“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.