This document describes ancient Assyrian symbols of fertility and male potency that were featured in artwork. Statues depicted gods wearing elaborate costumes and headpieces adorned with phallic symbols like erect serpents and bull horns. Carvings showed altars decorated with emblems of sexuality like tortoises and depictions of intercourse between animals. These symbols represented concepts of virility, life-giving power, and eternal rule that were ascribed to gods and kings in Assyrian culture.

2. A back view of one is given, Figure 174. The
body is mainly occupied with a
For as the Assyrians
represented the Deity, the source of all life, by
the phallus, so the monarch was the god of this
lower world,
He was the source of life to the empire, and as
such was addressed—"O king, live for ever"
(Dan. v. 10). He, like the gods, never dies. "Le
Roi est mort; Vive le Roi"
Accordingly, his garments and crown are
embroidered with that sacred emblem, the
Asherah. He bears the strung-bow and arrows,
emblems of virile power, borne afterwards by the
An erect serpent occupies the other side, and
ends with forky tongue near the orifice.
The glans is covered with symbols.
On the summit is a triad of sun emblems;
beneath are three altars, over two of which are

3. the glans-shaped caps, covered with bulls'
horns, always worn by the Assyrian guardian
angels, and intense emblems of the male
potency.
For in ancient symbolism, a part of a symbol
stands for the whole; as here, the horns
represent the bull, and the glans the phallus.
Above the third altar is a tortoise, whose
protruded head and neck reminded the initiated
of the phallus; and the altars are covered with a
pattern drawn from the tortoise scales.
We have, besides, a vase with a rod inserted,
emblem of sexual union, and a cock, with wings
and plumage ruffled, running after a hen in
amorous heat. The glans only of the other is
copied.

4. Fig. 175. At the top are the sun-symbols, as
before. Beneath is the horse-shoe-like head-
dress of Isis, and there are two altars marked
with the tortoise-emblem in front.

5. Over both rises the erect serpent, and upon one
lies the head of an arrow or a dart, both male
symbols. The miphletzeth which Queen
Maachah placed in or near the Asherah,
probably resembled these Assyrian phalli, or the
Asherim.
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