ASHUR (Ashshur, modern Kala'at Shergat), the ancient capital of Assyria. The city lay on the west bank of the Tigris in N., 43° 2o' E., half-way between the greater and the lesser [GEOGRAPHY Zab, about Zoom. north of Baghdad. There was a Sumerian city here in pre-Sargonic times, but no trace of its political position has survived and it cannot be identified on inscriptions; possibly the name was different. The importance of Ashur lay in the fact that it was the chief seat of religious traditions in Assyria, and it is uncertain whether the god was named from the city or the city from the god. The beginnings of the city go back into the tradi tional period. Ushpia, who is mentioned in inscriptions of Shal maneser I., is said to have been the founder of E-Kharsag-Kur kura, the temple of Ashur in the city of Ashur, the most ancient and most sacred shrine in Assyria. Although at first tributary to Babylonia the priests of Ashur succeeded in making themselves later independent and founded what ultimately became the As syrian kingdom. With this increase in the power of the priest hood the city grew in size. A great wall was built by Puzur-Ashir (Ashir is an old form which became obsolete about the 15th cen tury B.c.), and later a deep moat was built round the city. In the northern part most of the town was devoted to ecclesiastical pur poses and contained a number of shrines in addition to that of Ashur. The later kings built palaces and Esar-haddon in making repairs declares that Shalmaneser repaired the temple Soo years before his time. Tiglath-Pileser I. changed the capital from Ka lakh to Ashur and built temples and palaces, but, even after Nine veh became the capital, Ashur remained important because of the shrine of the god ; the kings repaired the temples, and the city remained the religious capital of a country, the political capital of which was elsewhere, even though its position on the Tigris makes the site of Ashur always one of importance when times are suffi ciently peaceful to allow of down river traffic.
See W. Andrae, Anu-Adad-Tempel in Assur (Leipzig, 1909) ; Die Festungswerke von Assur (Leipzig, 1913) ; Cambridge Ancient History (bibl.) .