CHAPTER XLIII. 
CYLINDERS WITH HITTITE INSCRIPTIONS. 
Cylinder seals with Hittite inscriptions are extremely rare. Four of those 
that are known belong to the Metropolitan Museum at New York. One of these 
is shown in fig. 793. It is a large cylinder of rather soft black serpentine, the 
material and shape such as we find with the earlier Assyrian cylinders, and the 
entire space is occupied with five lines of Hittite inscriptions. They are apparently 
rather carelessly engraved, and the condition of 
the cylinder is not such as to make it easy to copy 
them. Nearly all we can make out of them is an 
occasional clearly Hittite character. I should pre- 
sume that the date goes back to a period before 
the invasions of the eighteenth dynasty. It is very 
unfortunate that this cylinder is so much battered. 
Another is a cylinder silver-plated on copper, 
shown in fig. 794. It will be remembered that 
silver seems to have been a favorite material with 
the Hittites. The famous bilingual boss of King 
Tarkondemus is in silver, and the treaty between 
the Hittite and the Egyptian king was engraved on silver. Here, between border 
lines, both at the top and bottom, is the guilloche. Between the two guilloches is 
seen the king, recognized as such by the winged disk over his head. He wears a 
long garment, and perhaps a low close cap, and shoes upturned at the toes, as do 
the other figures. One hand is lifted in worship to the god before him, and in the 
other he carries what has been called the priestly lituus, but which is more likely 
the conventional royal insignia in the shape of a serpent. Facing him, but separated 
from the king by two vertical lines of inscription of seven characters, is the god, 


794 
who is evidently Teshub-Adad. He wears his short garment and a close cap with 
a horn in front. One hand is lifted in benediction, and with the other he holds, over 
his shoulder, his triple-pronged thunderbolt. Following the king is an attendant, 
or soldier, in a long garment and a high-peaked hat, and holding what appears to 
be an ax. Other objects are a bird, a star, and a wedge. 
Another is a broken, dark chalcedony cylinder (fig. 795). It is not pierced, 
but has one end reduced to form a handle, which is broken off, and a part of the 
face has also been lost, but not enough to render the design at all uncertain. On 
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