{"warnings":{"main":{"warnings":"Subscribe to the mediawiki-api-announce mailing list at for notice of API deprecations and breaking changes. Use [[Special:ApiFeatureUsage]] to see usage of deprecated features by your application."},"parse":{"warnings":"\"prop=sections\" has been deprecated. Please use \"prop=tocdata\" instead."}},"parse":{"title":"Lamassu","pageid":507454,"revid":1380494255,"redirects":[],"text":"
Tutelary spirit in Assyrian mythology
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\"Shedu\" redirects here. For the ancient Egyptian official, see Shedu (ancient Egyptian official).
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\"Pair
Lamassu at the Iraq Museum, Baghdad
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Lama, Lamma, or Lamassu (Cuneiform: 𒀭𒆗, an.kal; Sumerian: dlammař; later in Akkadian: lamassu; sometimes called a lamassuse)[1][2] is a Mesopotamian protective deity.[3]\n

Initially depicted as a goddess in Sumerian times, when it was called Lamma, it was later depicted from Assyrian times as a hybrid of a human, bird, and either a bull or lion—specifically having a human head, the body of a bull or a lion, and bird wings, under the name Lamassu.[3][4] In some writings, it is portrayed to represent a goddess.[5] A less frequently used name is shedu (Cuneiform: 𒀭𒆘, an.kal×bad; Sumerian: dalad; Akkadian, šēdu), which refers to the male counterpart of a lamassu.[6] Lamassu represent the zodiacs, parent-stars or constellations.[7][8]\n

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Goddess Lama

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The goddess Lama appears initially as a mediating goddess who precedes the orans and presents them to the deities.[3] The protective deity is clearly labelled as Lam(m)a in a Kassite stele unearthed at Uruk, in the temple of Ishtar, goddess to which she had been dedicated by king Nazi-Maruttash (1307–1282 BC).[9] It is a goddess wearing a ruffled dress and wearing a horned tiara symbolizing the deity, with two hands raised, in a sign of prayer. Agnès Spycket proposed that similar female figures appearing in particular in glyptics and statuary from the Akkadian period, and in particular in the presentation scenes (common especially in the Paleo-Babylonian era) were to be considered as Lam(m)a.[10] This opinion is commonly followed and in artistic terminology these female figures are generally referred to as Lam(m)a.[3] From Assyrian times, Lamma becomes a hybrid deity, half-animal, half-human.[3]\n

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Iconography

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Human-headed winged bulls from Sargon II's palace in Dur-Sharrukin, modern Khorsabad (Louvre)
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From Assyrian times, lamassu were depicted as hybrids, with bodies of either winged bulls or lions and heads of human males.[3] The motif of a winged animal with a human head is common to the Near East, first recorded in Ebla around 3000 BC. The first distinct lamassu motif appeared in Assyria during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser II as a symbol of power.[11][12]\n

Assyrian sculpture typically placed prominent pairs of lamassu at entrances in palaces, facing the street and also internal courtyards. They were represented as \"double-aspect\" figures on corners, in high relief. From the front, they appear to stand, and from the side, they walk. In earlier versions, they have five legs, as is apparent when viewed obliquely. Lamassu do not generally appear as large figures in the low-relief schemes running round palace rooms, where winged genie figures are common, but they sometimes appear within narrative reliefs, apparently protecting the Assyrians.[13]\n

The colossal entrance figures were often followed by a hero grasping a wriggling lion, also colossal in scale and in high relief. In the palace of Sargon II at Dur-Sharrukin, a group of at least seven lamassu and two such heroes with lions surrounded the entrance to the \"throne room\", \"a concentration of figures which produced an overwhelming impression of power\".[13] They also appear on cylinder seals. Notable examples include those at the Gate of All Nations at Persepolis in Iran, the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the University of Chicago Oriental Institute. Several examples left in situ in northern Iraq were destroyed in the 2010s by the Islamic State when they occupied the area, as were those in the Mosul Museum.\n

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Terminology

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\"Ancient
Cast from the original in Iraq, this is one of a pair of five-legged lamassu with lion's feet in Berlin
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Lamassu represent the zodiacs, parent-stars, or constellations.[7][8] They are depicted as protective deities because they encompass all life within them. In the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, they are depicted as physical deities as well, which is where the lamassu iconography originates, physical representations or embodiments of divine higher principles associated with specific celestial origins. Although lamassu had a different iconography and portrayal in the culture of Sumer, the terms \"lamassu\", \"alad\", and \"shedu\" evolved throughout the Assyro-Akkadian culture from the Sumerian culture to denote the Assyrian-winged-man-bull symbol and statues during the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Eventually, female lamassu were identified as \"apsasû\".[4]\n

The motif of the Assyrian-winged-man-bull called Aladlammu and Lamassu interchangeably is not the lamassu or alad of Sumerian origin, which were depicted with different iconography.[clarification needed] These monumental statues were called aladlammû or lamassu which meant \"protective spirit\".[4][clarification needed] In Hittite, the Sumerian form dlamma is used both as a name for the so-called \"tutelary deity\", identified in certain later texts with the goddess Inara, and a title given to similar protective deities.[14]\n

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Mythology

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The lumasi in Gate of All Nations, Persepolis
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The lamassu is a celestial being from ancient Mesopotamian religion bearing a human head, symbolising intelligence; a bull's body, symbolizing strength; and an eagle's wings, symbolizing freedom. Sometimes it had the horns and the ears of a bull. It appears frequently in Mesopotamian art. The lamassu and shedu were household protective spirits of the common Assyrian people, becoming associated later as royal protectors, and were placed as sentinels at entrances.[15] The Akkadians associated the god Papsukkal with a lamassu and the god Išum with shedu.\n

To protect houses, the lamassu were engraved in clay tablets, which were then buried under the door's threshold. They were often placed as a pair at the entrance of palaces. At the entrance of cities, they were sculpted in colossal size, and placed as a pair, one at each side of the door of the city, that generally had doors in the surrounding wall, each one looking toward one of the cardinal points.\n

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In modern culture

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The lamassu is also often used by the modern Assyrian people as a representation of their shared identity and ancient ancestry.[16]\n

Artist Michael Rakowitz was commissioned to recreate the lamassu of Nineveh, dated to 700 BC, that was destroyed by IS in 2015. Rakowitz's sculpture was displayed in London's Trafalgar Square from 2018 to 2020.[17]\n

The lamassu has been used in the iconography of several military and police forces, including the British 10th Army, the United States Forces – Iraq, and the SAVAK of Iran.[citation needed]\n

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Gallery

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See also

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Citations

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  1. ^ Kriwaczek, Paul (2010). Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization. St. Martin's Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-250-05416-6.\n
    2. \n
  2. ^ \"Kaskal: Rivista di storia, ambiente e culture del vicino oriente antico. Volume 6, 2009\". LoGisma editore. Archived from the original on 8 March 2016. Retrieved 6 May 2015.\n
    3. \n
  3. ^ a b c d e f Leick, Gwendolyn (2002). A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology. Routledge. pp. 109–110. ISBN 978-1-134-64102-4.\n
    4. \n
  4. ^ a b c \"Lamassu\". Livius.org. Archived from the original on 1 June 2014. Retrieved 26 March 2020.\n
    5. \n
  5. ^ Beaulieu, Paul-Alain (2003). The Pantheon of Uruk During the Neo-Babylonian Period. Brill. p. 137. ISBN 978-90-04-13024-1.\n
    6. \n
  6. ^ Black, Jeremy; Green, Anthony (2003). An Illustrated Dictionary: Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia. The British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-7141-1705-8.\n
    7. \n
  7. ^ a b Hewitt, J.F. (1901). History and Chronology of the Myth-Making Age. James Parker and Company. p. 85.\n
    8. \n
  8. ^ a b King, Leonard W. (1902). Enuma Elish Vol 1 & 2: The Seven Tablets of Creation; The Babylonian and Assyrian Legends Concerning the Creation of the World and of Mankind. Luzac and Co. p. 78.\n
    9. \n
  9. ^ Collon, Dominique (1975). The Seal Impressions from Tell Atchana/Alalakh. Butzon & Bercker. p. 181. ISBN 978-3-7887-0469-8. The deity which we have here called the Babylonian Goddess has been identified as the goddess Lama thanks to an inscription found at Uruk. Agnes Spycket has discussed the textual references to this interceding deity, and the way she is represented in art.\n
    10. \n
  10. ^ Spycket, Agnès (1960). \"La Déesse Lama\". Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale. 54 (2): 73–84. ISSN 0373-6032. JSTOR 23294909.\n
    11. \n
  11. ^ \"History – Mesopotamia\". BBC. Archived from the original on 13 July 2007. Retrieved 22 December 2019.\n
    12. \n
  12. ^ \"Lamassu\". ancientneareast.net. Archived from the original on 28 June 2008. Retrieved 17 July 2010.\n
    13. \n
  13. ^ a b Frankfort 1970, pp. 147–148. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFrankfort1970 (help)\n
    14. \n
  14. ^ McMahon, John Gregory (1991). The Hittite State Cult of the Tutelary Deities. Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. ISBN 978-0-918986-69-6.\n
    15. \n
  15. ^ Castor, Marie-José. \"Winged Human-Headed Bull\". Louvre.fr. Archived from the original on 28 January 2017. Retrieved 19 February 2017.\n
    16. \n
  16. ^ \"Lamassu Project\". Ramsen Shamon. 26 February 2019. Retrieved 20 April 2025.\n
    17. \n
  17. ^ \"The Lamassu, Resurrected\". Northwestern University. Archived from the original on 15 April 2017. Retrieved 14 April 2017.\n
    18. \n
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External links

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\"Wikimedia
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shedu.
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Authority control databases \"Edit
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