Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

5IO Lightning as a weapon
turned up b}^ the ploughshare in 1882M among these objects was
a small celt of dark serpentine, half-sheathed in gold and fitted
with a hollow cylinder for suspension
(fig. 388)-. There can be little doubt that
the celt was worn as an amulet in the early
decades of s. v B.C.-'
Of special interest are certain examples
that bear incised inscriptions. A magni-
ficent axe-head of brown banded agate,
acquired by Cardinal S. Borgia( 1 73 1 — 1
804)
probably from some missionary to the East,
later in the Tyszkiewicz collection, and
now in the American Museum of Natural
History at New York, has cut upon it a
Sumerian inscription in archaic cuneiform
characters (fig. 389)1 The inscription ap-
pears to record the owner of the axe, but
^'g- 388. not its dedication to a god. The im-
plement is, however, in all probability of a votive character. Its
epigraphy points to a period c. 2000 B.C.-' A celt of serpentine,
' A. Furtwangler Der Goldftind von Vettersfelde Winckelmannsfest-Progr. ( Berlin
xliii) Berlin 1883 pp. i— 52 with cuts in the text and three pls. = /(a^. Kleine Schriften
MUnchen igii i. 469— 516, pis. 18— 20, E. H. Minns Scythians and Greeks Q.7i\x\hx\A^^
1913 PP- 236—239 figs. 145—148.
^ A. Furtwangler Der Goldfiuid von Vettersfelde p. 10 pi. 1, '^ = id. Kleine Schriften
i. 475 pi. 18, 3, C. Blinkenberg op. cit. pp. 17 fig. 6 ( = niy fig. 388), 108, E. H. Minns
op. cit. pp. 64, 236 (cp. ib. p. 398 n. 11).
^ E. H. Minns op. cit. p. 236.
-* G. F. Kunz ' On
the ancient inscribed Sumerian (Babylonian) axe-head for the
Morgan Collection in the American Museum of Natural History,' with translation by
Prof. I. M. Price and discussion by Dr W. H. Ward, in the Bulletin of the American
Museum of Natural History 1905 xxi. 37—47, I. M. Price 'An ancient Babylonian
(Ax-head) Inscription' in The American Journal of Semitic Langtiages atid Literatures
1904— 1905 xxi. 173— 178 \yith figs., G. F. Kunz The Ctirious Lore of Precious Stones
Philadelphia & London 1913 pp. 232—234 with pi. (=my fig. 389), F. Lenormant ' Tre
monumenti caldei ed assiri di collezioni romane ' in the Bull. Comm. Arch. Cotnun. di
Roma 1879 vii. 19— 25 pi. 6, i, E. Cartailhac La France pj-^historique Paris 1889 p. 4
fig. I, G. Maspero The Dawn of Civilization'^ London 1901 p. 755 fig.
^ I am indebted for this information to my friend Mr Sidney Smith, who examined
and criticised for me the readings propounded by other Assyriclogists. He says: 'The
probable translation is "I^ad-himil, elder brother of Adad-ili." The first name might
also be read liattish.' Mr Smith adds that a votive hammer-head of Shudurkib, last king
of the Sargonid dynasty of Akkad, is now in the British Museum and will be published
in Cuneiform Texts Part 36.
H. Zimmern ' Zu den Weihinschriften der Kassiten-Konige ' in the Zeitschrift fiir
Assyriologie 1898 xiii. 302 fif. put together and elucidated the text of an inscription, in
which the Kassite king Nazi-Maruttas dedicates to Bel an axe 'of brilliant lapis-lazuli '...
'for his life and the welfare of his land.'