426 SEAL CYLINDERS OF WESTERN ASIA. 
vernal equinox. Here are not only mountains, but there appears to be the concep- 
tion of the nature of the clouds that hover over them, and which are driven away 
by the sun. This is a conception that could not have originated in Babylonia. 
Further evidence comes to us from the plant life and animal life represented 
in the earliest art. Babylonia was a land of swamp and lowlands, not of forests. 
It had thickets, but no tall trees except the palm, as far as we know. ‘The thickets 
were overgrown with willows, tamarisks, and other low shrubs, but no high trees 
except the cultivated date-palm. ‘The swamps were thick with reeds, but still no 
trees. On the somewhat higher alluvial levels, not covered with water and reeds, 
the sun beat down in the long summers, and only those plants could grow that might 
resist the drought, the licorice and leafless vegetation, just as cactuses grow on 
our western deserts. It required irrigation to make this soil fertile. The reeds 
that were most characteristic, before the date-palm was introduced, probably from 
Africa, are often represented on the bas-reliefs, which show later royal conquests 
and are also seen on the cylinders, as in figs. 102, 159, 162, 181. 
But we also find, in the earlier cylinders, a high tree that appears to be a cypress 
or cedar—such a tree as we are told the early kings brought from distant mountains 
for the construction of their temples. Such we see in figs. 46, 50, 200, 217, 296, 
317. With such trees, which grow on mountains, and are in figs. 46, 177, 200 set on 
a mountain, their gods were connected. Such trees could not have been found in 
the valley system of the two great rivers. To be sure we know that as early as the 
time of Gudea timber of such trees was brought by commerce by great rulers, and 
so the trees were known, but their design would naturally have been produced 
originally in a land where they grew and were familiar; and further, the cylinders 
on which these cypresses are drawn are of an older period than Gudea. 
But we could not expect much evidence from plant life. That from animal 
life is more abundant and would seem to be almost, if not quite, conclusive. 
The animals of the mountains and forest are generally different from those of 
the swamp and the river-bottom. Chief among the animals of the river-bottom 
and neighboring thickets are the lion and the water-buffalo. The lion extends into 
the lower forests, but hardly on the higher mountains. The water-buffalo, Bos 
bubalus, is found only in regions where he can wallow in the water. He is an 
immense black, almost hairless animal, with marked and notable horns, that lie back 
over his shoulders. In art he is perfectly distinct and is often represented on the 
cylinders of an early period, as he is the beast attacked by Gilgamesh while Eabani 
attacks a lion. This water-buffalo is shown in figs. 26, 161, 163, 167, and the cylinders 
on which he appears are older than Gudea, and go back to the time of Sargon L., 
whose age is variously estimated from 3000 to 3800 B.C. 
The bull of the mountains and forests is a very different animal. It is the 
Bison bonasus, a near relative to the American bison. It is also a very powerful 
animal with thick red hair and short round horns, not spreading and bent back, 
but rising moon-like from the head. It is still found wild in the Caucasus, but is 
a different animal from the true aurochs, now extinct, which may also have been 
native to this region. It is impossible to confuse this bull bison of the forests with 
the water-buffalo of the swamps, although it might be confounded with the longer- 
horned aurochs. Now this highland bison is the only bull, with the possible excep- 
tion of the aurochs, which appears occasionally in later cylinders, depicted on the 
