Ashur

“ We expect to find Ashur reflected in these three phases of Assyrian civilization. If we recognize him in the first place as a god of fertility, his other attributes are at once included. A god of fertility is a corn god and a water god. The river as a river was a "creator" (p. 29) , and Ashur was therefore closely associated with the "watery place", with the canals or "rivers running round about his plants". The rippling water-rays, or fertilizing tears, appear on the solar discs. As a corn god, he was a god of war. ”

“ If he is the 'ruler of all the gods,' and their father, he is so simply by virtue of that same superior strength which makes him the 'law-giver' for mankind, and not because of any ancient traditions, nor as an expression of some nature-myth. He lords it over gods and spirits, but he lords it solely because of his warlike qualities. Ashur is the giver of crown and sceptre, and the kings of Assyria are the patesis of the god, his lieutenants. ”

“ It is he who causes the arms of Tiglathpileser I. to strike down his foes. The nations cannot endure the awful sight of the god. His brilliancy—the reference being no doubt to the shining standard as it was carried into the fray—inspires on every side a terror that casts all enemies to the ground. All warfare is carried on in the name of Ashur. ”

“ But by the side of Ashur these great gods pale, and in the course of time the tendency becomes more marked to regard them merely as formal members of a little court with few functions of their own, beyond that of adding by their presence to the majesty and glory of Ashur. One receives the impression that in Assyria only a few of the gods invoked by the kings at the side of Ashur exert any real influence on the lives of the people; and such as do, gain favor through possessing in some measure the chief attribute that distinguished Ashur,—prowess in war. ”

“ It is impossible to say the exact time when a military standard came to be regarded as the natural and fitting symbol of the patron god of the country, but the nature of the symbol itself makes it quite clear that Ashur was regarded as a god of war. Indeed the patron deity of a people as warlike as the Assyrians, could not but reflect the military spirit of his people. The Assyrian warriors were the “troops of Ashur,” their enemies being his enemies and their friends his friends. ”

“ The pantheon of the north, as we have seen, was derived from the south. Not that all the gods of the south are worshipped in the north, but those that are worshipped [Pg 415] in the north are also found in the south, and originate there. The distinctive features of Ashur are due to the political conditions that were developed in Assyria, but the unfolding of the conceptions connected with this god which make him the characteristic deity of Assyria, indeed, the only distinctive Assyrian figure in the Assyrian pantheon, does not preclude the possibility, of the southern origin of Ashur. ”

“ The archer in the sun disc of the Assyrian standard probably represented Ashur as the god of the people--a deity closely akin to Merodach, with pronounced Tammuz traits, and therefore linking with other local deities like Ninip, Nergal, and Shamash, and partaking also like these of the attributes of the elder gods Anu, Bel Enlil, and Ea.
All the other deities worshipped by the Assyrians were of Babylonian origin. ”

“ Probably the former; for the distinguishing feature of both the Babylonian and the Assyrian Ishtar is her independent position. Though at times brought into close association with Ashur, she is not regarded as the mere consort of any god—no mere reflection of a male deity, but ruling in her own right on a perfect par with the great gods of the pantheon. She is coequal in rank and dignity with Ashur. Her name becomes synonymous with goddess, as Marduk becomes the synonym for god. The female deities both native and foreign come to be regarded as so many forms of Ishtar. ”

“ XLI The son of Ashur-ris-ili, the powerful King, the subduer of foreign countries, he who has reduced all the lands of the Magian world.
XLII The grandson of Mutaggil-Nabu, whom Ashur, the great Lord, aided according to the wishes of his heart and established in strength in the government of Assyria.
XLIII The glorious offspring of Ashur-dapur-Il, who held the sceptre of dominion, and ruled over the people of Bel; who in all the works of his hand and the deeds of his life placed his reliance on the great gods, and thus obtained a prosperous and long life. ”

“ All the younger gods, who displaced the elder gods as one year displaces another, were deities of fertility, battle, lightning, fire, and the sun; it is possible, therefore, that Ashur was like Merodach, son of Ea, god of the deep, a form of Tammuz in origin. ”

“ But another difference between the Ashur-cult of the north and the Marduk-cult of the south must also be noted. Ashur was worshipped in temples erected all over the Assyrian empire, whereas Babylon was the place “where men ought to worship” Marduk, just as in later times Jerusalem was the only authorized centre for the worship of Jehovah. But in spite of the universality of his presence, Ashur had a principal seat of worship, the locality of which was the same as that of the then centre and capital of the empire, Ashur, Calah, Nineveh or Khorsabad as the case might be. ”

“ Ashur is the divine impersonation of Assyria, as Marduk was of Babylonia, only the identification was more pronounced, for the decline of Assyrian power and the death of her empire meant virtually the death of Ashur, whereas Marduk maintained his influence during the time of Babylon’s adversity as well as during that of her prosperity; foreign conquerors sought to do him honour, Cyrus the Persian ascribes his conquest of Babylon to the lord of E-sagil, and even Antiochus Soter (280-260 B.C.) restores his renowned temple. ”

“ No deity approaches her in splendor. As Ashur rules the Igigi, so Ishtar is declared to be 'mighty over the Anunnaki.' Her commands are not to be opposed. Her appearance is that of a being clothed with fiery flames, and streams of fire are sent down by her upon the enemies of Ashurbanabal—a description that expresses admirably the conception formed by the Assyrians of a genuine goddess of war. Like Ashur, she is given a supreme rank among the [Pg 205] gods. Shalmaneser II. calls her the first-born of heaven and earth, and for Tiglathpileser I., she is the first among the gods. ”

“ XXIV Tiglath-Pileser, the ruling constellation; the powerful; the lover of battle.
XXV In the service of my Lord Ashur, my chariots and warriors I assembled; I set out on my march. In front of my strong men I went to the country of the Aramæans, the enemies of my Lord Ashur. From before Tsukha, as far as the city of Qarqamis [1] belonging to the country of Khatte, [2] I smote with one blow. Their fighting men I slew; their movables, their wealth, and their valuables in countless numbers I carried off. ”

“ If the tempting etymology of our own word 'god,' which connects it with 'good,' be correct, 'god' would be almost the perfect equivalent of Ashur. It is not necessary to conclude, as Tiele does, [Pg 197] [238] that Ashur, as the 'good one,' is an ethical abstraction, but certainly a designation of a god as 'a good one' sounds more like a descriptive epithet than like a name. The supposition that Ashur was not, therefore, the original name of the god receives a certain measure of force from this consideration. ”

“ As a consequence of this unique position, Ashur is so completely identified with Assyria, that with the fall of the empire he, too, disappears,—whereas the Marduk cult survives the loss of Babylonian independence, and is undisturbed even by the final absorption of Babylonia into the empire of Cyrus. The tendency towards centralization of the cult is even more pronounced, therefore, in Assyria than in Babylonia. Marduk is a leader who has many gods as followers, but all of whom have their distinct functions. Ashur is a host in himself. He needs no attendants. ”

“ Sargon lovingly addresses him as the father of the gods. Sennacherib calls him the great mountain or rock,—a phrase that recalls a Biblical metaphor applied to the deity,—and Esarhaddon speaks of him as the 'king of gods.' Frequently Ashur is invoked together with other gods. He is 'the guide of the gods.' There is only one instance in which he does not occupy the first place. ”

“ IV Ashur (and) the great gods, the guardians of my kingdom, who gave government and laws to my dominions, and ordered an enlarged frontier to their territory, having committed to (my) hand their valiant and warlike servants, I have subdued the lands and the peoples and the strong places, and the Kings who were hostile to Ashur; and I have reduced all that was contained in them. With a host [1] of kings I have fought ... [2] and have imposed on them the bond of servitude. There is not to me a second in war, nor an equal in battle. I have added territory to Assyria and peoples to her people. ”

“ As we proceed down the centuries, the formal lists at the beginning of inscriptions have a tendency to grow larger. Ashurnasirbal's pantheon consists of Bel and Nin-ib, Anu and Dagan, Sin, Anu, Ramman, and, of course, Ashur, though on special occasions, as when speaking of his achievements in the chase, he contents himself with a mention of Nin-ib and Nergal. He loves, too, to vary the style of his inscriptions by naming various groups of deities in pairs: now Ashur and Shamash, again Ashur and Nin-ib, or Ashur and Bel ”

“ Ashur-uballit, king of Ashur, once wrote intimating to Akhenaton that he was gifting him horses and chariots and a jewel seal. He asked for gold to assist in building his palace. "In your country", he added, "gold is as plentiful as dust." He also made an illuminating statement to the effect that no ambassador had gone from Assyria to Egypt since the days of his ancestor Ashur-nadin-akhe. It would therefore appear that Ashur-uballit had freed part of Assyria from the yoke of Mitanni.
The contemporary king of Mitanni was Tushratta. ”

“ Among the oracles of the days of Esarhaddon, there is one coming from Ashur in which the ceremonies accompanying the deliverance are instanced. [527] The oracle deals with the Gimirrites, the same people in regard to whom Esarhaddon so often consults the sun-god. It is marked by the more definite character of its announcements when compared with others. The text is in the form of a communication made to the king, and, like other official documents, it begins with a salutation. The gods give Esarhaddon greeting. [528]
Ashur has given him the four ends of the earth. ”

“ Seeing that the eagle received prominence in the mythologies of Sumeria and Assyria, as a deity of fertility with solar and atmospheric attributes, it is highly probable that the Ashur symbol, like the Egyptian Horus solar disk, is a winged symbol of life, fertility, and destruction. The idea that it represents the sun in eclipse, with protruding rays, seems rather far-fetched, because eclipses were disasters and indications of divine wrath ”

“ The excavations on the site of Ashur, the earliest Assyrian capital, tend to show that the first settlements in that country, of which we have recovered traces, were made by a people closely akin to the Sumerians of Southern Babylonia. [38] It was in the course of work upon a temple dedicated to Ishtar, the national goddess of Assyria, that remains were found of very early periods of occupation. Below the foundation of the later building a still older temple was found, also dedicated to that goddess. ”

“ It is not uncommon to find colonies more conservative in matters of religious thought and custom than the motherland, and there is nothing improbable in the interesting conclusion thus reached that Ashur, the head of an empire, so much later in point of time than Babylonia, should turn out to be an older deity than the chief personage in the Babylonian pantheon after the days of Hammurabi. ”

“ At one time he enumerates Ashur, Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Marduk, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela; at another he prefers different combinations of these gods. Ashurbanabal is more consistent than most of the Assyrian rulers, and furnishes at the same time the best list. ”

“ The temples of Assyria play a minor part in the religious life of rulers and people. True, grand structures were reared in Ashur, Calah, Nineveh, and Arbela, and no important step was taken by the kings without consulting Ashur, Ishtar, or Ramman through the mediation of the priests. The great cities of Assyria also become intellectual centers. ”

“ The adaptability displayed by Ashur in regard to his earthly home may, as Jastrow suggests, be partly due to the fact that a statue was not the only, or even the principal symbol of his divine presence, as was the case with Pg 393Marduk and the other great gods. His usual emblem was a standard consisting of a pole surrounded by a winged disc to which is attached an archer with drawn bow. ”

“ Ashur, Belit, Sin, Shamash, Ramman, Bel (i.e., Marduk) , Nabu, Ishtar of Nineveh, the queen of Kidmuru, Ishtar of Arbela, Nin-ib, Nergal, and Nusku—thirteen in all. Of these, as we have seen, only some were actively worshipped at all times in Assyria; as for the others, the popularity of their cult varied from age to age, now being actively carried on under the stimulus afforded by the erection or improvement of an edifice sacred to the god, and again falling into comparative insignificance ”

“ From this extract it will be seen that Shalmaneser gives us, in Ushpia or Aushpia, the name of a very early Assyrian viceroy, who in his belief was the founder of the great temple of the god Ashur. He also tells us that 159 years separated Erishu from a viceroy named Shamshi-Adad, and that 580 years separated Shamshi-Adad from his own time. When these inscriptions were first found they were hailed with considerable satisfaction by historians, as they gave what seemed to be valuable information for settling the chronology of the early patesis. ”