What is the nature of Pazuzu God or demon? In archaeological and textual sources During the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian period

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Lecturer of Egyptian Archeology and Ancient Near East - Faculty of Archeology and Tourist Guidance - Misr University for Science and Technology (EGYPT)

Abstract

The long history of the Mesopotamian Civilization has produced over three thousand gods and a far lesser number of monsters, sages, spirits, and demons, which together with the protective deities of the individual, the countless souls of the dead, and the demonized witch defined supernatural agency in Mesopotamian thought. However, Mesopotamian demonology is less varied than Mesopotamian theology and, at the same time, less defined. One of the reasons is that the previous scholars did not collect, organize, and explain their demonic material in demon-lists, like they did their theological material in god-lists. This may be attributed to the fact that demons were considered beyond monstrosity.  They were neither male nor female, incorporeal non-beings, concealed, their names did not exist in Heaven and Earth, and they were not counted in the universal census.
          An exception to this is the two best known Mesopotamian demons, Lamashtu and Pazuzu. The two most deviant ones have the most stable and explicit iconographies. First millennium texts prescribe the manufacture of Pazuzu heads that were to be worn on the body during an exorcism. Representations of Pazuzu, made of terracotta, stone or metal, remained in use for an extended period of time. Pazuzu then, though a king of the demons, functioned not like a demon to be exorcized, but like a monster guarding a house or a person against aggressive demons. It is this research that proves the deity of Pazuzu.

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References

 
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