366 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
heaped with viands, and also an ashera. It may be that in this case the table is 
waiting for him to eat, but it appears to be an offering to the gods. 
There is a fine example of worship with a table altar in the “Gates of Bala- 
wat,” B, 1, 2 (fig. 1257). Here is a lake, that of Van, into which two soldiers on an 
expedition are throwing portions of a slaughtered animal, as if to the water-gods, 





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and they are being devoured by the creatures of the deep. Then comes the bas- 
relief of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser II., beyond which are two standards, per- 
haps, which seem to rest on three legs and to be surmounted with a rosette. Next 
is a table altar, with a cloth over it, and next a column with a conical top, which 
resembles the ashera of Marduk. 
In Botta’s “Monuments,” plate 114 (repeated in part 
by Place, plate x1, 3) (fig. 1258), is the representation of a 
hill by ariver. At the foot of the hill is a temple with Ionic 
columns, and at the top of the hill, or “high place,” is an 
altar, in the battlemented form, so as to give horns to the 
altar. It is very different from the Assyrian altar. 
An unusual form of altar we have in fig. 1259, which 
/ TI may be Assyrian, but more probably comes from one of 
1258 the outlying regions. ‘The altar is of the shape of a round 
column with an enlarged base, with a large cup-like top to hold oil, or incense, 
here burning, and a still larger protuberance, or shelf, below the top. There is a 
seated deity, and the worshiper carries on the wrist the emblem of Belit-Ninkhar- 
shag, while behind are two-tall slender vases on a stand. Very nearly the same form 
we have in a kindred seal (fig. 1260), where the cup-shaped top is shown as well as 
the flames; and again in fig. 1261, where again there are flames from the altar. 
This last case is clearly of the Assyrian period. 
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The Persian fire-altar was of a peculiar sort, and we may presume that it was 
intended to keep the sacred fire from being extinguished. The best example of it is 
in fig. 1262. On a wide fluted stand rests a square receptacle for the fire, hollowed 
deep, with steps, and with fire at the bottom. Other more usual forms of altars 
are found in the art of the Persian period, but not necessarily indicating Persian 
worship. Such are seen in fig. 1263 and fig. 1264, but altars are not common on 
