SYRO-HITTITE CYLINDERS: BABYLONIAN TYPES. 279 
In Chapter xxix attention will be called to an apparently feminine seated 
deity, who is to be compared with the Ma, or Rhea, who, we know, was wor- 
shiped in later times. In the following cases we have such a seated goddess, 
but the style is frankly Babylonian, while there are other indications that they 
were engraved in a more northern region. In fig. 850 we have the “libra” in 
front of the goddess, and there is a dove as well as a lion over the crossed ibexes. 
Another example of this seated goddess is shown in fig. 851, where the seated apes 
(with short tails) before the goddess show Egyptian influence. 
Occasionally the goddess in whom we have seemed to recognize Zirbanit 
appears, as in fig. 852, with Ramman-Martu. Here, as in the later and western 
art, the breasts and navel are carefully drawn, which is not to be expected in the 
genuinely Babylonian art. The Hittite character appears in the remaining three 
registers, where over the guilloche are to be seen a sphinx, a kneeling figure holding 
a column, another holding a fish by a string, and under the guilloche two winged 
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dragons and an ibex suckling its young. Unfortunately, the heads in the upper regis- 
ters are worn. ‘The peculiar figures seem to be presenting offerings to the gods. We 
have an attractive cylinder in 853, where a goddess, probably, is faced by a worshiper 
carrying a handsome vase by the handle. Aa-Shala faces Adad, and other objects 
are the sun in crescent, a monkey, a bird, an ibex, a griffin, and perhaps a jackal. 
It is by no means to be assumed that cylinders with a predominant Babylonian 
influence prove always an earlier period of use. While from very early times, 
probably as ancient as Sargon the Elder, cylinders began to come into use as far 
west as the Syrian coast, and even in Cyprus, they would also, even to a late period, 
and after the Egyptian invasions, be still closely affected by the Babylonian control, 
and many individuals would worship the Babylonian gods. But it is remarkable 
that we see so little of what we may distinguish as Assyrian influence. In a more 
general study of the Syro-Hittite art we would have to include the great number 
of more purely native seals, not cylinders, but of various shapes, made usually of soft 
serpentine and rudely engraved, and which seem to have been in use coexistently 
with the cylinders from a very early period. But that would open a wide field not 
yet properly investigated. Several of the finer ones, in hematite, we have considered 
in Chapter XLII. 
