these seals is beard- 
less and presumably a goddess. Especially is this true of the later cylinders with 
the seated deity. An extreme illustration, which seems to show Hittite influence, 
appears in fig. 732. Although more probably Hittite, or Mitannian, or otherwise 
foreign, rather than Assyrian, it is given here as showing the probable foreign source 
of the type. It is a fair question whether the seated deity, closely clothed, is male 
or female, although the probabilities favor the goddess. None of the figures is 
bearded, not even the small one shooting an ibex. The goddess, if we may call 



‘733 
her so, wears a sort of helmet and holds in one hand a club. With the other hand 
she holds a reed through which she drinks from the vase on a stand before her. 
A female attendant, with garment drawn aside to expose her nudity, after a style 
we shall observe on the Hittite seals, holds in one hand a fan and in the other a 
slender vase. A worshiper leads an animal as victim; another, on his knee, 
shoots at an ibex. Below them a griffin attacks an ibex. In the field are the sun 
in the crescent, a star, and three rosettes. We observe the border lines. “The whole 
design, though much freer in composition than is usual on Hittite seals, as well as 
larger, yet shows abundant Hittite influence, not only in the nudity of the attend- 
ant, but in the two registers of half the seal and the appearance of the griffin. 
The representation of the deity as drinking is what we have found to be not infre- 
quent in the most archaic Babylonian cylinders, and we shall again find it here in 
those from the Assyrian region. 
