CHAPTER LV. 
MISCELLANEOUS SYRO-HITTITE CYLINDERS. 
In the Syro-Hittite class of cylinders must be put a number quite eclectic and 
curious, which combine Egyptian, Hittite, and Babylonian characteristics and are 
therefore, perhaps, as nearly pure Syrian as anything we can choose. They are 
well cut, largely with the wheel. One of these is seen in fig. 997. On each side of 
the Assyrian tree of life, below, is a couchant ibex, and on each side above is a griffin. 
A Hittite goddess in a chair carries the Hittite ax, but has a headdress of horns, 
and a vase which suggests Egyptian influence. Before her a short-skirted figure, 
with a bull’s head and uptilted Hittite shoes, presents a lion to the goddess, holding 
it by the head and tail, while the goddess grasps its leg. Above, in the field, are a 
fish and a rosette, and between them what may be a weapon. Another to be con- 
sidered is fig. 1000. Here, with a sacred tree, are three bizarre two-headed figures 

1000 1001 
which lift, between them, a lion and an ibex. The three figures are all flounced, 
and the middle one has the heads of bulls, while the heads of the others may be 
supposed to be human, perhaps. There is a bull’s head, also rosettes, etc. One 
that may be quite early, and is at least very rudely scratched on magnetic iron, is 
given in fig. 999. Before a seated beardless deity holding a vase stand one small 
and one full-length figure. There are a sphinx and various birds and animals, also 
the crux ansata; and, in place of the rope-pattern guilloche, there is an unusual 
returning spiral. One notices both the sun in the crescent and a star in a crescent 
by the head of the seated deity. While peculiar, the composition hardly looks like 
a forgery. Of a somewhat later period is fig. 998, engraved with the terebra. 
There are three Assyrian figures, of whom one may be Marduk. ‘There are various 
animals, but peculiar are the wheel, nearly or quite unique, and the hand. 
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