It is possible to read too much into his symbols.  These are not more complicated and vague than are the symbols on the standing stones of Scotland—­the crescent with the “broken” arrow; the trident with the double rings, or wheels, connected by two crescents; the circle with the dot in its centre; the triangle with the dot; the large disk with two small rings on either side crossed by double straight lines; the so-called “mirror”, and so on.  Highly developed symbolism may not indicate a process of spiritualization so much, perhaps, as the persistence of magical beliefs and practices.  There is really no direct evidence to support the theory that the Assyrian winged disk, or disk “with protruding rays”, was of more spiritual character than the wheel which encloses the feather-robed archer with his trident-shaped arrow.

The various symbols may have represented phases of the god.  When the spring fires were lit, and the god “renewed his life like the eagle”, his symbol was possibly the solar wheel or disk with eagle’s wings, which became regarded as a symbol of life.  The god brought life and light to the world; he caused the crops to grow; he gave increase; he sustained his worshippers.  But he was also the god who slew the demons of darkness and storm.  The Hittite winged disk was Sandes or Sandon, the god of lightning, who stood on the back of a bull.  As the lightning god was a war god, it was in keeping with his character to find him represented in Assyria as “Ashur the archer” with the bow and lightning arrow.  On the disk of the Assyrian standard the lion and the bull appear with “the archer” as symbols of the war god Ashur, but they were also symbols of Ashur the god of fertility.

The life or spirit of the god was in the ring or wheel, as the life of the Egyptian and Indian gods, and of the giants of folk tales, was in “the egg”.  The “dot within the circle”, a widespread symbol, may have represented the seed within “the egg” of more than one mythology, or the thorn within the egg of more than one legendary story.  It may be that in Assyria, as in India, the crude beliefs and symbols of the masses were spiritualized by the speculative thinkers in the priesthood, but no literary evidence has survived to justify us in placing the Assyrian teachers on the same level as the Brahmans who composed the Upanishads.

Temples were erected to Ashur, but he might be worshipped anywhere, like the Queen of Heaven, who received offerings in the streets of Jerusalem, for “he needed no temple”, as Professor Pinches says.  Whether this was because he was a highly developed deity or a product of folk religion it is difficult to decide.  One important fact is that the ruling king of Assyria was more closely connected with the worship of Ashur than the king of Babylonia was with the worship of Merodach.  This may be because the Assyrian king was regarded as an incarnation of his god, like the Egyptian Pharaoh.  Ashur accompanied the monarch on his campaigns:  he was their conquering war god.  Where the king was, there was Ashur also.  No images were made of him, but his symbols were carried aloft, as were the symbols of Indian gods in the great war of the Mahabharata epic.