ch it received from that monarch. He had another temple at Calah;
besides which he had four "arks" or "tabernacles," the emplacement of
which is uncertain. Among the latter kings, Sargon especially paid him
honor. Besides coupling him with Anu in his royal titles, he dedicated
to him--in conjunction with Beltis, his wife--one of the gates of his
city, and in many passages he ascribes his royal authority to the favor
of Bel and Merodach. He also calls Bel, in the dedication of the
eastern gate at Khorsabad, "the establisher of the foundations of his
city."

It may be suspected that the horned cap, which was no doubt a general
emblem of divinity, was also in an especial way the symbol of this god.
Esarhaddon states that he setup over "the image of his majesty the
emblems of Asshur, the Sun, Bel, Nin, and Ishtar." The other kings
always include Bel among the chief objects of their worship. We should
thus expect to find his emblem among those which the kings specially
affected; and as all the other common emblems are assigned to distinct
gods with tolerable certainty, the horned cap alone remaining doubtful,
the most reasonable conjecture seems to be that it was Bel's symbol.

It has been assumed in some quarters that the Bel of the Assyrians was
identical with the Phoenician Dagon. A word which reads _Da-gan_ is
found in the native lists of divinities, and in one place the
explanation attached seems to show that the term was among the titles of
Bel. But this verbal resemblance between the name Dagon and one of Bel's
titles is probably a mere accident, and affords no ground for assuming
any connection between the two gods, who have nothing in common one with
the other. The Bel of the Assyrians was certainly not their Fish-god;
nor had his epithet Da-gaga any real connection with the word _dag,_ "a
fish." To speak of "Bel-Dagon" is thus to mislead the ordinary reader,
who naturally supposes from the term that he is to identify the great
god Belus, the second deity of the first Triad, with the fish forms upon
the sculptures.

HEA, or HOA.

Hen, or Hoa, the third god of the first Triad, was not a prominent
object of worship in Assyria. Asshur-izir-pal mentions him as having
allotted to the four thousand deities of heaven and earth the senses of
hearing, seeing, and understanding; and then, stating that the four
thousand deities had transferred all these senses to himself, proceeds
to take Hoa's titles, and, as it were, t