Talk:Assyrian Soldier/@comment-108.20.253.170-20150123072055/@comment-108.20.248.34-20150124062743

This shouldn't even be an issue for anyone who understands the the decentralized and syncretic nature of the pantheons of the ancient near east. I will now quote from Hundley's Gods in Dwellings: Temples and Divine Presence in the Ancient Near East (209-210)

''"On the whole, the data seems to suggest that all of these elements were substantially connected, such that together they constituted the deity in all of its plentitude, and in some measure each individual element partook of the divine essence enough to be called by the divine name and associated with the primarily anthropomorphically conceived divine personage.  However, each element was in various contexts treated as distinct, such that, for example, Ishtar of Arbela and Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of mythology and Ishtar as Venus, were not coterminous and in many ways were understood as distinct entities.  For example, a hymn of Ashurbanipal addresses the distinct Ishtars of Nineveh and Arbela, while the treaty between the Assyrian King Esarhaddon and Rmataya, king of Urakazabanu, includes in the witness list Ishtar of Arbela, Ishtar of Nineveh, and the planet Venus, often associated with Ishtar, and in divine curses invokes Venus alongside Ishtar Lady of Battle, Ishtar who resides in Arbela, Ishtar of [...], and Ishtar [...] Carchemish. In the Assyrian takultu ritual texts, various Ishtars in the form of cult images are venerated separately, including an unmodified Ishtar, Ishtar of the Sibirri Staff, Ishtar of the Stars, Ashur-Ishtar, Ishtar the Panther, and the Lady of Nineveh.

How can we explain such phenomena? In general it would seem a deity could be characterized as an interconnected divine network composed of many distinct elements, which may be referred to as a divine constellation. More precisely, each major god consisted of a constellation of aspects, which could act and be treated (semi-)independently or as a unity depending on context. Given this divine fluidity, it is striking that although they had multiple forms in multiple locales, deities rarely appeared in the human sphere in the first millennium and rarely communicated directly with humanity. Instead they mostly manifested in the first millennium and rately communicated directly with humanity. Instead they mostly manifested themselves in their dealings with each other."''

In fact, the ancient pantheons had cognates that allowed them to interpret and even absorb one another. Take the career of Sauska, the Hittite goddes of fertility and war whom we know primarily through the reign of Hattusili III in the 13th Century BCE. Through the diplomatic efforts of the Hittites, Sauska would come to be worshipped in Egypt as a cognate of Isis and by an upper mesopotamian culture known as the Mittani, who also installed her worship in an old Akkadian town named Nineveh. Nineveh would later become the capital of the Neo-Assyrian empire, and Sauska of Nineveh became Ishtar of Nineveh, one of the chief deities of the Assyrian state.

If I were to analogize this phenomenon in crass Judeo-Christian terms, it would be as if the Roman Catholic Church never bothered to rid itself from heresies and stocked itself full of Arians, Marcionists, Donatists, Montanists, and various other sects with differing interpretations on the nature of Jesus and the holy trinity--and proceeded to declare all interpretations of Jesus' divinity to be essentially correct.