Sealing

CBS Register: Oblong tablet bearing only a small but perfect seal. The scene on this seal is unusual. In the background the sun god.

PBS XIV: The triumph of a warrior god and of Ishtar over her enemy. The god steps over mountains like Shamash, but his arms are different. He has one axe in the left, and in the right the shaft of a colossal caduceus, a club with two curved blades terminating in lions’ heads on either side of the round head. This is the emblem of the god Ninib. His shawl is not open in front to allow a free action of the bare leg, but is rather a loin cloth, closing behind like the old Sumerian skirt. Chest and arms are bare. He has the horned mitre, a beard, and his hair tied in a loop behind. The mount below his foot is rather a stage tower symbol of his residence and temple.

Ishtar stands in front face with weapons on her shoulders, and locks on either side, a horned mitre, a flounced robe covering both shoulders, in the very attitude of the war goddess Innana leading prisoners until Anubanini, king of the Lulubi, on the rock reliefs of the Zagros. With the help of a divine attendant she seizes her enemy at body and arm. The prisoner has a horned mitre, a beard, his hair tied in a loop, a plaited shawl girded about his middle, and a curved club, with projecting blade terminating in a lion’s head. He is certainly a war god. And this is perhaps an episode of the triumph of Ishtar over the god of Hades. The attendant who arrests the god and pulls down his mitre, wears a flounced shawl girded about his middle and opening in front, and a strange headdress with staghorns (?).

Seal impress. on a clay label.