The resemblance, however, between Medo-Persian and Ninevite art is in many instances so striking that some way of accounting for it must be sought, and those who are dissatisfied with one explanation will naturally look about to find some alternative suggestion. The alternative suggestion I would now propose is that _the progenitors of the Assyrians at an early period of the world’s history borrowed Tauric and other religious symbolisms from the ancestors of the Medes_. In support of this theory the following considerations are put forward: Tauric symbolism, if it is at all astronomic, points us back to a very remote date for its first institution, to a date considerably earlier than that at which the existence of the Assyrian people as an independent nation is generally put. The symbolism already discussed must, at the latest, have been originated about 2,000 B.C. Of the Assyrians as a nation we have no monumental proof earlier than 1,700 B.C. But further, in the symbol of Ahura and Assur, I believe an astronomic reference may be traced to the position of the colures amongst the constellations, a reference which points us back not merely to a date between 4,000 and 2,000 B.C., but rather, and with curious precision, to the furthest limit of the time mentioned, namely to 4,000 B.C. To penetrate into the meaning of this symbol of Ahura we must study both the Median and Assyrian representations of the figure presiding over the winged disc, and we may also seek for further light to be thrown upon it by other references in Assyrian art to the god Assur. Ahura presiding over the winged circle holds in his hand a ring or crown; Assur in some examples is similarly furnished; but more often he appears armed with bow and arrows. In this figure, variously equipped, I believe that the heavenly Archer, the Zodiacal Sagittarius (Plate VI. fig. 4), is to be recognized--Sagittarius, the constellation in which the autumnal equinoctial point was situated, speaking in round numbers, from 6,000 to 4,000 B.C. The fact that a crown or wreath or ring often replaces the bow and arrows in the hand of Ahura and of Assur might at first sight make us doubtful as to the connexion of the figure with the constellation Sagittarius, but a glance at the celestial globe will rather make this fact tell in favour of the astronomical suggestion here made: for there we find close to the hand of the Archer the ancient Ptolemaic constellation Corona Australis (the Southern Crown), actually incorporated with the Zodiacal constellation Sagittarius. Not only do Assur’s bow and crown remind us of Sagittarius, but his horned tiara, resembling so closely that worn by the man-headed Assyrian bulls, inclines us to look for some astronomic and Tauric allusion in this Assyrian and Median symbol.