396 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
serpents, the wings of the sparrow-hawk, and the horns of the goat. The Egyptian 
winged disk is seenin h. Here, on each side of the disk, are the two wings of the 
sparrow-hawk; depending from the disk on each side are the two urzi; and reach- 
ing out above the wings on each side are the horns of the goat, all of which 
are symbols of the sun. 
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With the native Egyptians who came as rulers into Syria and Phenicia was 
doubtless brought the pure Egyptian winged disk; but as it entered into the art 
of the country, and passed eastward into Assyria and Persia, it was greatly modi- 
fied. It kept the disk as the predominant and essential emblem of the sun, but it 
lost the urzeus serpents and the goat’s horns. The wings were retained and to 
them was added. a tail, which was absent in the Egyptian symbol. There was 
also added, at times, a long streamer on each side, like a cord or ribband, which 
might end in a tassel or handle, and which was meant to be grasped by the wor- 
shiper, as if to give him tactual connection with the supreme deity. Abundant 
illustrations of the winged disk as it appears on the cylinders have been shown on 
the Assyrian, Syro-Hittite, Persian, and other cylinders. ‘The variations of form 
are countless. 
It is a question which is open to doubt whether the winged disk, as it is here 
seen, is wholly derived from the Egyptian solar disk, or whether it may not also 
have derived part of its origin from the Egyptian hawk, or more often vulture, 
which is often seen in a protecting attitude over the king on Egyptian and Pheni- 
cian art with wings extended or one depressed. ‘The fact that it is more ornitho- 
morphic than the Egyptian disk, in that it has the tail, makes this possible. Indeed, 
at times it has the wings depressed in Phenician art, as shown in the remarkable 
cup of Przeneste seen in fig. 1296. Here we have a series of pictures, an epic of a 
hunt and a combat. In the first scene the hunter, in his chariot with his charioteer, 
drives out from his castle; in the next scene he discovers, shoots, and kills a deer, 
and hangs up and flays its carcass. He then sits down to eat his venison and offer 
a sacrifice to his god, whose symbol of protection in the shape of the winged disk 
is over his head. But from the entrance of a cave in a near hill is seen the head of 
a watching troglodyte who, as the hunter leaves in his chariot for the next scene, 
follows him with a stone. But the god is his protector, as is symbolized by the 
chariot and its riders drawn up to heaven and encircled under the wings of the 
