Polyphemos and his near eastern relations

A number of studies of the Cyclops episode of Odyssey ix have described modern folktales which resemble it to a varying degree. Most writers have concluded that few of the tales actually derive from the Odyssey; rather they are related to it as independent variations of the same tale. Hitherto there has been no basis for conjecture about the origin of the tale, and speculation has ranged widely but inconclusively.Perhaps speculation is all we can ever hope for in such questions. But it may help if we can find possible references to a version of the tale earlier than Homer, and the purpose of this note is to draw attention to such a possibility.One-eyed but otherwise human figures are found, though not often, on cylinder seals from Mesopotamia. Edith Porada describes and illustrates three examples. The earliest of these (Plate VIIIb) dates from around 3000 B.C., and shows the one-eyed figure nude, curly-haired and bearded, holding up two lions by the hind legs. The rest of the scene includes an enclosure of some sort, a grotesque man(?) apparently bending a stick(?), two creatures that look like sheep, and two lion-headed birds (the personified storm-cloud?).