Less mediocre is the manufacture of models in serpentine which have come down to us, and which were employed by Hittite or Lydo-Phrygian goldsmiths in making metal ornaments or talismanic figures. The two most curious of these matrices are that which is preserved in the Cabinet de Médailles under the name of _Baphomet_, and another, found a few years ago near Thyatira in Mæonia.[76] The latter, which is 3½ in. high by 4½ in. broad and ½ in. thick, shows us a naked woman, with her hands upon her breasts like the Babylonian Istar; next a man, perhaps Bel-Marduk, clothed in the Chaldæan robe with a series of fringes one above the other. Farther on there is a lion with a ring, intended to hang the ornament when it came out of the mould; a sort of altar; and, finally, the planetary symbols found on a large number of Assyrian monuments. In the glyptic art, Hittite engravers surpassed themselves, and showed themselves worthy of their Ninevite masters. Far be it from us to treat with disdain the seal-impressions on terra-cotta, the seals of precious stone and the cylinders, the inscriptions and figures upon which have only recently attracted the attention of archæologists. The silver seal, now lost, of the king Tarkudimme, bears a bilingual inscription in Hittite hieroglyphs and in Assyrian cuneiform. A cylinder at the Louvre, found at Aïdin, in Lydia, shows a scene of presentation to a deity (fig. 167). Three figures walk in the same direction, with their hand upon their mouth, carrying the curved sceptre which we noticed in the rock sculptures of Iasili-Kaïa; a large table, supported by two lions, is laden with offerings. Then comes an Assyrian genius with two faces, a deity sitting upon a throne, and some secondary figures. M. Heuzey[77] has observed that though the subject is almost entirely Assyrian, there is, nevertheless, a national element in it; this is the decorative part of the cylinder. The ornamental design occupies, indeed, a considerable place on the surface; it is composed of a double border of interlacing lines and symmetrical scrolls, which are never met with except in monuments of the Hittite glyptic art. [Illustration: Fig. 166.--Boss of Tarkudimme (after Wright).] [Illustration: Fig. 167.--Hittite cylinder (Louvre).] CHAPTER VII. _JEWISH ART._