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131 extensively worshipped; one of her best-known depictions, as a helmeted pilot (Fig. 60), was found in her temple in Ashur (the city). Historical documents from the time indicate that it was the Assyrians from the north who were the first to challenge Marduk’s Babylon militarily. The very first recorded Assyr- ian king, Ilushuma, led circa 1900 B.c.E. a successful mili- tary expedition down the Tigris River all the way south to the border of Elam. His inscriptions state that his aim was to “set the freedom of Ur and Nippur”; and he did remove, for a while, those cities from Marduk’s grip. That was only the first fight between Assyria and Baby- lonia in a conflict that continued for more than a thousand years and lasted to the end of both. It was a conflict in which the Assyrian kings were usually the aggressors. Neighboring each other, speaking the same Akkadian language, and both inheriting the Sumerian foundation, the Assyrians and Baby- lonians were distinguishable by just one key difference: their national god. Assyria called itself the “Land of the god Ashur” or sim- ply ASHUR, after the name of its national god, for its kings In the Name of God FIGURE 60