Illustration List

1. From King Gudea’s Votive Cup: The Serpent Lord; Sumer, c. 2025 b.c. (The Louvre)

2. Elamite Pottery Design: The World Tree; Susa, Sassanian Period (The Louvre)

3. Akkadian Cylinder Seal: The Serpent Lord Enthroned; Tell Asmar, c. 2350–2150 b.c.

4. Syro-Hittite Cylinder Seal: Gilgamesh at the Axis Mundi; c. 1600–1350 b.c.

5. Babylonian Cylinder Seal: The Garden of Immortality; c. 1750–1550 b.c. (Museum of The Hague)

6. Sumerian Cylinder Seal: The Goddess of the Tree; c. 2500 b.c. (British Museum)

7. Votive Tablet: Demeter and Plutus; Eleusis, c. 5th century b.c. (Uffizi Gallery, Florence)

8. Votive Tablet: Zeus Meilichios; The Piraeus, 4th century b.c. (Former National Museum, Berlin)

9. Vase Painting: The Tree of the Hesperides; source and date unknown

10. Early Red-figured Vase Painting: Zeus against Typhon; c. 650 b.c. (Munich Museum)

11. Early Red-figured Vase Painting: Aphrodite with Erotes; c. 5th century b.c. (Former National Museum, Berlin)

12. Cretan Signet Ring: The Goddess of the World Mountain; Knossos, c. 1400 b.c.

13. Mycenaean Ivory: The Two Queens and the King; Mycenae, c. 1300 b.c. (National Museum, Athens)

14. Early Red-figured Vase Painting: Demeter, Triptolemus, and Persephone; Boeotia, 5th century b.c. (Former National Museum, Berlin)

15. Mycenaean “Signet Ring of Nestor”: The Tree of Eternal Life; Pylos, c. 1550–1500 b.c.

16. Sumerian Terra-cotta Plaque: Moon-Bull and Lion-Bird; c. 2500 b.c. (University Museum, Philadelphia.)

17. Cretan Camelian Bead Seal: Minotaur and Man-Lion: c. 1400–1100 b.c. (Heraklion Museum)

18. Cretan Gold Bead Seal: The Sacrifice; c. 1400–1100 b.c.

19. Mycenaean Gold Signet Ring: The Goddess of the Double Ax; c. 1550–1500 b.c.

20. Cretan Faience Statuette: The Serpent Goddess; Knossos, c. 1700–1580 b.c. (Heraklion Museum)

21. Cretan Limestone Statuettes: The Serpent Goddess; Knossos, c. 1700–1580 b.c. (Heraklion Museum)

22. Greco-Etruscan Black-figured Vase: The Judgment of Paris; c. 6th century b.c. (The Louvre)

23. Mithraic Marble Group: Mithra Tauroctonus; Italy, 3rd century a.d. (British Museum)

24. Mithraic Marble Image: Zervan Akarana; Ostia, Italy, dedicated 190 a.d. (Vatican)

25. and 26. Amulets Bearing Jewish Symbols: law, as Anguipede; 2nd-1st centuries b.c.

27. Gallo-Roman Altar, “Le Pilier des Nautes”: Esus, from beneath Notre-Dame de Paris; 14–37 a.d. (Cluny Museum, Paris)

28. Second side of same altar: The Bull with Three Cranes (Tarvos Trigaranus).

29. Etruscan Bronze Mirror: The Driving of the Year Nail; Tuscany, c. 320 b.c. (Former National Museum, Berlin)

30. Book of Kells: Tunc-page; Ireland, c. 900 a.d. (Trinity College, Dublin)

31. Painted Wood Statuette: Madonna and Child; France, 15th century a.d. (Cluny Museum, Paris)

32. The Mother of God (same statuette open, revealing Trinity and Worshipers within)

Sketches for Figures 8, 13, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, are by John L. Mackey.