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144 Figure 43 fell. Seeing an opportunity when the sky monster turned, Enkidu leapt on its back and seized it by the horns. With all its might and whipping its tail, the Bull of Heaven fought Enkidu off. Desperate, Enkidu called out to Gilgamesh: "Plunge your sword in, between the base of the horns and the neck tendons!" It was a call that has echoed in bullfighting arenas to this very day... In this first-ever recorded bullfight, "Enkidu seized the Bull of Heaven by its thick tail and spun it around. Then Gilgames, like a butcher, between neck and horns thrust his sword. The heavenly creature was defeated, and Gilgamesh ordered celebrations in Uruk. But "Ishtar, in her abode, set upa wailing; she arranged a weeping over the Bull of Heaven." Among the numerous cylinder seals that have been un- earthed throughout the Near East that depict scenes from the Epis of Gilgamesh, one (found in a Hittite trading outpost on the border with Assyria, Fig. 43) shows Ishtar addressing Gilgamesh with the seminaked Enkidu watching; in the space between the goddess and Gilgamesh the severed head of Hu- wawa as well as that of the Bull of Heaven, are shown. And so it was that while Gilgamesh was celebrating in Uruk the gods held a council. Anu said: "Because they have slain the Bull of Heaven and Huwawa, the two of them must DIVINE ENCOUNTERS