Ashur (god) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Ashur is the head of the Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...

n pantheon.

He probably originated as the deified city Assur

Assur

Assur , was one of the capitals of ancient Assyria. The remains of the city are situated on the western bank of river Tigris, north of the confluence with the tributary Little Zab river, in modern day Iraq, more precisely in the Al-Shirqat District .Assur is also...

, which dates from the 3rd millennium BC and was the capital of the Old Assyrian

Old Assyrian

Old Assyrian refers to the Old Assyrian period of the Ancient Near East, ca. 20th to 16th centuries BC *the Old Assyrian Empire, see Assyrian Empire*the Old Assyrian language, see Akkadian language...

kingdom. As such, Ashur did not originally have a family, but as the cult came under southern Mesopotamian influence he came to be regarded as the Assyiran equivalent of Enlil

Enlil

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...

, the chief god of Nippur

Nippur

Nippur was one of the most ancient of all the Sumerian cities. It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the "Lord Wind," ruler of the cosmos subject to An alone...

and one of the most important gods of the southern pantheon, and in time Ashur absorbed Enlil's wife Ninlil

Ninlil

In Sumerian religion, Ninlil , also called Sud, in Assyrian called Mullitu, is the consort goddess of Enlil. Her parentage is variously described. Most commonly she is called the daughter of Haia and Nunbarsegunu...

(as the Assyrian goddess Mullisu) and his sons Ninurta

Ninurta

Ninurta in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology was the god of Lagash, identified with Ningirsu with whom he may always have been identical...

and Zababa

Zababa

Zababa was the Hittite way of writing the name of a war god, using Akkadian writing conventions. Most likely, this spelling represents the native Anatolian Hattian god [Wurunkatte]. His Hurrian name was Astabis. He is connected with the Akkadian god Ninurta...

- this process began around in the 13th century BC E and continued down to the 8th and 7th centuries.

The Assyrians did not require conquered peoples to take up the worship of Ashur; instead, Assyrian imperial propaganda declared that the conquered peoples had been abandoned by their gods. When Assyria conquered Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...

in the Sargon

Sargon

Sargon is an Assyrian name, originally Šarru-kin , which may refer to:- People :*Sargon of Akkad , also known as Sargon the Great or Sargon I, Mesopotamian king...

id period (8th-7th centuries BCE), Assyrian scribes began to write the name of Ashur with the cuneiform signs AN.SHAR, literally "whole heaven" in Akkadian, the language of Babylon. The intention seems to have been to put Ashur at the head of the Babylonian pantheon, where Anshar

Anshar

In Akkadian mythology, Anshar , which means "sky pivot" or "sky axle", is a sky god. He is the husband of his sister Kishar. They might both represent heaven and earth . Both are the second generation of gods; their parents being the serpents Lahmu and Lahamu and grandparents Tiamat and Apsu. In...

and his counterpart Kishar

Kishar

In the Akkadian epic Enuma Elish, Kishar is the daughter of Lahmu and Lahamu, the first children of Tiamat and Apsu. She is the female principle, sister and wife of Anshar, the male principle, and the mother of Anu...

("whole earth") preceded even Enlil and Ninlil. Thus in the Sargonid version of the Enuma Elish

Enûma Elish

The is the Babylonian creation myth . It was recovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh , and published by George Smith in 1876.The Enûma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on seven clay tablets, each holding...

, the Babylonian national creation myth, Marduk

Marduk

Marduk was the Babylonian name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to...

, the chief god of Babylon, does not appear, and instead it is Ashur, as Anshar, who slays Tiamat

Tiamat

In Babylonian mythology, Tiamat is a chaos monster, a primordial goddess of the ocean, mating with Abzû to produce younger gods. It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first in which Tiamat is 'creatrix', through a "Sacred marriage" between salt and fresh water,...

the chaos-monster and creates the world of humankind.

Some scholars have claimed that Ashur was represented as the solar disc that appears frequently in Assyrian iconography

Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

, but evidence indicates that this is in fact the sun god Shamash

Shamash

Shamash was a native Mesopotamian deity and the sun god in the Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian pantheons. Shamash was the god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Sumerian Utu...

. Many Assyrian kings had names that included the name Ashur, including, above all, Ashurnasirpal

Ashurnasirpal

Ashurnasirpal may refer to:*Ashurnasirpal I, king of Assyria from 1050 to 1031 BCE*Ashurnasirpal II, king of Assyria from 884 to 859 BCE...

, Esarhaddon

Esarhaddon

Esarhaddon , was a king of Assyria who reigned 681 – 669 BC. He was the youngest son of Sennacherib and the Aramean queen Naqi'a , Sennacherib's second wife....

(Ashur-aha-iddina), and Ashurbanipal

Ashurbanipal

Ashurbanipal |Ashur]] is creator of an heir"; 685 BC – c. 627 BC), also spelled Assurbanipal or Ashshurbanipal, was an Assyrian king, the son of Esarhaddon and the last great king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire...

. Epithets include bêlu rabû "great lord", ab ilâni "father of gods", šadû rabû "great mountain", and il aššurî "god of Ashur". The symbols of Ashur include:

a winged disc
Winged sun
The winged sun is a symbol associated with divinity, royalty and power in the Ancient Near East . The symbol has also been found in the records of ancient cultures residing in various regions of South America as well as Australia.- Ancient Egyptian use :In Ancient Egypt, the symbol is attested...

with horns, enclosing four circles revolving round a middle circle; rippling rays fall down from either side of the disc;
a circle or wheel, suspended from wings, and enclosing a warrior drawing his bow to discharge an arrow;
the same circle; the warrior's bow, however, is carried in his left hand, while the right hand is uplifted as if to bless his worshipers (see picture).

An Assyrian standard, which probably represented the "world column", has the disc mounted on a bull's head with horns. The upper part of the disc is occupied by a warrior, whose head, part of his bow, and the point of his arrow protrude from the circle. The rippling water rays are V-shaped, and two bulls, treading river-like rays, occupy the divisions thus formed. There are also two heads—a lion's and a man's—with gaping mouths, which may symbolize tempests, the destroying power of the sun, or the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates. Jastrow regards the winged disc as "the purer and more genuine symbol of Ashur as a solar deity". He calls it "a sun disc with protruding rays", and says: "To this symbol the warrior with the bow and arrow was added—a despiritualization that reflects the martial spirit of the Assyrian empire".

See also