SAME WORD EQUALS HOOK AND THORN 357 



conjectured that in the latter word we have the Assyrian term for 

 fish-hook. Professor S. Langdon, who in a letter to me advances 

 this conjecture, goes even farther—" in fact hdhu is our only 

 direct evidence for the practice of fishing with hook and Une 

 in Assyria." 



Basing himself on a similar Hebraic resemblance, he would 

 make the Assyrian sinnitdn, " two reins," come from a supposed 

 sinnitu, a possible feminine of sinnu, which occurs perhaps 

 in the sense of " thorn," and carry the same meaning as the 

 Hebrew sen, which probably equals " thorn," while its plural 

 sinnoth does stand for " fish-hooks." 



He believes that in the word, aharshu, which Esarhaddon 

 employs, " I snatched him (Abdi-Milkuti, King of Sidon) as a 

 fish from the sea," and again, of a chief of the Lebanon range 

 who had rebelled and fled, " I caught him from the mountains 

 Hke a bird," we have evidence of a technical word for pulling 

 or jerking out a fish with a fine held in the hand, or perhaps 

 attached to a Rod, because " snatch " would hardly be the 

 appropriate term for the slower action involved in the drawing 

 in of a net.i 



Whether in the first simile the suggestion is philologically 

 vaUd is a point for Assyrian scholars to determine. The 

 adequate rendering or explaining of Sumerian words by 

 Assyrian ones is often difiicult and doubtful, for while the 

 latter language is a great help to understanding the former, 

 the Assyrian, especially the later Assyrian, equivalent does not 

 entirely correspond to what would be expected from a literal 

 analysis of the Sumerian word. The second simile, I hold, 

 alludes to the Net of the fowler, with which the representations 

 show the Assyrians to have been familiar. 



1 In each case Esarhaddon " cut off his head." Both heads were sent 

 to Nineveh for exhibition. Asur-bani-pal was a greater speciahst in heads 

 than 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 con- 

 spicuously in the famed gardens of the palace. A sculptured representation 

 hands down the scene to us. The king reclines on an elevated couch under 

 an arbour of vines : his favourite queen is seated on a throne at the foot of 

 the couch : both are raising wine cups to their lips : many attendants ply 

 the inevitable fly-flappers, while at a distance musicians are ranged. Birds 

 play and flutter among the palm and cypress trees ; from one dangles 

 Teumann's head on which the eyes of the king are gloating. Such is the 

 picture drawn by de Razogin, Ancient Assyria (London, iS88). 



