Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

832 The owl of Athena

visible. form. Indeed, we have traced in some detail the stages

through which the bird was developed into the goddess1.

A curious confirmation of these claims may be found in a

Sumerian tablet of baked clay referable to the time of the Larsa

dynasty (c. 2300—2000 BC.), recently published by Mr Frank

Davis2, and now to be seen in the art-collection of Mr Sydney

Burney (pi. lxi)3. This remarkable relief shows a nude goddess

en face, standing erect on two lions and flanked by two owls. She

herself has the wings and talons of an owl, and an additional spur.

on either leg. She wears a head-dress of bovine horns4, bunches of

A

hair that hang down over her shoulders, a broad necklace roun°
her throat, and bracelets on her wrists. Lastly, in either hand she
displays an emblem which Mr Sidney Smith interprets as a
measuring rod and looped cord5. As to technique, the eyebro\vS

Fig. 644. Fig. 645.

1 Supra p. 794 ff. . . t0.

2 In The Illustrated London News for June 13, 1936 p. 1047 with a full-page p ^
graphic reproduction. D. Opitz ' Die vogelfiissige Gottin auf den Lowen ' in the *^'.^ng
fiir Orientforschung 1937 xi. 350—353 fig. 1 seeks to discredit the relief as exni
sundry rare or unexampled features. But E. Douglas Van Buren 'Afurther Note °n ^
Terra-cotta Relief ib. pp. 354—357 figs. 2—6 aptly cites several parallels, e.g- ^'^^ is
Louvre plaque ao 6501 [infra p. S33 f.). An authoritative discussion by H- Frank 0
shortly to be published. :ne

3 Mr Burney, of 4 Bruton Street, Westminster, W. 1, kindly allowed me to e.*ca„ce
the original at my leisure, while Mr Sidney Smith spared time to discuss its sign1 ^jjt
and furnished me with the fine photograph from which my pi. lxi is taken. The
itself measures 19J inches in height, and is in a state of almost complete preservati0^^

4 Certainly not a 'snake head-dress,' as Mr F. Davis loc. cit. states. Cp- '•£' .

i. 263 fig. 190 Samas (4 horns), i. 577 fig. 446 Ramman (1 horn) and Istar (1 hoW> ^
fig. 447 Ramman? (4 horns), ii. 546 fig. 424 Adad (1 horn) and Istar (1 horn)- g0J
examples in Ebert Reallex. vii pi. 143 Sun-god (4 pairs of horns) and pi. i45> ^ g j_,'Ar'
(4 horns). Better still in the Encyclopidie photographique de I'Art Paris 1935—*f3 g C\
de Mesopotamie ancienne au Musee du Louvre pp. 218 a, e, 226 a, 2471 A'
260 a, 263 c, d, 286 a, b. \sr>oke0\

5 Sir E. A. Wallis Budge in his account of the Sippar relief [supra i. 203) ^Q\\c 0
this emblem, there held by the Sun-god, as 'a disk and bar, which may be syn1

the sun's orbit, or eternity.' t4e
Mr Sidney Smith would recognise rather a measuring rod with a coil of c0^^x^
compares part of the stele of Ur-Nammu, on which the coil is rendered as having ^ ^g
strands and a dependent loop (C. L. Woolley in The Antiquaries Journal 19^ j ilfi
pi. 48 (' I imagine that the staff and looped cord are the measuring-rod and g^yl011'*
architect such as were held by the angel whom Ezekiel saw in a vision m