nto
twelve hours by multiplying six by the two leaden feet of Time. The
past lives in the present.

CHAPTER XIV.

ASHUR THE NATIONAL GOD OF ASSYRIA

Derivation of Ashur--Ashur as Anshar and Anu--Animal forms of Sky
God--Anshar as Star God on the Celestial Mount--Isaiah's
Parable--Symbols of World God and World Hill--Dance of the
Constellations and Dance of Satyrs--Goat Gods and Bull Gods--Symbols
of Gods as "High Heads"--The Winged Disc--Human Figure as Soul of
the Sun--Ashur as Hercules and Gilgamesh--Gods differentiated by
Cults--Fertility Gods as War Gods--Ashur's Tree and Animal
forms--Ashur as Nisroch--Lightning Symbol in Disc--Ezekiel's
Reference to Life Wheel--Indian Wheel and Discus--Wheels of Shamash
and Ahura-Mazda--Hittite Winged Disc--Solar Wheel causes Seasonal
Changes--Bonfires to stimulate Solar Deity--Burning of Gods and
Kings--Magical Ring and other Symbols of Scotland--Ashur's Wheel of
Life and Eagle Wings--King and Ashur--Ashur associated with Lunar,
Fire, and Star Gods--The Osirian Clue--Hittite and Persian
Influences.

The rise of Assyria brings into prominence the national god Ashur,
who had been the city god of Asshur, the ancient capital. When first
met with, he is found to be a complex and mystical deity, and the
problem of his origin is consequently rendered exceedingly difficult.
Philologists are not agreed as to the derivation of his name, and
present as varied views as they do when dealing with the name of
Osiris. Some give Ashur a geographical significance, urging that its
original form was Aushar, "water field"; others prefer the renderings
"Holy", "the Beneficent One", or "the Merciful One"; while not a few
regard Ashur as simply a dialectic form of the name of Anshar, the god
who, in the Assyrian version, or copy, of the Babylonian Creation
myth, is chief of the "host of heaven", and the father of Anu, Ea, and
Enlil.

If Ashur is to be regarded as an abstract solar deity, who was
developed from a descriptive place name, it follows that he had a
history, like Anu or Ea, rooted in Naturalism or Animism. We cannot
assume that his strictly local character was produced by modes of
thought which did not obtain elsewhere. The colonists who settled at
Asshur no doubt imported beliefs from some cultural area; they must
have either given recognition to a god, or group of gods, or regarded
the trees, hills, rivers, sun, moon, and stars, and the animal