June3] SOCIETYOF BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY. [189a
wings,and otherswithfour,of whom delineationswerepreserved
in the temple of Bel at Babylon. Lookingat the Assyrian figures
themselves,it seems a possible conjecturethattheymayalwayshave
beenimaginedas having fourwingsevenwhentwo onlyare shown,
for these are ill-matched as a pair, while divine figures otherwise
similarare represented eitherwith two or four wings. It is not
reasonablehoweverto criticize too closely the anatomical adaptation
of the Assyrian wings,whichmaybe taken as symbols in a religious
picture-writing, indicatingthat the divine beingswhowear them
can freely traverse space. As has been well pointedout by I.ang-
behn,theyneverfly.* It is interesting to notice withreferenceto
the conventional adaptation of these symbolic wings, that the
Assyrianhuman-bodiedwingedfiguresfollowthe analogy not of the
Egyptianhuman-bodiedwingedfigures,but of the winged monster-
animals. In Plate II, fig. 13, the Egyptian goddess Nephthysis
seen to be constructed on a comparatively naturalplan, the bird-
featheredwingsbeingattachedbelowthe arms and movedby them,
in remarkable contrastto the Assyrian figures,in which all scruples
as to anatomical possibilityare set at nought.
TheAssyrianquasi-humanwinged figures,whetherman-headed
or bird-headed, two-wingedor four-winged, in standing or walking
attitudeon the walls of royal or sacred buildings,are in frequent
appositionwiththe so-called "sacred tree" or "tree of life," of
whicha typical formis shown in Plate I, fig. 1 (see alsofigs 14, 15,
19 and 20). That these tree-figures representdate-palms is now
recognized. An early remarkto this effect is by Prof. G. Rawlinson:
" I suspect thatthe so-called ' flower' was in reality a representation
of the head of a palm-tree, withthe form of which, as portrayed on
the earliest sculptures (Layard, 'Mon.,'pi. 53), it nearly agrees."t
I insert here(PlateII, fig. n) a copy of the representation of the
headof a date-palm in Assyrian landscape, scarcelylessconven
tionalized thanin the " sacred tree," whichmayprobablystandfor
a group or grove of palms. To this group of palms the winged
figures are seen presenting an object resemblinga fir-cone which
theyhold in the right hand, while in the left hand theycarrya
basketor bucket. Thelikeness of the object to a fir-cone has led
"Jul. Langbchn, " Flugelgestalten der altesten Griechischen Kunst."
Munich,1881,pp. 31, 39.
t G. Rawlinson "TheFiveGreat Monarchies,"Vol. II, p. 7, note. 2nd
edition,1871.
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