386 FISH IN OFFERINGS, AUGURIES, ETC. 



from the grave (sometimes cited as an instance of necromancy), 

 " the place where was the worm that devoured, and where all 

 was cloaked in dust." ^ The Hymn of the Descent of Ishtar 

 into Hell goes farther : 



" To the land whence none return, the place of darkness. 

 To the house wherein he who enters is excluded from the light, 

 To the place where dust is their bread and mud their food." 2 



The very curious bronze of the Le Clerq collection in Paris, 

 in which ichthyic garments and gods of the under- world, 

 Arallu, occur, must be my excuse for this too lengthy and almost 

 fishless digression on the Babylonian dead. It shows several 

 figures, two clad in garments of the form of a fish, with their 

 scales very visible. 



Two explanations of the bronze have been offered. The 

 first, hitherto generally accepted, suggests that the figures 

 are representations of the gods of the under-world, or of the 

 dead waiting on a sick person, together with some demons of 

 the under- world and two priests wearing fishhke raiment. 3 



My friend Professor Langdon has furnished me with another 

 explanation, more detailed and more interesting. 



This so-called representation of a scene in the lower world 

 from a bronze talisman has been misunderstood. The obverse 

 has three registers. In the upper register are depicted the seven 

 devils, all with animal heads, in attitude of ferocious attack 

 upon a human soul. The middle register represents a sick man 

 who is supposed to be possessed by the seven devils. He hes 

 upon a bed. At his head and feet stand two priests each 

 arrayed to appear like fish : these are symbolic of Ea, god of the 

 sea and patron of all magic. They clothed themselves in a 



^ Gilgamesh here learns how infinitely better is the condition of those to 

 whom the rites of burial have been paid, compared with that of those who 

 have been unburied. R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Literature 

 (New York, 1901), 363 ff. 



'^ The Hebrew conception of Sheol coincides in regarding it as " a land whence 

 none return," Job vii. 9-10 ; as " a place of darkness," Job x. 21-22 ; 

 as a place of " dust," Psalm xxx. 9, and Job xvii. lO. 



' Priests dressed as fish or with some fish-like raiments often attend the 

 Sacred Tree (see Ward, op. cit., Nos. 687, 688, 689). These are held by some to 

 be genii of the deep. In Ward, No. 690, two fish-men are guarding the Tree of 

 Life. 



