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Updated: June 17, 2025
On another occasion, incidental to a northern campaign, Ashurbanabal mentions that the day on which he broke up camp at Damascus was the festival of Marduk, an indication that the Babylonian god was in his thoughts, even when he himself was far away from Babylonia. Esarhaddon and Ashurbanabal, when approaching the sun-god to obtain an oracle, make mention of Marduk by the side of Shamash.
Significantly enough, Ashurbanabal offers his libations after the lion or bull hunts to Ishtar as the "goddess of battle." The animal is sanctified by being devoted to a goddess, just as the victims in a battle constitute the conqueror's homage offered to the gods who came to his assistance.
Taking Ashurbanabal as his model, he carried his arms to the west, subdued the kingdom of Judah, and, passing on to Egypt, strove to secure for Babylon, the supremacy exercised there for a short time by Assyrian monarchs.
On another occasion, Ashurbanabal, when threatened by the king of Elam, receives a message from Ishtar revealed to a seer in a dream at night. Ishtar, supreme among the gods, addressed thee, commanding: "Be encouraged for the fray. Wherever thou art, I am."
The festival is described ideographically as Si-gar, but from the fact that the same ideographs are used elsewhere to describe a day sacred to Sin and Shamash, it would appear that Si-gar is not a specific appellation, but a general name again for festival. This month Iyyar and this particular day, as a "favorable one," is chosen by Ashurbanabal for his installation as king of Assyria.
The former significantly calls him the 'writer of everything, and as for Ashurbanabal, almost every tablet in the great literary collection that he made at Nineveh closes with a solemn invocation to Nabu and his consort Tashmitum, to whom he offers thanks for having opened his ears to receive wisdom, and who persuaded him to make the vast literary treasures of the past accessible to his subjects.
Lit., 'proceed. Knudtzon, no. 66. Other examples are furnished in George Smith's History of Ashurbanabal, pp. 184, 185. A district to the northeast of Assyria; Knudtzon, no. 29. Ib. no. 107. Ib. no. 101. For a good summary of the character of the Assyrian epistolary literature, see Johnston's article in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, xviii. 1, pp. 125-134. Harper, no. 77.
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.
In the twelfth century the religious supremacy of E-Kur yields permanently to E-Sagila. The temple is sacked, part of it is destroyed, and it was left to rulers of the north like Esarhaddon and Ashurbanabal to once more restore E-Kur and its dependencies to its former proportions.
Ashurbanabal, however, goes still further, and, influenced by the title of 'Belit' as applied to Ishtar, makes the latter the consort of Ashur.
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