ASSYRIAN FISHING! 
CHAPTER XXX 
NO ROD, ALTHOUGH CLOSE INTERCOURSE WITH EGYPT 
THERE is no delineation or suggestion of the Rod, or of Angling 
on any sculpture or any seal, Sumerian, Babylonian, or 
Assyrian.? 
The omission does not preclude the existence or use of the 
Rod. If it did exist, and were used, we are surprised that 
there should not survive amongst the thousands of things 
mentioned and the many pursuits represented a single indica- 
tion of it. Our wonder, indeed, grows stronger when we call 
to mind that the Assyrians : 
(a) Were a people much given to sport of all kinds : 
(0) Were keenly addicted to the eating of fish, which was 
not, as in Israel or Egypt, half-banned by a prophet, or whole- 
barred to a priesthood by custom, totemistic or other : 
(c) Did attach very real importance to the maintenance of 
an ample supply of fish. Their dams and vivaria, the adjuncts 
of every important temple or every self-respecting township, 
and their enforcement of Fish Regulations, attest the economic 
value : 
(@) Do mention and do represent other kinds of fishing, 
e.g. with the hand-line and the net. The latter, for both fowling 
1 The term Assyrian in this chapter usually includes the Sumerians 
and Babylonians. 
2 Lest Forlong’s sentence (Rivers of Life (London, 1883), II. 89), ‘‘ A beauti- 
ful Assyrian cylinder exhibits the worship of the Fish God; there we see the 
mitred Man-God with Rod and basket,’’ etc., be quoted in opposition, I would 
point out that this so-called Rod is merely a cut sapling, like the one in the 
hands of Heracles, but without a sign of any line, which in the Greek vase 
in the British Museum is obviously attached. Cf. Elite des meepetnarels 
Cévamographiques, vol. III., Plate I. 4 
349 2A2 
