CHAPTER LXxX. 
THE ANIMALS AND PLANTS FIGURED ON THE CYLINDERS. 
The Bison or Bison bonasus (Bos bonasus of the older nomenclature): This 
is the “bull” of the more archaic cylinders. It is still found wild in the Caucasus 
and is identical with the Lithuanian bison. The only other species is the Amer- 
ican bison, the Bison bison, which it much resembles. It is of the same size and 
shape, but it lacks the heavy, almost black, hair on the top of the head, which 
nearly conceals the horns in the American male. The Asiatic (and Lithuanian) 
bison is of a reddish brown or rufous tint, and the hair on the head is of the same 
length as that of the body. ‘The tail is rather shorter than in the domesticated 
cattle. The horns are short, rounded inward and slightly backward, quite different 
from the longer and more upright horns of the ancient aurochs, which 1s figured 
in the Cretan art. The horns are very accurately drawn on the cylinders in the 
earlier figures of Gilgamesh fighting the bison, which was properly regarded as a 
more formidable animal than the lion to meet in single combat. Accordingly 
Gilgamesh is represented as in fight with the bison, and Eabani with the lion. In 
the period immediately following the archaic, Gilgamesh fights the buffalo of the 
swamps, quite a different animal. The bison is an animal of the mountains and 
forests. The Babylonian name for the bison was rimu (Hebrew re’em). The 
archaic sign for alpu, ox, was Sw and that for rzmu was eva in which the 
three inclosed wedges are the sign for mountain, so that the meaning was the bull 
of the mountains, a proper definition of the rimu or bison. 
The bison may also be included in the meaning of the Babylonian buru 
(Hebrew bér), which was connected with the moon-god Sin, probably because of 
his horns, which are moon-like. Sin is described in a hymn to Nannar (Moon) 
as “the mighty buru, whose horns are strong” (W.A.I., tv, plate 9). That the 
“rimu of the mountains” is the Bison bonasus follows from the fact that the only 
other possible bull, the aurochs, or Bos primigentus, perhaps did not exist in Elam 
and does not seem to be clearly figured in the wild state. (See next page, “The 
Domestic Cattle.”) It has very much larger spreading horns, quite unlike those 
of the bison, which may be, says Lydekker, 38 inches long. The horns on the 
archaic cylinders are always short and round, whether on the head of the bull with 
which Gilgamesh is fighting, or on the head of the man-bull Eabani and the human- 
headed bull. The hairy body, so unlike that of the buffalo, is often shown as in 
fig. 182. The bison was not a native of the lowlands of Babylonia, where the 
buffalo wallowed in the swamps, but only of the highlands and forests of Elam. 
Many illustrations of the bison are to be seen in Chapters vi and x. 
The Buffalo or Bos bubalus: This is the native water-buffalo of the swamps 
of southern Babylonia, which prevails on the cylinders of the time of Sargon I. 
and his successors. It is an almost hairless black beast of enormous size, six 
feet high at the shoulders, and with immense ridged or crinkled horns, which 
fall back over the shoulders. In its wild state it is now extinct in this its native 
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