EMBLEMS OF DEITIES. 395 
cites a coin of Mesembria on which the inscription is MEX“f. Yet another late 
form of the cross (b) appears on necklaces worn by the kings, as in Layard’s 
“Monuments,” plate 519, 82. 
3. The Crescent: ‘The crescent is evi- 
dently the emblem of the Moon-god, Sin. 
It appears in art earlier than the emblem of 
the sun, corresponding to the superior dig- 
nity, and perhaps earlier worship, of the 
moon in primitive Chaldea. On the kudur- 
rus and cylinders it constantly accompanies 
the emblems of the sun and Venus, form- 
ing with them the heavenly triad. In the 
earlier art the crescent was long and shal- 
low (a), but in the time of the Second - 
Empire it became even more than a half circle (). Somewhat fare the crescent 
is seen on the top of a column, as a sort of ashera, and, after the Assyrian style, 
with streamers from below it, as in fig. 1294 from a small lapis-lazuli cylinder. 
In fig. 1295 the Moon-god stands on a crescent, and we have also the ashera 
of Marduk. In this connection we may mention the triple circles occasionally 
appearing during the Middle Empire, which represent Sin as the god Thirty. 
4. The Sun in the Crescent: In the period of the Middle Empire of Baby- 
lonia it became usual to combine the sun of Shamash and the moon of Sin in a 
single emblem, owing to the contracted space on the smaller a of this 
period. In the still later and depraved 
art, the careless engravers often neg- 
lected to fill out properly the details in Ray 
the representation of the included sun. 
The symbol d, worn on a necklace by a inom: is elaee a pamineton of ih cres- 
cent with the cross, instead of with the circle, of Shamash. We have it on a cylinder, 
fig. 751, taking the place of the sun in the crescent. 
5. The Star of Ishtar: As the disk represented the sun 
and the crescent the moon, so the star, which so generally 
accompanied them, must have represented the goddess of the a b 
planet Venus, or Ishtar, and yet on certain earlier cylinders it may represent the 
sun. Such particularly may be the case in 4, which belongs to the earlier period. 
6. The Winged Disk: a, b, d, e, g, and 1 are Assyrian, while c and f are 
Persian. ‘The winged disk appears to have originated in Egypt, as the symbol of 
Ra, under his various forms as Amon or Horus. It appears there as early as the 
fifth dynasty (Sayce, “Religions,” pp. 76, 89). It probably does not appear in 
Assyrian art until after the invasion of the eighteenth dynasty, but may be earlier 
in Syria and Phenicia. In the very early art of Babylonia we have the winged gate 
(Chapter xvii) but not the winged circle. A study of the Egyptian history of this 
winged circle does not belong to the present investigation. The Count Goblet 
d’Alviella, in “The Migration of Symbols” (p. 214, English edition), who traces 
it back to the sixth dynasty, finds its elements in the circle of the sun, the urzeus 
Ww 
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