Note 177 — APPENDIX The Influence of Mesopotamia on Egypt Towards the End of the Fourth Millennium B.C.[169]

The Egyptian manner of representing carnivores and their prey is shown in the central row of animals on the Hunters’ palette (Fig. 25) where they appear in headlong flight. See also the Small Hierakonpolis palette and Egyptian renderings of the historical periods. In Mesopotamia the prey is rendered as unaffected by the attack; our Fig. 14, for instance, can be matched by a seal (Frankfort, Cylinder Seals, Plate V a) where a lion is shown striking his claws into a bull’s hindquarters. The bull stands as in our figure. This is but one example from many. Another instance of this rendering in Egypt is found on a macehead from Hierakonpolis (Capart, op. cit., 97, Fig. 68) with alternating dogs and lions, each of which attacks the one before him with teeth and claws. This type of design, a circular interlocking by activation of the individual figures, is characteristic for Mesopotamia and occurs on numerous cylinder seals, on the silver vase of Entemena, and on the macehead of Mesilim of Kish in the Louvre.