02_eichler_nuovoImpaginato+eliminata_nota24)_DEF_copiaaaaa_26_38 28/04/15 11:32 Pagina 30 30 RAANAN EICHLER ciful and baseless 9. The fact that the arrangement of the Lyon altar is sufficient to explain the picture on the seal leads one to agree with Spier. But if the identification of these humanoid figures with the cherubim is nevertheless correct, the seal attests to an interpre- tation of the cherubim as winged humans that precedes R. Abbahu. By the early ninth century CE we have an incontestable depiction of cherubim as two-winged human figures, in the apsidal mosaic in the Oratory of Germigny-des-Prés near Orléans 10. Cherubim are typically portrayed as human figures with wings in medieval Chris- tian illuminated manuscripts as well. Examples with two wings in- clude the tabernacle ark cherubim drawn in copies of Nicholas of Lyra’s Postilla in Bibliam, such as one from the year 1331 11. In the Jewish world, an illuminated Hebrew manuscript from northern France, dated to 1277-1286, shows the tabernacle ark cherubim as childlike creatures with six wings each, as influenced by Isa 6,2 12. It is now known that the winged adult human is a common denizen of ancient Near Eastern iconography, and several modern scholars have identified the cherub with it, though the arguments presented by these scholars vary. In the nineteenth century, Carl F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch returned to the Book of Ezekiel, citing the seemingly more pertinent Ezek 1,5, which states that the overall figure of Ezekiel’s creatures was that of a human. In the twentieth century, Robert Pfeiffer drew attention to the related fact that these creatures have human hands (Ezek 1,8; 10,7.8.21). Louis-Hugues Vincent addressed the tab- ernacle ark cherubim, observing that their position makes them analogous to the winged, human-formed goddesses of Egypt 13. 9 J. SPIER, Late Antique and Early Christian Gems (Wiesbaden 2007) cat. 963 (pp. 165, 167, pl. 124). 10 See E. REVEL-NEHER, L’Arche d’alliance dans l’art juif et chrétien du second au dixième siècles (Paris 1984) 184-190, fig. 87. Online photograph: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Germigny_Des_Pres_2007_01.jpg [cited 15 June 2014]. 11 Dole BM ms. 0024, p. 186; online: http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/ public/mistral/enlumine_fr?ACTION=CHERCHER&FIELD_98=REF&VALUE _98=D-059178 [cited 15 June 2014]. 12 British Museum Additional 11639, f. 522; online: http://www.bl.uk/cata- logues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMINBig.ASP?size=big&IllID=49692 [cited 15 June 2014]. 13 C.F. KEIL – F. DELITZSCH, Commentary on the Old Testament. The Pen- tateuch (Edinburgh 1866) II, 169-170; R.H. PFEIFFER, “Cherubim”, JBL 41 (1922) 249-250; P. DHORME – L.H. VINCENT, “Les Chérubins”, RB 35 (1926)