We have already seen one royal seal-impression, and we have in Fig. 56 the seal of a later but far more famous Babylonian king, Shar-Gâni-sharri, king of Agade. In the reign of Shar-Gâni-sharri and his son Narâm-Sin, Babylonian art reached her climax,—the crudeness of the earlier work had passed away, while there is as yet no trace of the conventionalism of later days, and freedom is the keynote of her success. The scene is an oft-recurring one: a hero who to all appearance is Gilgamesh is kneeling on one knee, and holds in his hands a vase, from the overflowing streams of which the buffalo seeks to quench his thirst. The seal is engraved with vigour and precision, the boldness of which is only exceeded by the natural effect produced. Both hero and animal are treated with a freedom and fidelity seldom if ever surpassed in Oriental art, while the strength of the picture lies in the artist’s genius, and is in no way dependent on the subject, which does not lend itself to anything particularly striking or effective. [Illustration: FIG. 54. FIG. 55.] [Illustration: FIG. 56. FIG. 57.] [Illustration: FIG. 58.] In Fig. 57 we have the impression of another seal in which Gilgamesh and Ea-bani are the prominent actors. Ea-bani is engaged with a lion, but his comrade is fighting with a massive horned-buffalo. This seal belongs to the time of Shar-Gâni-sharri and Narâm-Sin, kings of Agade, its date being fixed alike by the style of art and the purport of the brief inscription, which contains the name of the owner, Bingani-Sharali, king of Agade and the son of Narâm-Sin. This seal, now in the British Museum, was discovered at Cyprus.[132] The movements of Gilgamesh and Ea-bani are portrayed in a life-like manner, though the action of Ea-bani’s left arm is somewhat awkward and ungraceful. The same may be said of the overpowered and ill-designed buffalo, and also of the antelope beneath the inscription, but the lion is decidedly conventional, a fact possibly due to the ubiquity of his presence on the cylinder-seals and monuments of the earliest Sumerian times, from which one may perhaps infer that the perpetual reproduction of the same animal, has in time worn off the freshness with which the artist at first approached his subject. But the Gilgamesh seals probably reach their climax in that reproduced in Fig. 58. The hero is engaged in mortal combat with a lion, whom he is endeavouring to throw. Gilgamesh is represented full-face and with the various peculiarities which appear to have been proper to his unique person—the long, curly beard, the equally long hair parted in the centre with the three characteristic ringlets on either side, and the body entirely naked but for a narrow girdle. The action is concentrated and focussed into a point—there are no conflicting persons, animals, or even objects in the scene to draw away or divide the attention of the spectator, and the animation with which the subject is treated is ample