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Updated: June 24, 2025
In connection with the etymology and original form of the chief of the Assyrian pantheon, the suggestion was made that the introduction of Anshar into the creation epic is a concession made to the prominence that Ashur acquired in the north. We are now able to put this suggestion in a more definite form. The pantheon of the north, as we have seen, was derived from the south.
O God! I have look'd for thy salvation. Gad by a troop shall be o'ercome, but he Shall at the last obtain the victory. The bread of Ashur shall be fat indeed, And royal dainties shall from his proceed. Like to a hind let loose is Naphtali, He speaketh all his words acceptably.
One is bound to confess that the evidence does not warrant us in regarding Ashur as anything but the patron of the city of Ashur. Nowhere do we find any allusion from which we are justified in concluding that he originally represented some elemental power or phenomenon.
The temple in the city of Ashur, which Tiglathpileser I. enriches with presents consisting of the images of the deities vanquished by the king, may in reality have been sacred to the Belit of Babylonia, but Tiglathpileser, for whom Bel becomes merely a designation of Marduk, does not feel called upon to pay his devotions to the Babylonian Sarpanitum, and so converts the old Belit into 'the lofty wife, beloved of Ashur. Sargon, on the other hand, who calls one of the gates of his palace Belit ilâni 'mistress of the gods, seems to mean by this, the consort of Ea.
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.
This at least is the case in an inscription from the temple of Belit at Nineveh, known as E-mash-mash, and in which Ashurbanabal alternately addresses the goddess as Belit and as Ishtar, while elsewhere this same Belit, whose seat is in E-mash-mash, is termed the consort of Ashur. How Ashurbanabal or his scribes came to this confusing identification we need not stop to inquire.
Up onto the mountain I bring them. There to rain down upon them destructive stones. Thine enemies I hew down, With their blood I fill the river. Let them behold and glorify me, For Ashur, the lord of gods, am I. This important and striking message, coming direct from Ashur we are told, is to be formally presented and read in the presence of the king.
In the later periods it is always written Ashur, but at this early time we see that the second vowel is changed and that at first the name was written Ashir, a form that was already known from the Cappadocian cuneiform inscriptions. The form Ashir is a good participial construction and signifies "the Beneficent," "the Merciful One."
He is the king of the Igigi and Anunnaki, that is, of all the heavenly and earthly spirits, and he is this by virtue of being the supreme god of heaven. His cult, however, appears to have suffered through the overshadowing supremacy of Ashur.
Besides being applied to the consorts of Ashur and of Shamash, 'Belit, in the general sense of 'mistress, is applied only to another goddess, the great Ishtar of the Assyrian pantheon generally, however, as a title, not as a name of the goddess. The important position she occupied in the Assyrian pantheon seemed to justify this further modification and extension in the use of the term.
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