Fishing from the earliest times - Blog

DAGON 367especially in the building of temples, but at night he plungedagain into the sea.^Authorities disagree whether Dagon derives his name fromthe Hebrew Dag, signifying fish,or ddgdn, sheaf or agriculture.Sanchouniathon early held, as domost modern writers, the latterview. Reichardt errs in his conjecturethat the representation inDe Sarzec (p. 189) shows the deityholding in his hand ears of corn,instead of what really is a palmbranch of the conventional type. 2Cylinder seals depict ^ rivergods, some with streams risingfrom their shoulders, or flowingfrom their laps, or from vases intheir laps, and containing fish, andothers half men and half fish.Mythological beings with fish headdressoccur not only on seals buton the Ninevite reliefs, etc., where GILGAMESH CARRYING FISH,it has been suggested that they do From La Revue d'Assryiologie,represent Dagan.The deUneation of fish on vases, etc.,* VI. 57and of a fish in a^ Oannes of Berosus is identified with Enki (otherwise Ea) by Langdon,Poime Sumifrien, etc. (Paris, 1919), p. 17. Tradition generally makes theearliest founders or teachers of civilisation come from the sea. Manco Capacand Mama Ocllo, the children of the sun god, rose, however, not from thesea, but from Lake Titicaca, when they brought to the ancient Peruviansgovernment, law, a moral code, art, and science. Their descendants styledthemselves Incas.* See G. F. Hill, Some Palestinian Cults in the Greek and Roman Age,in Proceedings of the British Academy (London, 1911-12), vol. V. p. 9.' Cf. Heuzey, Sceau de GoudJa (Paris, 1909), p. 6 ; also W. Hayes Ward,Seal Cylinders of Western Asia (Washington, 1910), figs. 288-289 ; see alsofigs. 199, 661. The large number of seals, almost entirely cylinder, whichhave been found in the excavations is probably owing to every Assyrian ofany means always carrying one hung on him. The use to which they wereput was precisely similar to that of our signet ring. An Assyrian, instead ofsigning a document, ran his cyUnder over the damp clay tablet on which thedeed he was attesting had been inscribed. No two cylinder seals were absolutelyalike, and thus this method of signature worked very well. The work on thecylinders is always intaglio ; the subjects represented are very various,including emblems of the gods, animals, fish, etc.* Ri'cherches ArcMologiques, vol. XIII. of Delegation en Perse, by Pettier,Paris, 1912, figs. 117, 204, etc.