Statuette of the Demon Pazuzu
Unknown · Neo-Assyrian period, first half of the first millennium BC
A creature fifteen centimetres tall stands on a small base with his right arm raised, and every part of him is wrong in a different way. He has the head of a snarling dog or lion with bulging eyes, a human body with the claws of a bird, two pairs of wings folded at his back, a scorpion's tail and the sexual organ of a serpent. A loop on his head allowed him to be hung on a cord. Turn to the back: a cuneiform inscription runs across his wings and body, and in it he introduces himself: I am Pazuzu, son of Hanpa, king of the evil spirits of the air who comes violently out of the mountains, raging.
Pazuzu was the demon of the hot desert wind that brought fever and locusts, and yet the Assyrians kept his image at home. His ugliness was a weapon turned against other demons, above all Lamashtu, who attacked pregnant women and infants, so amulets of his head were worn by mothers and hung in bedrooms. Figurines of this quality are rare and this is the finest known. The museum bought it in 1872; it probably comes from Assyria.
Did You Know? Pazuzu was borrowed by the film The Exorcist, but for the Assyrians he was a protector, an evil spirit set to guard against worse ones.
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