512 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
Yet another illustration appears in fig. 977, where there is a certain suspicion 
that the deity is bearded. There also sits a monkey-like figure in the chariot, and 
the two attendants walk behind. Again, in fig. 979 before the chariot are heads, 
birds, and fishes. 
In the cases given it is by no means sure that the deity is a goddess who rides 
in state. We may possibly have here the more Greek conception of the sun-god 
driving his chariot through the heavens, as, indeed, they are interpreted by Robert 
Brown, Jr., in The Academy, Nov. 7, 1896, who sees here Auriga, and yet I am 
more inclined to see here an Oriental thought of a goddess in a chariot. In the 
Babylonian mythology the Sun-god rather rode over the sky or across the under 
waters in a boat. We seem to have some relation to the figures in our seals in the 
worship of Anaitis, as we find it described in the Zend-Avesta. We read (“Sacred 
Books of the East,” 111, vol. 2, pp. 56, 57, American Edition): 
11. Who drives forward in her chariot, holding the reins of the chariot. She goes driving, on 
this chariot, longing for men—to worship her—and thinking thus in her heart: ‘* Who will praise me? 
Who will offer me the sacrifice, with libations clearly prepared and well strained, together with the Haoma 
and Meat ?’’ 
Whom four horses carry, all white, of one and the same color, of the same blood, tall, crushing 
down the hates of all haters, of the Devas and men, of the Yatus and Pairikas, of the oppressors of the 
blind and the deaf. 
The description is accurate, and it may well be that this, from the Aban Yast, 
was derived from just such a figure of the goddess as we see on these cylinders. 
The Persian Anaitis (Anahita) was identified in the West with the Ephesian Artemis 
and the Phenician Astarte. If we could only know where cylinders with this design 
and those with the bull-altar are more generally found, we could more hopefully 
assure ourselves whether we have here an Anaitis from east of the Tigris or a west- 
ern Astarte. One cylinder with the bull altar I obtained at Arbela, but I think 
that was the eastern extreme of its prevalence. 












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I have said that the two-wheeled chariot was used for war. There are several 
cylinders which seem to be related in style to those above described, and which 
give us a deity, or a hero, in battle. The similarity is in the attendants with their 
marching attitude. One such is given in fig. 980. ‘The two-wheeled chariot is 
drawn by two horses; and the long-skirted beardless driver, apparently feminine, 
leans forward, holding the reins with one hand, and with the other brandishes a 
whip. Above the horses is a scorpion and below them a dove, both emblems of 
a feminine deity. Behind the chariot are two soldiers carrying one a spear and the 
