oduction of Anshar and Kishar as intermediate between the
monsters and the triad of gods appears to be due entirely to the attempt
at theological systematization that clearly stamps the creation epic as
the conscious work of schoolmen, though shaped, as must always be borne
in mind, out of the material furnished by popular tradition. In
connection with the etymology and original form of the chief of the
Assyrian pantheon,[702] 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. Not that all the gods of the south are
worshipped in the north, but those that are worshipped in the north are
also found in the south, and originate there. The distinctive features
of Ashur are due to the political conditions that were developed in
Assyria, but the unfolding of the conceptions connected with this god
which make him the characteristic deity of Assyria, indeed, the only
distinctive Assyrian figure in the Assyrian pantheon, does not preclude
the possibility, of the southern origin of Ashur.

If, as has been made plausible by Hommel, Nineveh, the later capital of
the Assyrian empire, represents a settlement made by inhabitants of a
Nineveh situated in the south, there is no reason why a southern deity
bearing the name Anshar should not have been transferred from the south
to the north. The attempt has been made[703] to explain the change from
Anshar to Ashur. The later name Ashur, because of its ominous character,
effectually effaced the earlier one in popular thought. The introduction
of the older form Anshar, not merely in the first tablet of the creation
series, but, as we shall presently see, elsewhere, confirms the view of
a southern origin for Ashur, and also points to the great antiquity of
the Anshar-Ashur cult. It is not uncommon to find colonies more
conservative in matters of religious thought and custom than the
motherland, and there is nothing improbable in the interesting
conclusion thus reached that Ashur, the head of an empire, so much later
in point of time than Babylonia, should turn out to be an older deity
than the chief personage in the Babylonian pantheon after the days of
Hammurabi.

But while Anshar-Ashur under this view is a figure surviving from an
ancient period, he is tran