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One is inclined also to suspect some, albeit remote, connection between Alala, the consort of Belili, and the Alallu bird who is spoken of in the Gilgamesh epic as having been deprived of her pinions by Ishtar. In the tale, Tammuz, the Alallu bird, a lion, and a horse are successively introduced as those once loved and then deceived by Ishtar.
The lion is, as has been several times indicated, the symbol of Nergal; the horse appears in the Hades relief above described as the animal upon which Allatu is seated, and it seems legitimate, therefore, to seek for Alallu also in the nether world.
While it may be that a long process intervened, before such a species of symbolization was brought about as the representation of an ancient deity in the guise of a bird, still, if it will be recalled that Zu is a deity, pictured as a bird, there is every reason to interpret the bird Alallu merely as the symbol of some deity, just as the lion is certainly such a symbol.
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