PERSIAN CYLINDERS: MYTHOLOGICAL AND HERALDIC. oon 
1109 the same two lions reversed, while underneath are two running sphinxes, and 
opposite on the seal is the winged disk over a palm-tree. Similar is fig. 1111, except 
that the winged disk is over the hero and the tree is very simple. In fig. 1110 there 
are the two lions held reversed, and a sphinx apparently looking on with favor. 
Instead of a lion, the hero may attack a bull, as in fig. 1112, where a human- 
headed scorpion is the spectator. But the fight with the wingless bull is not as 
frequent as with the lion. Occasionally it is the ibex whom the hero attacks, as in 
fig. 1113, where one is seized with each hand and a scorpion-man watches over the 
contest. In fig. 1114 a god like Bes hugs two antelopes to him, while under the 
winged disk are two composite “ dragons.”’ 

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But more frequently the contest is with winged lions or bulls, or composite 
animals. In fig. 1115 two winged bulls are the object of attack and there is an inter- 
esting plant growing from a stand. A similar example will be found in Lajard’s 
“Culte de Mithra,” plate xv, fig. 3. More elaborate is fig. 1118, where the god 
stands on two sphinxes and the space is filled by a small seated archer and a curi- 
ous design of crescents and hanging branches. 
The sphinx is a favorite object. It is the lion-bodied sphinx which we see in 
fig. 1117 and in fig. 1116. In the latter case the hero has not the usual Persian 
trousers; but we shall find other cases, as in fig. 1130. We have in fig. 1119 a 
sphinx with the body of a bull and a peculiar horn or cap, with the additional 
figures of a worshiper before an altar and a god. Above the altar is a cock, which 
never appears in the earlier Babylonian art. It is to be noticed that, besides the 
vase in one hand, the god holds a flower in the other, very much like some of the 
late Assyrian figures seen in figs. 688, 696. This can hardly be anything else than 
the baresma of the Zend-Avesta, carried in the hand by gods and priests in service. 
In fig. 1120 the sphinx has the body of a bull and wears the crown, an ibex turns 
its head to look from the other side of a palm-tree, and we see a crescent and the 
flower observed in fig. 1114. A remarkable variation we have in fig. 1121, where 
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