Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

SAME WORD EQUALS HOOK AND THORN 357conjectured that in the latter word we have the Assyrian term forfish-hook.Professor S. Langdon, who in a letter to me advancesthis conjecture, goes even farther — " in fact hdhu is our onlydirect evidence for the practice of fishing with hook and Unein Assyria."Basing himself on a similar Hebraic resemblance, he wouldmake the Assyrian sinnitdn, " two reins," come from a supposedsinnitu, a possible feminine of sinnu, which occurs perhapsin the sense of " thorn," and carry the same meaning as theHebrew sen, which probably equals " thorn," while its pluralsinnoth does stand for " fish-hooks."He believes that in the word, abarshu, which Esarhaddonemploys, " I snatched him (Abdi-Milkuti, King of Sidon) as afish from the sea," and again, of a chief of the Lebanon rangewho had rebelled and fled, " I caught him from the mountainslike a bird," we have evidence of a technical word for pullingor jerking out a fish with a line held in the hand, or perhapsattached to a Rod, because " snatch " would hardly be theappropriate term for the slower action involved in the drawingin of a net.iWhether in the first simile the suggestion is philologicallyvalid is a point for Assyrian scholars to determine. Theadequate rendering or explaining of Sumerian words byAssyrian ones is often diificult and doubtful, for while thelatter language is a great help to understanding the former,the Assjn-ian, especially the later Assjnian, equivalent does notentirely correspond to what would be expected from a Hteralanalysis of the Sumerian word. The second simile, I hold,alludes to the Net of the fowler, with which the representationsshow the Assyrians to have been familiar.^ In each case Esarhaddon " cut off his head." Both heads were sentto Nineveh for exhibition. Asur-bani-pal was a greater speciahst in headsthan his father : the head of any foe whom he particularly hated or feared,such as Teumann of Elam, was preserved by some method, and hung conspicuouslyin the famed gardens of the palace. A sculptured representationhands down the scene to us. The king reclines on an elevated couch underan arbour of vines : his favourite queen is seated on a throne at the foot ofthe couch : both are raising wine cups to their lips : many attendants plythe inevitable fly-flappers, while at a distance musicians are ranged. Birdsplay and flutter among the palm and cypress trees ; from one danglesTeumann's head on which the eyes of the king are gloating. Such is thepicture drawn by de Razogin, Ancient Assyria (London, li"