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 ina letter to me advances 
this conjecture, goes even farther— in fact hahu is our only 
direct evidence for the practice of fishing with hook and line 
in Assyria.”’ 
Basing himself on a similar Hebraic resemblance, he would 
make the Assyrian sinnitan, “ 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 sén, which probably equals “‘ thorn,’’ while its plural 
sinnéth does stand for “ fish-hooks.’’ 
"He believes that in the word, abarshu, 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 
like a bird,’’ we have evidence of a technical word for pulling 
or jerking out a fish with a line 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.! 
Whether in the first simile the suggestion is philologically 
valid is a point for Assyrian scholars to determine. The 
adequate rendering or explaining of Sumerian words by 
Assyrian ones is often difficult 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. 
7 In each case Esarhaddon “cut off his head.” Both heads were sent 
to Nineveh for exhibition. Asur-bani-pal was a greater specialist 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, 1888). 
