From this circumstance, it may be regarded as certain, that Aššur was the local god of the city whose name he bore, and that he attained to the position of chief god of the Assyrian pantheon in the same way as Merodach became king of the gods in Babylonia--namely, because Aššur was the capital of the country. His acceptance as chief divinity, however, was much more general than that of Merodach, as temples to him were to be found all over the Assyrian kingdom--a circumstance which was probably due to Assyria being more closely united in itself than Babylonia, causing his name to arouse patriotic feelings wherever it might be referred to. This was probably partly due to the fact, that the king in Assyria was more the representative of the god than in Babylonia, and that the god followed him on warlike expeditions, and when engaged in religious ceremonies--indeed, it is not by any means improbable that he was thought to follow him wherever he went. On the sculptures he is seen accompanying him in the form of a circle provided with wings, in which is shown sometimes a full-length figure of the god in human form, sometimes the upper part only, facing towards and drawing his bow against the foe. In consequence of its general appearance, the image of the god has been likened to the sun in eclipse, the far-stretching wings being thought to resemble the long streamers visible at the moment of totality, and it must be admitted as probable that this may have given the idea of the symbol shown on the sculptures. As a sun-god, and at the same time not the god Šamaš, he resembled the Babylonian Merodach, and was possibly identified with him, especially as, in at least one text, Bêltu (Bêltis) is described as his consort, which would possibly identify Aššur's spouse with Zer-panîtum. The original form of his name would seem to have been Aušar, "water-field," probably from the tract where the city of Aššur was built. His identification with Merodach, if that was ever accepted, may have been due to the likeness of the word to Asari, one of that deity's names. The pronunciation Aššur, however, seems to have led to a comparison with the Anšar of the first tablet of the Creation-story, though it may seem strange that the Assyrians should have thought that their patron-god was a deity symbolising the "host of heaven." Nevertheless, the Greek transcription of Anšar, namely, /Assoros/, given by Damascius, certainly strengthens the indications of the ideograph in this matter. Delitzsch regards the word Aššur, or Ašur, as he reads it, as meaning "holy," and quotes a list of the gods of the city of Nineveh, where the word Aššur occurs three times, suggesting the exclamation "holy, holy, holy," or "the holy, holy, holy one." In all probability, however, the repetition of the name three times simply means that there were three temples dedicated to Aššur in the cities in question.[*] Jastrow agrees with Delitzsch in regarding Ašur as another form of Ašir (found in early