[907] See The Fishing Gazette, January 6, 1917.
[908] See The Field, March 15, 1919. The fish is said to attain a weight of over 300 lbs.
[909] See Planche I. of Restitution de la Stèle des Vautours, by Leon Heuzey.
[910] Civilisation of Babylonia and Assyria (Philadelphia, 1915), p. 387.
[911] A History of Sumer and Akkad, op. cit. (1910), p. 131. The scene is shown in the Plate which fronts this section.
[912] A. Ungnad, Hundert Ausgewählte Rechtsurkunden, No. 56.
[913] Two contracts (in 5th year of Darius II.) contain provisions that in case “of any fish being lifted,” i.e. stolen, the keeper has to pay a fine of 10 shekels, and in second case to compensate owner. Revue d’Assyriologie, vol. IV., pp. 182-183, by V. Scheil.
[914] Orientalistiche Literaturzeitung (Berlin, 1914), p. 482. This was published by Clay in Publications of the Babylonian Section of the University of Pennsylvania, vol. II., Part I., No. 208. We find a receipt in the XXth century b.c. for salt used for fish supplied by a grocer, sealed by the official controller. Cf. M. Shorr, Urkunden des Altbabylonischen Civil und Processrechts, No. 256.
[915] In the Neo-Babylonian period the word, which makes its first appearance in this contract, employed for net appears to have been salītu or lītu. The word is written sa-li-tum, and the first syllable (sa) may be either part of the word, or else the determinative riksu, which is written before things made of cordage. If the word be read salītu, it may perhaps be derived from the root, salû, to immerse. The rendering of the word as net is not quite certain, but, as will be seen from the translation of the text, the context points to this meaning. It is clearly some sort of tackle used by fishermen, and the most obvious meaning would be net.
[916] See antea, 333 f., and Tebtunis Papyri, vol. II. pp. 180-181. B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt, 1907.