The supreme god, the first and sole principle from whom all other deities were derived, was Ilu, whose name signifies God _par excellence_. Their idea of him was too comprehensive, too vast, to have any determined external form, or consequently to receive in general the adoration of the people; and from this point of view there is a certain analogy between Ilu and the Chronos of the Greeks, with whom he was compared by the latter. In Chaldæa it does not seem that any temple was ever specially dedicated to him; but at Nineveh and generally throughout Assyria, he seems to have received the peculiarly national name of Asshur (whence was derived the name of the country, _Mat Asshur_), and this itself seems related to the Arian name of the deity _Asura_. With this title he was great god of the land, the especial protector of the Assyrians, he who gave victory to their arms. The inscriptions designate him as “Master or Chief of the Gods.” He it is, perhaps, who is to be recognized in the figure occasionally found on the Assyrian monuments (but probably adopted in later times by the Persians to represent their Ormuzd), representing a human bust, wearing the royal tiara in the middle of a circle borne by two large eagle wings, and with an eagle’s tail. THE ASSYRIAN TRIAD. Below Ilu, the universal and mysterious source of all, was placed a triad, composed of his three first external and visible manifestations, and occupying the summit of the hierarchy of gods in popular worship. Anu, the Oannes of the Greek writers, was the lord of darkness; Bel, the demiurgus, the organizer of the world; Ao, called also Bin, that is, the divine “Son” _par excellence_, the divine light, the intelligence penetrating, directing and vivifying the universe. These three divine persons esteemed as equal in power and con-substantial, were not held as of the same degree of emanation, but were regarded as having, on the contrary, issued the one from the other--Ao from Oannes, and Bel from Ao. Oannes, the “Lord of the Lower World, the Lord of Darkness,” was represented on the monuments under the strange figure of a man with an eagle’s tail, and for his head-dress an enormous fish, whose open mouth rises over his head, while the body covers his shoulders. It is under this form that, Berosus tells us, according to Babylonian tradition, he floated on the surface of the waters of Chaos. Bel, the “Father of the Gods,” was usually represented under an entirely human form, attired as a king, wearing a tiara with bull’s horns, the symbol of power. But this god took many other secondary forms, the most important being Bel Dagon, a human bust springing from the body of a fish. We do not know exactly the typical figure of Ao or Bin, “the intelligent guide, the Lord of the visible world, the Lord of knowledge, of glory and light.” The serpent seems to have been his principal symbol; though some other sculptured figures seem to be intended to represent Bin.