Samak/Simach

In his comments on the Sumerian text ‘Home of the Fish’ in History Begins at Sumer, Samuel Kramer provides us with valuable information about fish. Around a hundred different types were mentioned in Sumerian texts, about thirty of which are tentatively identified. This particular Sumerian text contains ‘an itemized listing of some sixteen different fish, each described with a brief, pithy, riddle-like comment’. Around six of these can roughly be identified: ‘barbel, large and small, the carp, the sturgeon, the catfish, and the eel’. Kramer says that the Sumerians had a soft spot for fish, as shown in this excerpt, where a true lover of fish addresses his beloved fish in the following manner, which some interpret as an attempt by a fisherman to lure the fish to his bait or net: