신 앗시리아 제국기의 앗슈르 신앙 : 사회 상징으로서의 앗슈르

Abstract

Though being the supreme deity of the Assyrian pantheon, little is known about the characteristics of the god Assur and his cult. In this paper, I will briefly describe the god and his cult and examine the possibility that the god ASSur was the symbol of the Assvriar, society, and probably personified society itself. Such aspect of the god has been mentioned in many literatures but it has no'; been dealt throughly on theoretical basis. I believe that French sociologist E.Durkheim's theory about the society and religion (in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life) explains the relation between the God Assur and the Assyrian society best. He says that a Totemtor God) is not merely a name but the symbol of a certain clan. and the materially manifested symbols become the part of cult, which makes a totem not only the symbol of a society but also gives religious characters to it. Assur was wors hipped throughout the Assyrian period but I chose the Neo-Assvrian period because many evidence from that period support the hypothesis. 'The god Assur is Assyria itself". First of all, the name Assur was used by the majority of the Assyrian kings in their throne-names and epithets. The fact that the name was used by the highest echelon of society may support that the god did not only exist in name but the symbol/name of the society. And secondly, Assur also had its symbol like 'weapons of ASSur', which became the subject of his cult throughout the empire. Why his symbol was a weapon? it can be better understood with his description as a warrior-god. In the Neo-Assyrian literatures. Assur is described as a divine-warrior who helps the King vanquish his (and Assur's) enemies and in some cases. he himself destroys them. Nee-Assyrian period saw the greatest enlargement of the Assyrian empire and the empire itself was fighting wars at every known corners of western Asia and northern Africa. The described warrior-god ASSur would be actually personified 'The Assyrian society at war'. In general, judging the evidence on Durkbeim's theory, the god ASSur was actually symbol of the Assyrian society. He had his own symbol of cult and it was a weapon. With the description of 'warrior', he was probably the personification of the Assyrian society at war.