Anshar
Mesopotamian · deity · primordial · deity
Anshar is heaven taken as a totality — not the sky-god Anu, who is his son, but the whole of the upper region considered as one thing. He and Kishar are almost confined to Enuma Elish; outside that poem they scarcely appear. Within it they are the rung between Lahmu and Lahamu and the working gods, and Anshar chairs the increasingly desperate assembly that sends first Anu and then Ea against Tiamat, before Marduk takes the job. Assyrian theology later read his name as Ashur's, which is a promotion with imperial motives behind it.
Parentage
Domains
- sky
- sovereignty