SABEAN INSCRIPTIONS. 353 
goddess with quivers from her shoulders, corresponding to the Assyrian repre- 
sentations of Ishtar, and each side of her, as if seizing her hand or in some way 
supporting her, is a winged male figure of a subsidiary deity, such as we so fre- 
quently find in the Assyrian art about a sacred tree, but which we do not expect 
to see ranged about a goddess. The relation is more like that which we see between 
winged figures and the winged disk. The other objects are the star, the crescent, 
and such a plant as is not rarely seen more developed. Hommel puts the date of 
this seal as from 1000 to 500 B.C. I should incline to the later date. Hommel 
calls attention to the feathered headdress worn by the three figures, as also to the 
same kind of a headdress worn by the rider on the camel in fig. 1080. We do not 
know that such a headdress is peculiar to Arabia. Indeed, it was common to the 
region east of Babylonia. 


1210 
Fig. 1211, a small carnelian cylinder, has three long-skirted, bearded per- 
sonages, of whom two appear to be in adoration before a third, who may repre- 
sent the deity or perhaps a king. Before him is an inscription of five Sabean letters, 
above which is a rude winged disk. The inscription perhaps reads w3778 or woop. 
Apart from its inscription, there is nothing characteristic about the seal which 
would indicate the land of its provenance. 
Very peculiar is the cylinder to be seen in fig. 1212. It shows a beardless 
figure, with two profile heads facing in the same direction, with wings rising from 
the shoulders, in a long belted and embroidered garment, which seizes with one 
hand an ibex by the beard and with the other a lion. Next is a similar figure, except 
that instead of human heads it has two antelope or goat heads. It seizes the lion 
by the tail with one hand and with the other grasps by the hand, which also holds 
a sword, the hand of a composite figure, the 
lower part of which is a lion and the upper 
part that of a beardless human figure in a high 
conical hat and with a queue falling down 
behind. Next is a third figure with the same 
garments as the other two, but having two 
birds’ heads and carrying in the arms two 
lions. ‘They are not, as might at first be sup- 
posed from the way they are carried, goats for sacrifice. Besides these figures there 
is one emblem, that which has been called the libra. There are also what appear 
to be three Sabean characters, although it is not easy to identify them. They 
would appear to represent a more complicated and earlier form of the letters. The 
design I should imagine to be Syrian and to be connected in style with such cylin- 
ders as we have seen in figs. 951-956a, where we find some double-headed figures. 
Were we here engaged in a study of the Sabean remains we might add to these 
cylinders, which are all | remember to have seen, a number of inscriptions on scara- 
boids, etc. But that belongs to other students. I would gather from the scanty 
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