Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

THE NET OF ENLIL 359This is to be found in what till lately has been held to be afine representation * of Ningirsu, the god of the SumerianTelloh or Babylonian Lagash, triumphing over his enemies.The Net full of prisoners symbolises the capture of theenemies of the city. To indicate the impossibiUty of escape" a prisoner who has thrust his head out(Jastrow continues),of one of the meshes is being beaten back by a weapon in thehands of the god." 2 King further elaborates the scene ;" The god grasps in his right hand a heavy mace which he letsfall upon the Net in front of him containing captives, whosebodies may be seen writhing and struggling like fish in thebroad meshes. On the relief, the cords of the Net are symmetricallyarranged : the rounded corners at the top show it as aNet formed of ropes and cordage." ^ But later Sumerianscholars deny that Ningirsu has anything to do with the Netor even figures in the scene. On the Stele des Vaufours theperson represented is not a god, but a king, Eannatum, withcaptured soldiers enclosed in the Net {Shusgal). What ismore, the king in the accompanying inscription, not onlydesignates the Net as that ofEnlil, the earth god, but also ofNinharsag, the mother goddess, of Enki, the water god, ofSiu, the moon god, and of Shamash, the sun god. All thegreater gods were supposed to carry nets : Ningirsu mustcertainly have possessed one, but neither he or ithere.are depicted1 See Planche I. of Restitution de la Stile des Vautouvs, by Leon Heuzey.2 Civilisation of Babylonia and Assyria (Philadelphia, I9i5)i P- 387-3 A History of Siimer and Akkad, op. cit. (1910), p. 131. The scene isshown in the Plate which fronts this section.