CHAPTER XXXIII 



FISH-GODS— DAGON 



I FIND no trace in Assyria of Ichthyolatry, or of certain fish 

 being accounted sacred, or forbidden as food. The nearest 

 approach to abstention occurs in the warning that on the 

 gth day of lyyar to partake of fish was almost certain to bring 

 on an attack of sickness, just as in Syria ichthyophagy was 

 held to entail ulcers and wasting diseases. ^ 



Despite the Dagon or Cannes traditions, I am not con- 

 vinced that in the crowded pantheon of Babylon or Assyria 

 there can be found a fish-god proper, or god of fishing, i.e. a 

 deity similar to those of Greece and Rome with a temple and 

 established priesthood, to whom fishermen made prayer and 

 offerings either for boons received or favours to come. 



If the word, fish-god, is limited strictly to those images, 

 half-man, half-fish, which are to be found on seal Cylinders, 2 

 or sculptured or depicted in the outer halls or walls of some 

 deity's temple, there is certainly — even if the images at Nineveh 

 were importations from the Mediterranean coast and not 

 indigenous— considerable proof of their existence. But if 

 the word connotes the attributes of a special temple, a priest- 

 hood, and sacrifices, such as we find in connection with the 

 PhiHstinian Dagon at Ashdod, I suggest there is no proof 

 whatever. The fact seems to be that in early Sumeria the 

 fish-god or man-fish was a symbol of Ea, the god of water, and 

 probably derived from Aquarius. 3 



The Assyrian colonists carried north with them the pantheon 



^ See antea, p. 99, n. i. 



2 SeeW. Hayes Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia (Washington, 1910), 

 p. 217, figs. 658, 659, 660, 661. 



3 Ward, op. cit., p. 214, in fig. 249, gives apparent confirmation. 



363 2 B 



