The great god of the Assyrians was named Assur, the all-powerful god of battles. In his name all kinds of cruelty and torture were practised on heretics and apostates, and in his name, and to extend his kingdom of Assyria, the Ninevite kings found their excuses to make war with nations far and near. He seems to have been a later creation of the Assyrian gods, but became supreme as Nineveh rose in power. He was supposed to have descended from Sin, the moon-god. The winged-globe, with the god in the centre holding the bow and arrow, or thunder-bolt (Fig. 159), is by some thought to be a representation of Assur. A similar figure is seen at the top of the Assyrian standard, as the “Director of Armies” (Fig. 161). This figure in the centre of the ring or solar disk, who is evidently divine, by reason of his feathered lower garment, and his wings that raise him in mid-air, above all humanity, is quite likely to be the original type of the later Persian supreme god, Athurâ-Mazda (see Fig. 243), and the emblematic symbol of his divinity is quite likely to have been designed and adapted from the winged disk or “globe” of the Egyptians.
Fig. 159—The Winged Globe with the Figure of a God. (P. & C.)
Fig. 160.—The Winged Globe; from Layard. (P. & C.)
The winged globe (Fig. 160) of the Assyrians is an imitation of that of Egypt; this emblem having found its way into Assyria on many carvings in ivory and on articles in bronze, carried hither by the trading Phœnicians from Egypt, and the emblem in question was, according to Perrot, appropriated by the Assyrians.
Fig. 161.—The Assyrian Standard. (P. & C.)
Fig. 162.—Dagon, the Fish-God. (P. & C.)