ANIMALS AND PLANTS FIGURED ON THE CYLINDERS. 415 
home, but it, or a near congener, is still wild in the swamps of Nepaul and as far 
east as the island of Formosa. It is the ordinary domesticated cattle of the rice- 
fields in southern Babylonia, India, China, and the Philippines, and is to be seen 
even in Italy. It is perfectly evident from the early Babylonian art that it was as 
indigenous to the Euphrates valley as to India, although India is generally spoken 
of as its original seat and writers discuss as to the time when it was brought from 
India to Egypt, where it appears on the monuments. But there is no reason why 
the Bos bubalus should not have been indigenous also in the Nile valley. Indeed, 
Dr. J. Ulrich Duerst, in an article on “Prehistoric Bovide,” in L’ Anthropologie, 
1900, pp. 129-158, declares that the buffalo which is represented on Algerian 
rock-carvings is identical with that on Chaldean seals. The wild buffalo must 
have been the most formidable animal known to the early Babylonians, even more 
so than the bison and much more so than the lion. It is not clear what was the 
Babylonian distinctive term for the buffalo. It may have been included under 
the term for alpu, or even buru, although alpu was applied to the domesticated 
humped ox. 
The Aurochs (Bos primigenius) has been extinct for more than a century. 
While we have no evidence of its former prevalence in Elam, and it can not have 
lived in Babylonia, it was familiar to the north and throughout Europe. It appears 
to be found in the later cylinders from Asia or Syria. It is to be recognized by its 
long and raised spreading horns, very different from those of the Bos bubalus or 
the Bison bonasus. Our common domestic cattle are supposed to have come from 
the aurochs. Illustrations of the Bos primigenius are to be seen in figs. 484, 1220. 
In fig. 1060 a bull, apparently of this species, is drawing a chariot of war. 
The Domestic Cattle: Rarely a cylinder of much antiquity shows a purely 
agricultural scene, plowing with oxen. Examples are to be seen in figs. 369, 371, 
372. In these cases there are indications that the cylinders are not from lower 
Babylonia, but from some other region. The oxen attached to the plow are dis- 
tinctly not the bison nor the buffalo, but they have long upright and bent horns, 
and are doubtless the usual domesticated breed which appears early in Egypt and 
was domesticated from a very early prehistoric period, and widely disseminated. 
It doubtless originated in the aurochs, Bos primigentus, now extinct. It may be 
noticed that the copper head of a bull hgured by Heuzey in de Sarzec’s “ Décou- 
vertes,”’ plate 5 ter, figs. 2a, 2b (Heuzey, * aCateAnta Chaldeuepagi0.te0t05),chas 
horns of the type Bos primigenius, yet it very likely was not : work of Chaldean 
art, but was imported from abroad. ‘The bull tied apparently for sacrifice and 
cane onjts backyinud.. 4 ter, he» lt (ieuzey,, Gat. Ant. Chald)¥ p.105, fig. F1) 
may be a wild bison; it is not clear that it is a domesticated ox. It is possible that 
it is the domesticated ox that is represented in such scenes as figs. 370, 373, 1098, 
or even that it is the same which is seen in the designs where a bull is under the 
winged gate (Chapter xvii), as the horns appear more like those of the Bos primi- 
genius than of the Bison bonasus, and it differs in the shape of the body as well. 
Nor is it clear what is the species of bull or bison on which a warrior rides in fig. 
137) (as later one would ride a war-horse) and tramples over a fallen foe. ‘This 
seems to show that the bull was used for riding as now in Africa. In fig. 1098 we 
have the cow suckling her calf. . In fig. 1252, from a bas-relief, we have a unique 
case of sacrifice. 
