Ashurism

Ashurism was the first religion of the Ashurite people. The religion had myriad gods and goddesses, which can be found in any of the old religions, as each god and goddess was a symbol of a certain principle. In Ashurism it was the god Ashur that was the ultimate worship, thus by nature, constituting the religion as Monolatrism. All the other gods were seen as aspects of the chief god Ashur who was the totality of the gods. Ashur derives from the Sumerian god AN.SHAR, an meaning "heaven" and shar literally meaning "whole". It was during the Sargonid era that the name Ashur was written as "AN.SHAR." Ashur is symbolized as a deity in a winged and emanating sun disk. Ashur thus represents, from the derivative AN.SHAR, whole heaven or spirit. Many of the earlier depictions didn't include the deity, but only the winged and emanating sun disk, although to the Ashurites it was the archer that symbolized protection that was equated with the deity of the whole of the heavens. The consort of Ashur was Ishtar or Inanna, which since Ashur derived from AN.SHAR, thus Ishtar would be derived from "KI.SHAR", which means "whole Earth" or matter. To the Ashurites Ishtar/Inanna represented the goddess of love, the divine feminine, and the consort of Ashur; the two represented the union of Heaven and Earth.