The Sumerians of early times did not however confine themselves to a portrayal of single figures in their clay reliefs, but sometimes aspired to complete scenes; thus in the fragment reproduced in Fig. 85, D, we see a standing woman; her hands are raised in a devotional manner, and doubtless were the remainder of this clay relief preserved we should see her accompanied by her husband, as so frequently on the cylinder-seals. Her thick, wavy hair hangs plait-wise down her back, and a raised fillet surrounds her head. The relief in which the woman’s figure is raised is high, and the workmanship, though crude is not without life. This little fragment is about five inches high and is made of grey-coloured clay. Occasionally these terra-cotta figures were painted, as was the case with the little male statuettes discovered at Babylon in 1910.[140] Ever faithful in the art of imitation, the Assyrians also turned their attention to the artistic possibilities inherent in the clay which they used alike for the construction of their houses and for writing purposes. Some of the clay figures, or little clay reliefs discovered in Assyria belong without doubt to Assyrian times, but by far the larger half of the terra-cotta figures, lamps and other objects discovered are as certainly post-Assyrian. [Illustration: FIG. 86.—A, B (Brit. Mus., No. 91837). C, E (Musée du Louvre). D (Cf. _Mitteilung._, No. 5, Abb. 1).] Some very interesting terra-cotta figures representing the Fish-god, Dagan, are preserved in the British Museum (cf. Fig. 86, A, B). These small images are only a few inches high, but the humanly conceived face of the god is treated with less conventionalism than is the case with the sculptured portraits of human beings during the Assyrian period, a fact which of course may possibly be due to the plasticity of clay as compared with stone. These little figures are probably Assyrian and not Babylonian in workmanship; at all events, a fish-god sculptured in relief was discovered at the entrance to a small Assyrian temple at Nimrûd, which, apart from other evidence,[141] is a clear indication that the fish-god was venerated in Assyria as well as in Babylonia. It would seem reasonable to suppose that the Dagan-cult would naturally find its origin in the alluvial centres of Sumerian civilization in the extreme south of Babylonia, where the water was an all-important factor for good or ill, but according to Jastrow[142] it was imported from the north to the south, though the name of a king of Isin, Ishme-Dagan, who reigned about 2200 B.C., shows that the god was known and revered in Babylonia at least as early as his time. On the other hand it is equally noteworthy that one of the earliest known Assyrian kings, whose reign must probably be assigned to the nineteenth century B.C., also bore that name. These clay images of the gods were usually buried as amulets in the foundations of buildings. Another terra-cotta image of a