“3. The _šênu_, in Greek σάνδαλον, in Latin
_solea_, in English ‘sole.’ _S̆ênu_ means ‘sandal’
in Babylonian.
“4. _Sêlibu_, or ‘fox fish,’ perhaps so-called from its
slyness; probably _Alopecias vulpes_.
“5. The _kalbu_, ‘dog-fish,’ said to be the Greek
καρχαρίας κύων.
“6. The _piazu_, ‘pig-fish,’ _Galeus canis_, ‘sea sow,’
“7. The _puḥadu_, ‘lamb fish,’ perhaps _Pelecus
cultratus_.
“8. The _balgu_, a fish well known in all periods, and said
to be the same as the widely spread Mongolian _balyq_,
the ordinary word for fish in Turkish; in some parts the
sword fish, in others the ‘bull head.’
“9. The _qarshu_, probably the ‘shark,’ or a fish of prey of
the Persian Gulf.
“10. The _gallabu_, ‘barber,’ not yet identified.
“11. The _simunu_, ‘swallow fish,’ by some identified with
the ‘flying fish.’
“12. The _zingur_, supposed to be the ‘sturgeon.’”
Other fish names, especially Sumerian, remained unidentified till (in
May, 1918), Langdon translated the only hymn (yet published) to Ninâ,
the Fish Goddess, and spouse of Tammuz. Among its twelve fish we get
the ‘electric fish’ (query the νάρκη), the ‘nun fish,’ the ‘fire fish
of the sea,’ and the ‘swallow fish.’ The touching lines bewailing the
death of Tammuz are, alas! imperfect.[955]
Fish abounded in the Two Rivers. Euphrates fish were so plentiful that
they could be caught simply in one’s hand, apparently without any
“tickling.”[956] The coast folk could not cope with their catches.[957]
Wicker traps, automatically opened and shut by the tides, yielded their
“harvest of ocean.”
Sluice gates were far commoner in Assyria than in Palestine. The
numerous rivers, and scientific system of irrigation which from
earliest ages threaded Sumeria and later on Western Assyria, account
for the frequency.
According to Sir W. Willcocks, “The granary of the ancient is destined
to be that of the modern world.” The success of the irrigation works,
at Hit and elsewhere, may verify his prediction.[958]
_Vivaria_, or fish-dams, known only late in Palestine, were early and
generally constructed in Mesopotamia. As adjuncts of Sumerian temples,
they can be traced as far back as 2500 B.C. No decent-sized township
eventually lacked, or could afford to lack, these _piscinæ_ with their
ever-ready supply of fresh fish.
The keeper, or fisherman, attached to the temples (according to
Langdon) seems to have been called _Essad_, a term which subsequently
came to mean Tax Gatherer. It is open to doubt whether the latter
meaning can, as has been suggested, be derived from or connected with
the former on account of his extraction of a toll for fish caught by
the public in the stew-ponds of the priests, or of a percentage, in
lieu of pay, of the fish caught by him for use in the temples.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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