404 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
aram. We may suspect that in de Morgan’s kudurru No. 4 the broad spear-head 
with a very broad shaft, to the right of the upper register, as drawn (really on an 
angle of the stone), represents this club, and not Marduk, as 
Marduk and Nebo, represented by their fantastic animals, 
are together on the lower register. On de Morgan’s kudurru 
No. 5 there is a column near the bottom, perhaps an altar 
not found elsewhere, which may be considered in this 
connection. In figs. 1289, 1290, we have a definite club. 
Shugamuna was the head of the Kassite pantheon, and takes the fein ake of 
Marduk, who was the principal god under Hammurabi. It is then somewhat sur- 
prising that his emblem is usually the mere club, although once it seems to appear 
with the divine throne and a ram. Even so it has not the position of honor of 
Ashur in the Assyrian art. He was, in the religious schools, identified with Nergal 
of Cutha, but the deities were really distinct. 
18. The Coiffure and Knife of Ninkharshag (Nin-Karrak, Nin-makh), Lady 
of the Mountains, Ninnit: ‘This emblem is found as a full female head with 
the hair, and in two other forms, one representing the coiffure or wig of the god- 
dess, and the other the same object upside down. As a symbol it was probably 
derived from the hair of the Egyptian Hathor (e) and reached Babylonia probably 
by way of the Hittites, perhaps after the conquest of Syria by the Egyptians in the 
eighteenth dynasty. It was one of the characters in the Hittite syllabary. 
The indication that this sign represents Ninkharshag, or Belit, is found in 
the text accompanying the kudurrus, for example, of Melisihu (fig. 1286), where, 
in the maledictions against any one who should violate the grave, we read (Scheil 
in “ Délégation en Perse,” 11, p. 108): ‘“‘May Anu, Bel, Ea, and Nin-khar-sagga, 
the great gods whose will is irresistible, observe him with angry countenance! 
May they curse him with destructive, implacable maledictions!’’ Here four deities 
are mentioned as of the first rank, the first to pronounce their curse. The first 
deities to be represented on the upper register after sun, moon, and star, always 
on the top of the stone, are Anu, Bel, and Ea, followed by this emblem we are 
considering, and which we may therefore, with much probability, presume to be 
Ninkharshag. We have here the divine throne, on it a knife shaped like one of 
the characters in the Hittite syllabary, and over it this coiffure of the goddess, in 
this case reversed. The meaning of the knife is not at all clear, except as it is a 
weapon for offense and punishment. 


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The representation of the goddess Hathor by her hair was most appropriate, 
as that was her distinguishing feature, and it was precisely in the form of this em- 
blem, as shown in e. Such an Egyptian goddess would be naturally assimilated 
with Belit-Ninkharshag. It would not be strange if the constellation Coma 
Berenices (also said to be the hair of Ariadne) were originally the emblem of Belit; 
or perhaps she is represented in Lyra, which is quite as much in the shape of this 
