Tartar

An idol of the Avvites, introduced by them into S.tmaria, whither they had been transported by the Assyrian king Sargon (2 K 17^')- Tartak is mentioned with another deity called Nibhaz, and, according to the Bab. Talmud {Hityihedrin, 636), was worshipped under the form of an ass.

* Various speculations have been made as to the identity of this deity, the religious systems of the Egyptians, I'ersians, and Carnianians having been laid under contribu- tion to supjily points of comparison ; but the Typhon of the hrst, and the sacrihciug of an ass by the last to their god (identified with Mars), do not seem to atlbrd satisfactory explanations.

In Assyro-liabylonian mythology no god in the form of an ass is at present provable, and the comparison of the name Tartal> with the 15abylonian god Ital^ (on account of the second syllable) can no longer be made, the correct reading of the latter being Isum. In all probability no trustworthy identi- fication of the deity, nor satisfactory explanation of his name, \vill be maile until the position of the place (AvvA or IvvAllt) whence his worshippers came, has been determined. T. G. Pinches.

TARTAN (|™ ; BA Tavaeiv, B'' ^aSdu, N"--."--."- Q* eapOdlf] in Is 20' ; B eoxedi', A eapSdv in 2 K IS"; Tliarthan). — The title of an Assyrian military (illiccr, sent by Sargon to Ashdod (Is '2il'), and later (juobably anotlier person) despatched by iSenna- cberib, accompanied by Rab- SARIS and Kab- SIIAKEH, 'with a great host,' against Jerusalem.

Like the other titles in the latter passage, it was long thought to be a personal name ; and it is apparently this (notwithstanding the luesence of the article in the Greek) which has given rise to the variant Nathan (an abbreviation of Tanathan) in B''. In the Assyrian inscriptions and lists of otlicials, however, it appears as the title of the highest othcer of State next to the king, and probably corresponds to the modem military title 'commander-in-chief.'

In the list of otlicials given in WAI ii. pi. 31, 11. 2(5, 27, two grades appear, turtanu tmni, 'the turinn of the right,' and <ar- tanu iumili, ' the tnrliin of the left,' the former probably corresponding with the turtanu rabit, ' great Tartan,' or ' field-marshal ' of Shalmaneser II. , and the latter with the tiirfitnu Sanii, 'second Tartan,' mentioned by Johns. Th.

it the two forms, turtnnu and tartrinii, were interchangeable, is shown by the contract-tablet in which the form turtanu iiamli occurs, and the variant spellings turtunnu and tartnnnu in the inscri|itions of Sar- gon.J As one entitled to hold the othce of Eponym, the Tartan came next in order to the king (see the titles for the Eponyms for B.C. 809, 780, 770, 752, and 742). Who the Tartans were who are referred to in Is 20' and 2 K 18" is not known. In B.C. 720, Asur-iska(?)

-mlannin was Eponym, and jios- sibly held the othce, and in that case may have been the one sent to Ashdod. For the reign of Sennacherib we have Abda'u, who held the olfice during the eponymy of Ilu-ittfta, B.C. 6'J4 ; and B61- • The companion-deity, Nibhaz (changed to NIbhan by reading I for 1). Is stated to have been in the form of a dog— an explana- tion which is flue to the stipjioaition that the word was con- nected with nnf'dh, • to bark.'

It is therefore not improbable that the statement that Tartak was a deity in the form of an ass may be due to a similar (popular) etjTnoligy. t Sachau {ZA 12, 48) Idcntiflcs it with the modern tmm, be- tween Antloch and Aleppo. t The fonns with double n Imply that the seoood rimal mi long {iartanu), as in Hebrew. 590 TATTENAI TEACHER, TEACHING dmuranni, who was Tartan and Eponyiu for B.C. 686. Either of these may have been the one sent against Jerusalem. LirKRATiTiE.

— Schrader in Riehm's BWB^', Fried. Delitzsch, Astnfr. i/U'jB; Johns, Assj/nan Deeds, voL ii. pp. 68, 69; Driver in Authoriti/ and Archoeotogy (ed. Hofjarth), 140. T. G. Pinches.