Assur

AŠŠUR. –

1. DEITY

The national god of the Assyrians, who gave his name to the capital of the kingdom. He is one of the few gods who did not penetrate Babylonia, despite Assyrian supremacy over the southern Mesopotamian region as well, in the time of the Sargonids.

The fortunes of the god are linked to those of the city; when Assyria became a great empire, the power of A. increased to such an extent that he came to surpass the other deities and to become the imperial deity. A. is essentially a warrior god who delivers enemies into the hands of his people. The victorious kings dedicate the spoils to him.

In the Assyrian lists of deities, A. comes immediately after Anu, and sometimes even precedes him. It may rightly be said that in the Assyrian pantheon he occupies the place accorded to Marduk in the Babylonian pantheon.

Some authors emphasize the great affinity that this god displays with the national god of the Israelites. In this regard, it should be noted that the essential elements found in Jahweh—monotheism and jealous guardianship of the moral law—do not appear in the Assyrian national god, whose characteristic is that of being a warrior god.

2. CITY

A city on the right bank of the Tigris, named (Assyrian and Hebrew ’Aššur) after the supreme Assyrian god Aššur, from which the entire territory of the Assyrians took its name (as the Amorites did from Amurru), being called in cuneiform documents mat Aššur (“land of A.”) and in the Bible “kingdom of A.” or simply “A.” In the Old Assyrian period (from its beginnings to 1115 B.C.), it was the capital of the Assyrians, until Salmanasar I (1290–1260) established his capital at Kalah (today Nimrūd), south of Nineveh, 70 km north of A., and then Teglathalasar I at Nineveh (ca. 1100); A. nevertheless always remained the religious capital: the temple of A. preserved the political and military archive. On a rock at the edge of the steppe, the ruins of A. are today called Qal'at Serqāt, opposite Gebel Hamrin. Its history is identified to a large extent with that of the Assyrians. While its earliest kings bore the title of “governor” and “priest” of A., Šamši-Adad I (ca. 1892–1860) proclaimed himself šar hiššatim “king of the world,” because he ruled over the “land between the Tigris and the Euphrates.”

A. has prehistoric origins. Before the middle of the 3rd millennium B.C., the Sumerian language and culture predominated there, as attested by the statues found in the lower strata of its ruins. Its earliest local kings (ca. 2500 B.C.) were Ellil-Kapkapu, Ušpia (who built there the temple of the god Aššur E-hur-sag-hur-kur-ra, “mountain of the lands”), and Kikia (who built the city walls). Before 2300 B.C., the Semitic race and civilization established themselves there. From an inscription of King (fakhanah “governor”) Zāriqum, A. appears as a vassal of King Būr-Sin of Ur (2228–2220 B.C.). But while the dynasties of Larsa and Išin were contending for primacy in Mesopotamia, A. was emancipating itself, and its king Ilu-šuma extended his rule as far as Ur, Akkad, and Nippur (ca. 2030 B.C.). With Puzur-Asir I (2086–2072) begins the uninterrupted succession, until the disappearance of Assyria, of the patesis and kings of A. Hammurapi restored A., then a Babylonian military outpost. It was for a long time subject to the kingdom of Mitannu, whose king Tušratta (ca. 1390–1370 B.C.) still possessed it (together with Nineveh) during the el-Amarna period. The city reached its zenith under the kings Aššur-Uballiṭ and Adad-Nirāri I (ca. 1350–1285 B.C.), who initiated the victorious rise of an independent Assyria. It was a sacred city, famous for its temples of Aššur, Ištar, Adad (to which the temple of Anu was later added), En-ili (rebuilt by Samši-Adad I), and Samaš or “Sun” (built by Arik-dén-ili (ca. 1325–1311), and it retained this primacy even when Nineveh became the capital. Semiramide (Sammuramat), mother of Adadnirari III (806–782 B.C.), had a monument built there. A rebellion in A., led by priests, deprived Salmanasar V of the kingdom and gave it to Sargon II (722 B.C.). Asarhaddon (681–669) exempted A. from tribute and compulsory services; he restored the temple of Aššur there, celebrating its dedication with the Assyrian nobles for three days. His son Assurbanipal paid similar honors. In 615 B.C., the Babylonian Nabopolassar unsuccessfully attempted to conquer A., but at the end of 614 the Medes of Cyaxares conquered and destroyed it, and on its ruins they formed an alliance with Nabopolassar; the end of Assyria followed in 612 B.C. The Parthians later founded their own city there (2nd–1st centuries B.C.), furnished with a grand palace decorated with Hellenistic colored stucco. Even in the 3rd century A.D., the god Aššur was worshiped there by a few faithful amid the ruins.

In the Bible, “Assur” never designates the city (except in Gen. 2:14 Heb.), but always Assyria (the people and the region); the term “Assyria,” known to the Greeks (Herodotus, I, 178–85 and 192, where Ἀσπερίχ is equivalent to Βαβολοκλή), is absent. The Vulgate calls the people “assyrius,” but usually “Assyrii”; the Hebrew text, in indicating the Assyrians, always uses A. (Aššur); the name was subsequently adopted by the empires that succeeded the Assyrian one: Babylonia (I Reg. 23:20) and Persia (Eid. 6:22).

Gen. 10:11 recounts that Nemrod, a Hamite descended from Kuš, came from Sennaar (Babylonia) to A. (the region); Mi. 5:6 therefore calls A. “the land of Nemrod.” In fact, Assyria was first colonized by non-Semites coming from southern Mesopotamia. But the people of A. are rightly said to be descended from Shem (Gen. 10:22).

The ruins of A. (Qal'at Šerqšt) were explored from 1902 to 1914 by W. Andrae, who identified six archaeological strata, gigantic fortifications, and many palaces and temples, including the double temple of Anu and Adad with two towers of receding stories, various temples of Ištar, the Bit Akhti “house of the festivals” (where the New Year festival was celebrated), and the tomb of Sennacherib (705–681 B.C.). Important is the account of the cosmogony (related to the Enūma elif, v.) found in the excavations at A. (H. Gressmann, Mitorientalische Texte zum Alten Text, 2nd ed., Berlin–Leipzig 1926, pp. 131–132). The inscriptions found at A. were published by L. Messerschmidt and F. Delitzsch (1912), by O. Schroeder (1920–1922); those of religious content by E. Ebeling (1915–1917).

BBL.: W. Andrae, Die archaischen Ischter-Tempel in A., Leipzig 1922; id., Das wiedererstandene A. (Sondschrift der deutsch-orient. Gesellschaft), 9, Leipzig 1938 (an updated compendium of many earlier publications by W. Andrae); E. Ebeling, B. Meissner, E. F. Weidner, Die Inschriften der altasyrischen Könige (Altorient. Bibliothek), 1, Leipzig 1926; E. Unger, Das Stadtbild von A. (Der Alte Orient. 27, III), Leipzig 1929; F. M. T. Böhl, Religienze teksten uit A. (VI-IX), in Ex Oriente Lux, 7 (1940), pp. 403–417; E. F. Weidner, Assurbanipal in A., in Archiv für Orient-Forschung, 13 (1940), pp. 204–218; W. von Bissing, Ägyptische und ägyptisierende Alabastergefässe aus den deutschen Ausgrabungen in A., in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, 12 (1940), pp. 149–185; J. Pehuela, La data de reconstrucción del templo de Anu-Adad en Assur, in Sefarad, 4 (1944), pp. 119–146. Antonino Romeo