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As a local deity his worship must have been limited to the city over which he spread his protecting arm; and if we find the god afterwards holding jurisdiction over a much larger territory than the city of Ashur, it is because in the north, as in the south, a distinct state or empire was simply regarded as the extension of a city.
Of these it is purely accidental that Gibil, Dibbarra, Nusku, and Shala are not mentioned, for, except those that are foreign importations, they belong to Babylonia as much as to Assyria and fall within the periods of the Babylonian religion that have been treated of. Kadi is a foreign deity. There remains, as the only god peculiar to Assyria, the god Ashur.
At that time one of his own sons, who bore the name of Ashur-nasir-pal, conspired against his father and stirred up the nobles to revolt. The insurrection was arranged when Tukulti-Ninib was absent from his capital and staying in Kar-Tukulti-Ninib, where he was probably protected by only a small bodyguard, the bulk of his veteran warriors remaining behind in garrison at Ashur.
+753+. Turning first to the Tigris-Euphrates region, we find certain nature gods that attained more or less definite universal character. The physical sky becomes the god Anu, who, though certainly a great god, was never so prominent as certain other deities, and in Assyria yielded gradually to Ashur.
This was, as the case may be, either Ishtar or the pale 'reflection' associated with Ashur as his consort. Now this Belit, as the wife of Ashur, absorbs the qualities that distinguish Belit, the wife of Bel-Marduk.
Apart from this, Anu only appears when a part or the whole of the Assyrian pantheon is enumerated. Thus we come across Anu, Ramman, and Ishtar as the chief gods of the city of Ashur, and again Anu, Ashur, Shamash, Ramman, and Ishtar.
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.
He is described ideographically as the 'good god. This interpretation accords admirably with the general force of the verbal stem underlying the name. In both Hebrew and Assyrian a-sh-r signifies 'to be gracious, to grant blessing, to cause to prosper. Ashur, therefore, is the god that blesses his subjects, and to the latter he would accordingly appear as the 'good god' par excellence.
Tiele is of the decided opinion that Ashur was at his origin a nature god of some kind, and he goes so far as to suggest, though with due reserve, the possible identification of Ashur with Sin.
There will be occasion, too, when treating of the Gilgamesh epic, to dwell still further on some of her traits. In worshipping the southern Ishtars, the Assyrian kings felt themselves to be showing their allegiance to the same deity to whom, next to Ashur, most of their supplications were addressed, and of whom as warriors they stood in dread. Ninâ.
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