![the winged lion in the book of daniel symbolized the winged lion in the book of daniel symbolized](https://www.beyonce.com/uploads/2019/07/cache/KTCHq8Y6CPWM_264x264_74tHK9Wi.jpg)
Ishtar's Sumerian analogue Inanna was frequently depicted standing on the backs of two lionesses. The Dying Lioness is a relief panel from 650 BCE, Nineveh (modern day Iraq) depicting a half-paralyzed lioness pierced with arrows, while the Babylonian goddess Ishtar has been represented driving a chariot drawn by seven lions. In ancient Mesopotamia it was regarded as a symbol of kingship.
![the winged lion in the book of daniel symbolized the winged lion in the book of daniel symbolized](https://randalldsmith.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/St-Mark-the-Lion.jpg)
Lions were represented in other middle-eastern cultures.
![the winged lion in the book of daniel symbolized the winged lion in the book of daniel symbolized](https://www.womanofnoblecharacter.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/What-Can-We-Learn-From-Daniel-in-the-Bible.jpg)
The Egyptians held that a sacred lioness was responsible for the annual flooding of the Nile. Dedun was not absorbed into the Egyptian religion and remained a Nubian deity. Maahes was absorbed into the Egyptian pantheon, and had a temple at the city Leontopolis "City of Lions" in Lower Egypt attached to that of the temple of his mother. During the New Kingdom the Nubian gods Maahes (god of war and protection and the son of Bast) and Dedun (god of incense, hence luxury and wealth) were depicted as lions. The war goddess Sekhmet typically was depicted as woman with a lioness head or, just as a lioness. Bast (cat goddess of protection and the eye of Ra) originally was depicted as a lioness. Later pharaohs were depicted as sphinxes, being thought as the offspring of the deity. The ivory carving from Vogelherd cave in the Swabian Alb in southwestern Germany has been determined to be about 32,000 years old from the Aurignacian culture.įound first in Ancient Egypt the sphinx, which had the head and shoulders of a human and the body of a lioness, represented the goddess who was the protector of the pharaohs. In the Lascaux, two lions were depicted mating in the Chamber of Felines. Some have proposed a more conservative estimate in line with the better known cave paintings of Lascaux, that are 15,000 years old. The earliest recorded depictions of lions can be found in some of the earliest paleolithic human cave art possibly dating to 32,000 years ago in the Chauvet Cave in the Ardèche region of southern France, where lionesses are depicted hunting for the pride in much the same strategy as contemporary lions. The Lion Gate (detail) of Mycenae - two lionesses flank the central column