Assur Sentence Examples

If Assyria finally overthrew Israel and carried off Yahweh's shrine, Assur (Asur), the tutelary deity of Assyria, was mightier than Yahweh.

In Egypt the succession to the work of the Deutsch-Orient Gesellschaft, which excavated Babylon and Assur, has fallen to the Egypt Exploration Society, which has taken up the excavation at Tell el Amarna where it was laid down by the Germans at the outbreak of war, after they had recovered from the houseruins several wonderfully fine examples of the art of the period of Akhenaton, now in Berlin.

The country of Assyria, which in the Assyro-Babylonian literature is known as mat Assur (ki), " land of Assur," took its name from the ancient city of Assur, situated at the 1 The name Assur is not connected with the Asshur of i Chron.ii.

Note that it is customary to spell the god-name Asur and the country-name Assur.

The kingdom of Assyria, which was the outgrowth of the primitive settlement on the site of the city of Assur, was developed by a probably gradual process of colonization in the rich vales of the middle Tigris region, a district watered by the Tigris itself and also by several tributary streams, the chief of which was the lower Zab.'

It seems quite evident that the city of Assur was originally founded by Semites from Babylonia at quite an early, but as yet undetermined date.

In the prologue to the law-code of the great Babylonian monarch Khammurabi (c. 22 50 B.C.), the cities of Nineveh and Assur are both mentioned as coming under that king's beneficent influence.

Assur is there called A-usar(ki),2 in which combination the ending -ki ("land territory") proves that even at that early period there was a province of Assur more extensive than the city proper.

The problem as to the meaning of the name Assur is rendered all the more confusing by the fact that the city and land are also called Assur (as well as A-usar),both by the Khammurabi records' and generally in the later Assyrian literature.

On the other hand, there is an epithet Asir or Ashir ("overseer") applied to several gods and particularly to the deity Asur, a fact which introduced a third element of confusion into the discussion of the name Assur.

It is probable then that there is a triple popular etymology in the various forms of writing the name Assur; viz.

With the exception of Assur, the original capital, the chief cities of the country, Nineveh, Calah and Arbela, were all on the left bank of the Tigris.

The name Assyria itself was derived from that of the city of Assur or Asur, now Qal'at Sherqat (Kaleh Shergat), which stood on the right bank of the Tigris, midway between the Greater and the Lesser Zab.

Andrae subsequently conducted excavations at Qal`at Sherqat, the site of Assur.

Under this foreign dominion, which offers a striking analogy to the contemporary rule of the Hyksos in Egypt, Babylonia lost its empire over western Asia, Syria and Palestine became independent, and the high-priests of Assur made themselves kings of Assyria.

Under Khammurabi a Samsi-Hadad (or Samsi-Raman) seems to have been vassal-prince at Assur, and the names of several of the high-priests of Assur who succeeded him have been made known to us by the recent German excavations.

Shalmaneser was the founder of Calah, and his annals, which have recently been discovered at Assur, show how widely extended the Assyrian empire already was.

Assur, Arbela and other places joined the pretender, and the revolt was with difficulty put down by Samsi-Raman (or Samsi-Hadad), Shalmaneser's second son, who soon afterwards succeeded him (824 B.C.).

He seems to have been slain fighting against the Babylonians, who were still under the rule of Hadad-dadin-akhi, and a new dynasty was established at Assur by In-aristi-pileser, who claimed to be a descendant of the ancient prince Erba-Raman.

Relief Representing Assur Bani-Pal Spearing A Lion.

He was still reigning in Babylonia in his seventh year, as a contract dated in that year has been discovered at Erech, and an inscription of his, in which he speaks of restoring the ruined temples and their priests, couples Merodach of Babylon with Assur of Nineveh.

But that scribes could make mistakes in their reckoning is definitely proved by the discovery at Shergat of two totally conflicting accounts of the age and history of the great temple of Assur.

He was passionately fond of the chase and was also a great builder, the restoration of the temple of Assur and Hadad at Assur (q.v.) being one of his works.

In the prestige of antiquity and religious renown, Calah was inferior to the older capital, Assur, while in population and general importance it was much inferior to the neighbouring Nineveh.

Admitting that this whole area was thickly inhabited and might be regarded by those at a distance as one city, and that the district may well have had a common name, which could hardly be Assur, there is yet no native evidence that Nineveh extended so far.

Each had its own saknu, and the governor of Nineveh stands below the governors of Assur and Calah in official lists.

In deeds of sale " the road to Calah " is as often named as the " king's highway " to Arbela or Assur.

As he had just spoken of " returning the gracious protecting god to Assur," and spells the name Ni-nu-a, there can be no doubt that Nineveh is meant.

He rebuilt the temple of Assur at Nineveh, and a palace for himself now covered by the Nebi-Yunus mound and so inefficiently explored.

Thus the early kings of Assyria were priests of Assur (Asur), the tutelary deity of Assyria.

Not quite so successful eventually was the similar enterprise farther north at Asshur [or Assur (q.v.)] on the east margin of Mesopotamia, although we do not know the immediate outcome of the struggle between Asshur and the first Babylonian king, Sumu-abi.

The king mentioned above (Shaushatar) conquered Asshur (Assur), and Assyria remained subordinate to Mitanni till near the middle of the 14th century, when, on the death of Tushratta, it overthrew Mitanni with the help of Alshe, a north Mesopotamian state, the allies dividing the territory between them.

The city originally grew up round the great temple of the god Assur, the foundation of which was ascribed to the High-priest Uspia.

For many centuries Assur and the surrounding district, which came accordingly to be called the land of Assur (Assyria), were governed by high-priests under the suzerainty of Babylonia.

With the decay of the Babylonian power the high-priests succeeded in making themselves independent kings, and Assur became the capital of an important kingdom.

The wall was pierced by "the gate of Assur," "the gate of the Sun-god," "the gate of the Tigris," &c., and on the river side was a quay of burnt brick and limestone cemented with bitumen.

Besides the temple of Assur there was another great temple dedicated to Anu and Hadad, as well as the smaller sanctuaries of Bel, Ishtar, Merodach and other deities.

Even after the rise of Nineveh as the capital of the kingdom and the seat of the civil power, Assur continued to be the religious centre of the country, where the king was called on to reside when performing his priestly functions.

The first group is contemporary with the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties and consists in the first place of the Tell ci .Amarna tablets with others related to them, containing the reports of governors of the Syrian possessions of Egypt, and the correspondence of the kings of Babylon, Assur, Mitanni and Khntti (the Hittites) with the Pharaohs.

While the cult of the other great gods and goddesses of Babylonia was transferred to Assyria, the worship of Assur so overshadowed that of the rest as to give the impression of a decided tendency towards the absorption of all divine powers by the one god.

Indeed, the other gods, Sin, Shamash (Samas), Adad, Ninib and Nergal, and even Ea, take on the warlike traits of Assur in the epithets and descriptions given of them in the annals and votive inscriptions of Assyrian rulers to such an extent as to make them appear like little Assurs by the side of the great one.

Apart from this concession, it is Assur who pre-eminently presides over the fortunes of Assyria.'

His symbol is carried into the thick of the fray, so that the god is actually present to grant assistance in the crisis, and the victory is with becoming humility invariably ascribed by the kings "to the help of Assur."

With the fall of Assyria the rule of Assur also comes to an end, whereas it is significant that the cult of the gods of Babylonia - more particularly of Marduksurvives for several centuries the loss of political independence through Cyrus' capture of Babylonia in 539 B.C. The name of Assur's temple at Assur, represented by the mounds of Kaleh Sherghat, was known as E-khar-sag-gal-kur-kurra, i.e.

Besides the chief temple, the capital contained temples and chapels to Anu, Adad, Ishtar, Marduk, Gula, Sin, Shamash, so that we are to assume the existence of a sacred precinct in Assur precisely as in the religious centres of the south.

On the removal of the seat of residence of the Assyrian kings to Calah (c. 1300 B.C.), and then in the 8th century to Nineveh, the centre of the Assur cult was likewise transferred, though the sanctity of the old seat at Assur continued to be recognized.

At Nineveh, which remained the capital till the fall of the Assyrian empire in 606 B.C., Assur had as his rival Ishtar, who was the real patron deity of the place, but a reconciliation was brought about by making Ishtar the consort of the chief god.

She too, like Assur, was viewed as a war deity, and to such an extent was this the case that at times it would appear that she, rather than Assur, presided over the fortunes of the Assyrian armies.

While frequently associated with Marduk, and still more closely with the chief god of Assyria, the god Assur (who occupies in the north the position accorded to Marduk in the south), so much so as to be sometimes spoken of as Assur's consort - the lady or Belit par excellence - the belief that as the source of all life she stands apart never lost its hold upon the people and found an expression also in the system devised by the priests.

Originally the patron god of the city of Assur,, when this city became the centre of a growing and independent.

Marduk and Assur became rivals only when Babylonia..

But for the substitution of Assur for Marduk, the Assyrian pantheon was the same as that set up in the south, though some of the gods were endowed with attributes which differ slightly from those which mark the same gods in the south.

The warlike nature of the Assyrians was reflected in their conceptions of the gods, who thus became little Assurs by the side of the great protector of arms, the big Assur.

According to his annals, discovered at Assur, in his first year he conquered eight countries in the north-west and destroyed the fortress of Arinnu, the dust of which he brought to Assur.

He built palaces at Assur and Nineveh, restored "the worldtemple" at Assur, and founded the city of Calah.

The only serious 'rival to Marduk after 1200 B.C. is Assur in Assyria.

Thirty miles north of the town of Shendi are the pyramids of Meroe (or Assur) in three distinct groups.

Furthermore, the godand country-name Assur also occurs at a late date in Assyrian literature in the forms An-sar, An-sar (ki), which form' was presumably read Assur.

In view of this fact, it seems highly probable that the late writing An-sar for Assur was a more or less conscious attempt on the part of the Assyrian scribes to identify the peculiarly Assyrian deity Asur (see Assur, the god, below) with the Creation deity An-sar.

Though the origin of the form Ashur (or Assur) is not certain, it is probable that the name of the god is older than that of the city (see discussion on the name above) .

The title Ashir was given to various gods in the south, as Marduk and Nebo, and there is every reason to believe that it represents a direct transfer with the intent to emphasize that Assur is the "leader" or head of the pantheon of the north.

The name indicates the existence of the same conception regarding sacred edifices in Assyria as in Babylonia, where we find such names as E-Kur ("mountain house") for the temple of Bel at Nippur, and E-Saggila ("lofty house") for Marduk's temple at Babylon and that of Ea at Eridu, and in view of the general dependence of Assyrian religious beliefs as of Assyrian culture in general, there is little reason to doubt that the name of Assur's temple represents a direct adaptation of such a name as E-Kur, further embellished by epithets intended to emphasize the supreme control of the god to whom the edifice was dedicated.

In these series we can trace the attempt to gather the incantation formulae and prayers produced in different centres, and to make them conform to the tendency to centralize the cult in the worship of Marduk and his consort in the south, and of Assur and Ishtar in the north.