A study of the Assyrian symbols of royalty, which I recently had an opportunity of making at the British Museum, has led me to the conclusion that, in Assyria, during many centuries, a perfect equilibrium was maintained throughout the state which, by a strict coördination of all its parts, represented a harmonious entity.
An observation I have made, which may be worth noting, is that Assyria seems to occupy, in relation to Babylonia, somewhat the same position as Peru to the more ancient and greater centres of culture in Mexico and Central America. In the latter the original ground-plan of the archaic civilization seems to be lost and hidden under the ruin and devastation caused by the growth of diverging cults. In Peru and Assyria alike we seem to have examples of organizations starting afresh on the old plan or reversions to the primitive type of civil and religious government in which simplicity, order, balance and harmony were again restored and maintained. If I may venture to hazard a general observation about the ancient civilizations of Western Asia I should say that, whereas the primeval centre of primitive pole-star worship in Babylonia had, in course of time, brought forth as its highest development the monotheism of the Israelites, and as its lowest the cults of Ishtar and [pg 354] Bel, it also appears to have given birth to a reproduction of its former self, to the Assyrian empire, in which the most ancient form of culture was preserved intact, and in time spread its influence not only to other nations but also back to Babylonia itself.
As in Peru, it appears to have been the policy of the kings of Assyria, who had before them the results of an opposite course pursued at Babylonia, to discountenance the manufacture of symbolical images and the establishment of minor centres of government, the leading motive being to maintain the ideal of an absolute centralization of temporal and spiritual government and power. It is the opinion of leading Assyriologists that Assyria was a colony founded by Semitic Babylonians and this conclusion is corroborated by the view I have advanced, namely, that, as Babylonia degenerated and abandoned the primeval ideas which nourished the germ of monotheism, those who adhered to this ideal after prolonged struggles separated themselves from their ancient mother, and founded new colonies, the administration and religion of which they established according to their wider experience and more advanced intellectual and moral development. A characteristic of Assyria seems to have been the institution of two male rulers, the high-priest and the king and the cult of the diurnal and nocturnal heaven, of day and night. As these features are in marked contrast to the Babylonian male and female rulers and the cult of heaven and earth and the reproductive principles, it would seem as though they had developed themselves from a prolonged cult of heaven alone by the inhabitants of Northern Babylonia, or that they were the result of a reform led about by the abuses to which the Babylonian cult had led. A curious development worth mentioning, even out of its chronological order, was when the Assyrian king Esarhaddon placed his two sons as single rulers upon the thrones of Babylonia and Assyria. It is known that these two brothers ruled in peace during twenty years and that then a great rebellion against the Assyrian rule took place, which ended in the conquest and destruction of Babylonia and the death of its king, whose half-brother, the Assyrian ruler Asurbanipal, thus became the sole ruler of Assyria and Babylonia.
Professor Jastrow tells us that, “as compared with Babylonia, Assyria was poor in the number of her temples.... The Assyrian rulers were much more concerned in rearing grand edifices for themselves. While the gods were not neglected in [pg 355] Assyria, one hears much more of the magnificent palaces erected by the kings than of temples and shrines.”
The above data suffice to show that the tendency of the Assyrian monarchs was to indulge in self-glorification and to forget what some of his subjects never could: that his position had originally been that of an earthly representative only of a higher central, celestial power. As among some branches of the Semitic race, the conception of a divinity became more and more elevated until it reached the ideal of the Yahwe, “the only true god who was jealous of other gods and could brook none beside him.” To these uncompromising adherents of pure monotheism the royal titles of the Assyrian kings who styled themselves the rulers of the centre, of the four quarters of the earth and of the heavens, must indeed have appeared as a sacrilege.
The existence of such opposite views clearly explains the ultimate outbreak of hatred and war between monotheistic Israel and Juda and the ancient empires of Western Asia which shared, with them, a remote but common origin.
Returning to Assyria we find that this empire also, as it extended its four-fold capital Assur into four provinces and developed the cult of the high central power and the Heaven and Earth, gradually prepared in turn its own downfall by an inevitable process of disintegration. In time two great capitals grew up, situated to the northeast and northwest of the ancient metropolis of Assur, the original seat of the “kings of the four regions.” These capitals were Ninive, divided into four cities, and Arbela, also a “four-city.” The fact that the latter capital was the seat of Ishtar worship, further proves that, at one time, a definite separation of cults had also supervened in Assyria and that Assur and Ninive may at one time have been respectively centres of Polaris and sun worship. It is well known that when about B.C. 606 the great Assyrian empire was destroyed, it had four royal residences: Ninive, Dûr-Sarrukîn, Kalash and Assur, which were then burnt and levelled to the ground, never to be rebuilt.
Let us now examine the emblems of “divine royalty” exhibited on the famous portrait stelæ of Assyrian kings preserved at the British Museum which strikingly confirm the view I advanced that the four-spoked wheel of Shamash on the Sippara tablet was the ancient restored image of the “primitive sun” Polaris and of circumpolar rotation.
The Assyrian kings on the British Museum stelæ are represented as wearing the cross, between the signs for the moon and planet Venus, that occurs on the Sippara tablet. The four-spoked wheel thus explains itself as a “wheel-cross” and is found to have been employed in Assyria alternately with the plain cross; for the portrait statue of Asurnasirpal (about B.C. 880) represents the king wearing a chain about his neck from which hangs a cross between the Ishtar and moon emblems, and next to a symbol representing the lightning bolt of Ramman. In the background, next to the king's head, five emblems are sculptured, three of which are identical with those hanging from the chain, i. e. the eight-rayed “sun” of Ishtar, the moon Sin and the lightning bolt of Ramman. The fifth emblem consists of the royal conical cap with four horns and is represented separately to the right while the other four symbols form a compact group.
In the text Assur, Ramman, Sin, Shamash and Ishtar are invoked. As the symbols of Ishtar and Sin can be identified by the Sippara tablet, and the winged disk unquestionably pertains to Assur and the lightning bolt to Ramman, we find that the cap, simulating the central “holy mound” with four horns, must be the symbol of the remaining god Shamash. This inference appears to be corroborated by the circumstance that the seventh month was sacred to Shamash and that it was in this month that the lord of the holy mound built the seven-staged tower of Babylon. These facts authorize us to formulate the conclusion that the four-spoked wheel of the Sippara tablet, the cross hanging to the king's chain and the four-horned cap which, like the “square altar with four horns,” simulated the “holy mound,” were alike symbols of Shamash, the “primitive Sun.”