Lamashtu- Mesopotamian DemonDemon"Daughter of Anu"

Daughter of Anu

The gods cast Lamashtu out of heaven. Her father was Anu, king of the gods, and her crimes were terrible enough to warrant exile from his presence. She descended to the mountains and marshes at the edges of the civilized world, the wastelands where human order thinned and disappeared. Exile did not weaken her. It freed her. Where other demons served divine masters and could be controlled by invoking the god above them, Lamashtu answered to no one. An exorcist could command a disease demon to depart in the name of Marduk. Against Lamashtu, such commands fell empty.

The Demoness

She had the head of a lioness, the ears of a donkey, and the talons of a bird of prey for feet. The incantation texts describe her nursing a pig at one breast and a dog at the other. She held serpents in her hands and rode a donkey between the wastelands and human settlements.

The texts speak to her directly, in accusation: "She touches the bellies of pregnant women, she pulls out the pregnant woman's baby. She suckles the child with poisoned milk, she stops up the child's mouth with her foul breath." She crept into homes at night to steal nursing infants from their mothers' arms. Any illness that struck during pregnancy or infancy carried her name.

The Exorcist's Work

The Lamashtu incantation series, preserved on three tablets, prescribed the ritual for driving the demoness out. The exorcist began by naming her. Every epithet spoke a truth about the demon, and each name tightened the binding. Then came the bribes: a comb for her hair and sandals for her feet, packed alongside provisions for the journey back to the wastelands.

The exorcist fashioned a clay figurine of Lamashtu and loaded it onto a miniature boat with food and travel supplies. Then the boat was sent away: downstream, into the desert, or into the fire. The demoness, bound to her likeness, went with it.

Pazuzu at the Door

The defense against Lamashtu required another demon. Pazuzu, king of the wind demons, had a lion's face, four wings, a scorpion's tail, and talons for feet. Bronze castings of his snarling head, fitted with a ring for hanging, were placed above doorways and cradles. His face confronted Lamashtu should she try to enter.

A bronze plaque in the British Museum shows the standard scene: Lamashtu in the center with her lioness head and nursing animals, Pazuzu looming above, the sick person on a bed with exorcists at the bedside. Hundreds of these plaques have been found across Mesopotamia, in houses and bedrooms where children slept. The same lioness head. The same terrible guardian above. The same desperate ritual below.