The seas which wash the shores of Mesopotamia, the great rivers and the lakes of that land abound in fish of many different kinds, so that fish form an important article of diet of the modern inhabitants as well as of that of their forerunners in very remote times. Therefore it is not strange that fish appear among the decorative motives on painted ceramic pottery, were engraved in stereotyped rows on cylinder seals of the Jamdat Nasr epoch, or were carved as small figurines in bone, shell, and black, white or coloured stones, often with such precise observation of nature that the species delineated can easily be distinguished. Scenes in which water was the important element included fish swimming below a boat, gliding quite illogically up and down the streams welling up from the vase the god Enki holds, or, even more strangely, from that held by figures carved in the round or in relief of Gudea or of water divinities. Apart from fish in the proximity of Enki-Ea, introduced solely to indicate the living quality of the water spurting from the vase he holds, examples of fish in front of or close to a divinity are too numerous in the art of ancient Mesopotamia in almost every epoch necessarily to imply that the fish were attributes of the divinities with whom they appear to be associated (Nos. 1, 2). It is, nevertheless, interesting to note how often a fish is placed close to Ištar in warlike aspect, and holding her tripartite sceptre; there is even a curious scene in which the goddess does not appear in person, but is symbolised by her great tripartite sceptre, beside which a fish is placed, while a short-clad attendant and a divinity leading a female worshipper draw near to pay homage.