Note 74 — Chapter III · THE POETRY AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE TABLETS.
Reading edition
It is thought that the worship of Hea or Ea may have been a corruption of the worship of the God of Abraham, as Ea is another form of El, and the early followers of Ea were evidently monotheists.
Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, the eminent archæologist, who is a native of Assyria, claims that the early Assyrians worshipped the true God, but under peculiar names and attributes, and that instead of practicing the revolting sacrifices which were made by other gentile nations “they imitated the sacrifices of the Jewish rites.” He bases his proof largely upon his discovery of the bronze gate of Shalmanesar II, with its sculptured presentation of the sacrifice of rams and bullocks, and he says that “the same king, Shalmanesar, took tribute from Jehu, king of Israel, as an act of homage.”
Trans. Vic. Ins., Vol. XIII, pp. 190 and 214, also Vol. XXV, pp. 121.