The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

110 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

called into existence; they were abortive attempts at creation,
composed of limbs which matched not together,“men with the
body of birds, or the faces of ravens.”
This brood of chaos were the demons who were the enemies
[119] of Bel-Merodach and his followers. In order to oppose
them successfully, it was needful that there should be similarly
composite creatures, who, instead of being on the side of evil,
were under the orders of the gods. By the side of the evil demon,
therefore, there was the“good cherub,”who protected the pious
Babylonian, and barred the way to the spirits of wickedness. The
winged bull with his human head defended the approach to a
temple or house; men with the bodies of scorpions guarded the
gateways of the sun.
This curious similarity in the functions assigned to the images
of composite animals both in Egypt and Babylonia, raises the
presumption that the composite forms themselves were ultimately
derived from a Babylonian source. That such was the case we
now have proof.
On the slate plaques and mace-heads of Nekhen and Abydos
we find composite forms similar to those of Babylonia. What
afterwards became the Hathor-headed column appears as a human
face with a cow's ears and horns. Below are two monsters with
a dog's body and a lion's head, whose intertwined necks are
snakes. What makes the latter representation the more interesting
is, that M. Heuzey has pointed out exactly the same figures
on an early Babylonian seal now in the Louvre.^80 Like the
seal-cylinder, therefore, which distinguishes the early period of
Egyptian history, the composite monsters of which the sphinx
and the symbol of Set were surviving examples indicate direct
communication with Chaldæa.

(^80) Rev. Archéologique, xxxiv. p. 291. On the seal-cylinder they are
accompanied by the lion-headed eagle of primitive Babylonian art. The
Egyptian figures are given in theZeitschrift für Aegyptische Sprache, xxxvi.
pl. xii.