ent by Sargon, of the northern gates of his palace
to Bel, who lays foundations, and Belit, who brings fertility, affords
evidence that the goddess was the feminine form of Polaris. In Assyria,
Belit appears, either as the wife of Bel, as the consort of Ashur, as the
consort of Ea, or simply as a designation for Ishtar, _i. e._ "the
goddess," the "mistress of countries, or of mountains," in which
connection it is interesting to note that the ideographs for country and
mountain are identical in Assyrian.

If the attributes of the goddesses of the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheon
be carefully examined, they will be found to associate the female
principle with fertility, abundance and with water, the source of plant
life. Two divergent views appear to have influenced the artificial
formation of personifications of the female principle in nature. According
to one the goddess is termed the "lady of the deep, the mistress of the
place where the fish dwell" (Sarpanitam-erua) and in other cases is linked
to the lower firmament to subterraneous regions, to darkness, death,
destructiveness and hence to evil, thus representing the complement to the
male personification of the upper realm of daylight and the preservative
and beneficent life-giving principles. The other tendency, which almost
appears as a reaction or protest against the previous view, led to the
ultimate adoption of an ideal goddess of the nocturnal heaven, who was
"bountiful, offspring-producing, silvery bright" and was in one instance
addressed as "the lady of shining waters," of "purification" and of
"incantations." In the period of Hammurabi, devotion went so far as to
cause the goddess Gula, termed the "bride of the earth," to be invoked as
the "creator of mankind," the "great physician" and "life-giver" and "the
one who leads the dead to a new life" (Jastrow, _op. cit._ p. 175).

As an interesting outcome of an adjustment of both trains of thought
stands Ishtar-Belit=the lady _par excellence_ and consequently, the
feminine personification of Polaris, the supreme goddess whom
Tiglath-pileser termed "the first among the gods." She is the mild and
gracious mother of creation, "loves the king and his priesthood," but is
also the mighty commanding goddess of war who clothes herself in fiery
flame, appears as a violent destroyer and sends down streams of fire upon
her enemies. "The distinguishing position of both the Babylonian and
Assyrian Ishtar is her independent