rs altogether. If the king worships, the
god holds out his hand to aid; if he is engaged in secular arts, the
divine presence is thought to be sufficiently marked by the circle and
wings without the human figure.

An emblem found in such frequent connection with the symbol of Asshur as
to warrant the belief that it was attached in a special way to his
worship, is the sacred or symbolical tree. Like the winged circle, this
emblem has various forms. The simplest consists of a short pillar
springing from a single pair of rams' horns, and surmounted by a capital
composed of two pairs of rams' horns separated by one, two, or three
horizontal bands; above which there is, first, a scroll resembling that
which commonly surmounts the winged circle, and then a flower, very much
like the "honeysuckle ornament" of the Greeks. More advanced specimens
show the pillar elongated with a capital in the middle in addition to
the capital at the top, while the blossom above the upper capital, and
generally the stem likewise, throw out a number of similar smaller
blossoms, which are sometimes replaced by fir-cones or pomegranates.
[PLATE CXLI., Fig. 4. ] Where the tree is most elaborately portrayed, we
see, besides the stem and the blossoms, a complicated network of
branches, which after interlacing with one another form a sort of arch
surrounding the tree itself as with a frame. [PLATE CXLII., Fig.1.]

[Illustration: PLATE 142]

It is a subject of curious speculation, whether this sacred tree does
not stand connected with the _Asherah_ of the Phoenicians, which was
certainly not a "grove," in the sense in which we commonly understand
that word. The _Asherah_ which the Jews adopted from the idolatrous
nations with whom they came in contact, was an artificial structure,
originally of wood, but in the later times probably of metal, capable of
being "set" in the temple at Jerusalem by one king, and "brought out" by
another. It was a structure for which "hangings" could be made, to cover
and protect it, while at the same time it was so far like a tree that it
could be properly said to be "cut down," rather than "broken" or
otherwise demolished. The name itself seems to imply something which
stood, straight up; and the conjecture is reasonable that its essential
element was "the straight stem of a tree," though whether the idea
connected with the emblem was of the same nature with that which
underlay the phallic rites of the Greeks is (to say t