This Dagon has been mistakenly connected with Odacon, the last of the five sea-monsters who arose from the Erythræan Sea. His body (according to Berosus) was like that of a fish, but under the head of the fish was that of a man, to whose tail were added women’s feet, whose voice was human, and whose language was articulate. During the day he instructed the Sumerians in letters and in all arts and sciences, more especially in the building of temples, but at night he plunged again into the sea.[929] [Illustration: GILGAMESH CARRYING FISH. From _La Revue d’Assyriologie_, VI. 57.] Authorities disagree whether Dagon derives his name from the Hebrew _Dāg_, signifying fish, or _dāgān_, sheaf or agriculture. Sanchouniathon early held, as do most modern writers, the latter view. Reichardt errs in his conjecture that the representation in De Sarzec (p. 189) shows the deity holding in his hand ears of corn, instead of what really is a palm branch of the conventional type.[930] Cylinder seals depict[931] river gods, some with streams rising from their shoulders, or flowing from their laps, or from vases in their laps, and containing fish, and others half men and half fish. Mythological beings with fish head-dress occur not only on seals but on the Ninevite reliefs, etc., where it has been suggested that they do represent Dagan. The delineation of fish on vases, etc.,[932] and of a fish in a stream of water on a small fragment from Telloh, are of early Sumerian art. The representation of Gilgamesh carrying fish dates from at least 2800 B.C., or some thirteen hundred years previous to the Phylokapi Vase (the most ancient Greek representation of men similarly engaged) and so furnishes a comparison, and from the differences in delineation of face, arms, and eyes a contrast of singular interest.[933] FOOTNOTES: [917] See _antea_, p. 99, n. 1. [918] See W. Hayes Ward, _Seal Cylinders of Western Asia_ (Washington, 1910), p. 217, figs. 658, 659, 660, 661. [919] Ward, _op. cit._, p. 214, in fig. 249, gives apparent confirmation. [920] In noting the attributes ascribed to various gods, we are confronted by the problem as to what suggested to the Babylonian his precise differentiation in their characters. These betray their origin: they are the personification of natural forces: in other words, the gods and many of the stories told of them are the only explanation the Babylonian could give, after centuries of observation, of the forces and changes in the natural world. In company with other primitive peoples he explained them as the work of beings very similar but superior to himself. See King, _Babylonian Religion_ (London, 1889). This inevitable tendency of anthropomorphism was tersely expressed by Xenophanes of Colophon (_frag._ 15):—