. The dawn of civilization: Egypt and Chaldaea . ok up so much of his time that he had little leisure to visithis nether kingdom, and he was consequently obliged to content himself withthe rôle of providing subjects for it by despatching thither the thousands ofrecruits which he gathered daily from the abodes of men or from the field of 1 These are the waters of death, mentioned at the end of the poem of Gilgames (cf. p. 585),and represented on one of the faces of the bronze plaque figured on the preceding page (690). 2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin. This is the back of the bronze plate represented o
. The dawn of civilization: Egypt and Chaldaea . ok up so much of his time that he had little leisure to visithis nether kingdom, and he was consequently obliged to content himself withthe rôle of providing subjects for it by despatching thither the thousands ofrecruits which he gathered daily from the abodes of men or from the field of 1 These are the waters of death, mentioned at the end of the poem of Gilgames (cf. p. 585),and represented on one of the faces of the bronze plaque figured on the preceding page (690). 2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin. This is the back of the bronze plate represented on the precedingpage ; the animal-head of Ihe god appears in relief at the top of the illustration. 3 The text of this legend was found amongst the Tell el Amarna Tablets, and published in Bezold-BtJDGE, The Tell el Amarna Tablets in the British Museum, pp. lxxxv-lxxxvi, 140-141 ; it has beentranslated and commented upon by Halévy, Le Rapt de Persephone ou Proserpine par Pluton chez lesBabyloniens, in the Revue Sémitique, vol. i. pp. NERGAL, THE GOD OF HADES; BACK 692 THE TEMPLES AND THE GODS OF CHALDJEA. battle. Allât was the actual sovereign of the country. She was representedwith the body of a woman, ill-formed and shaggy, the grinning muzzle of a lion,and the claws of a bird of prey. She brandished in each hand a large serpent—a real animated javelin, whose poisonous bite inflicted a fatal wound upon theenemy. Her children were two lions, which she is represented as suckling, andshe passed through her empire, not seated in the saddle, but standing upright orkneeling on the back of a horse, which seems oppressed by her weight. Some-times she set out on an expedition upon the river which communicates with thecountries of light, in order to meet the procession of newly arrived souls cease-lessly despatched to her : she embarked in this case upon an enchanted vessel,which made its way without sail or oars, its prow projectiug like the beak ofa bird, and it
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