Of the dress of the women in the days of Gudea we have a good illustration in Pl. XXIII. She wears a gracefully fringed mantle, which was apparently[161] first pressed over the breasts and carried under the arms, after which it was crossed at the back, the two ends being brought over the shoulders and made to hang symmetrically in front. The grave-deposits have afforded abundant evidence of the extensive use of jewellery even in the earliest Sumerian times, thus at Fâra necklaces of amethyst, coral, lapis lazuli, mother of pearl and agate were found, while other early sites yield similar testimony. For information regarding the military accoutrements of the early Sumerians we are mainly dependent on the bas-reliefs of the period, of which the Vulture Stele is the most important. The long lance or spear, which was apparently grasped by both hands (cf. Pl. XII), was clearly the principal weapon of offence, while the axe, the dart, a club or mace, a curved weapon—generally hitherto regarded as a throwing-stick or boomerang—and a lance were also in use. Very few Sumerian weapons have been brought to light, but in addition to those enumerated in the chapter on Metals, mention may be made of an archaic axe-head made of agate, now in the American Museum of Natural History;[162] the characters with which it is inscribed are somewhat more wedge-shaped than those found on the monuments of Gudea, and it may accordingly be assigned to a rather later date. Another axe-head, also made of agate, and inscribed with early line characters, is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York,[163] while a number of baked clay balls and some small stone eggs, as well as copper arrows, spears, axes and stone clubs were discovered in the pre-Sargonic strata at Nippur. The discovery of arrows belonging to such an early date is of considerable interest, as it has been contended that the bow and arrow were introduced by the Semites chiefly owing to the fact that it has been thought that these weapons were not represented in early Sumerian art. But a very early example of the bow in Babylonian art is afforded by an archaic shell cylinder-seal published by Ward.[164] The human beings and gods on this seal are clad in the Sumerian short skirt and not in the Semitic plaid, while the occurrence of a bison on the top of a mountain, an animal which is only represented on very early seals, further argues the antiquity of the cylinder-seal in question, and therefore of the use of the bow and arrow depicted upon it. The discovery of clay balls and stone missiles similarly appear to afford evidence of the use of the sling at a very much earlier period than was hitherto supposed. [Illustration: FIG. 94.]