Lamassu


Lama, Lamma or Lamassu is a Sumerian protective deity. Initially depicted as a female deity 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. In some writings, it is portrayed to represent a female deity. A less frequently used name is shedu, which refers to the male counterpart of a lamassu. Lammasu represent the zodiacs, parent-stars or constellations.

Female goddess Lama

The goddess Lama appears initially as a mediating goddess who precedes the orants and presents them to the gods. The protective deity is clearly labelled as Lama in a Kassite stele unearthed at Uruk, in the temple of Ishtar, goddess to which she had been dedicated by king Nazi-Maruttash. It is a goddess wearing a ruffled dress and wearing a horned tiara symbolizing the deity, with two hands raised, in sign of prayer. A. Spycket proposed that similar female figures appearing in particular in glyptics and statuary from the Akkadian period, and in particular in the presentation scenes were to be considered as Lama. This opinion is commonly followed and in artistic terminology these female figures are generally referred to as Lama. From Assyrian times, Lamma becomes a hybrid deity, half-animal, half-human.

Lamassu iconography

From Assyrian times, lamassu were depicted as hybrids, with bodies of either winged bulls or lions and heads of human males. The motif of a winged animal with a human head is common to the Near East, first recorded in Ebla around 3000 BCE. The first distinct lamassu motif appeared in Assyria during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser II as a symbol of power.
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, walk, and in earlier versions have five legs, as is apparent when viewed obliquely. Lumasi 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.
The colossal entranceway 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." 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 of Iraq and the Levant when they occupied the area, as were those in the Mosul Museum.

Terminology

Lamassu represent the zodiacs, parent-stars, or constellations. 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 lammasu iconography originates, these deities could be microcosms of their microcosmic zodiac, parent-star, or constellation. 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. Female lamassu were called "apsasû".
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. These monumental statues were called aladlammû or lamassu which meant "protective spirit". In Hittite, the Sumerian form is used both as a name for the so-called "tutelary deity", identified in certain later texts with Inara, and a title given to similar protective gods.

Mythology

The lamassu is a celestial being from ancient Mesopotamian religion bearing a human head, bull's body, sometimes with the horns and the ears of a bull, and wings. It appears frequently in Mesopotamian art. The lamassu and shedu were household protective spirits of the common Babylonian people, becoming associated later as royal protectors, and were placed as sentinels at entrances. The Akkadians associated the god Papsukkal with a lamassu and the god Išum with shedu.
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 towards one of the cardinal points.
The ancient Jewish people were influenced by the iconography of Assyrian culture. The prophet Ezekiel wrote about a fantastic being made up of aspects of a human being, a lion, an eagle and a bull. Later, in the early Christian period, the four Gospels were ascribed to each of these components. When it was depicted in art, this image was called the Tetramorph.

In modern culture

The British 10th Army, which operated in Iraq and Iran in 1942–1943, adopted the lamassu as its insignia. A bearded man with a winged bull body appears on the logo of the United States Forces – Iraq.
A man with a bull's body is found among the creatures that make up Aslan's army in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. He appears at the Stone Table, challenging the White Witch "with a great bellowing voice". In the film Alexander, lamassu are seen at the Ishtar Gate in Babylon. In the Disney movie Aladdin, a gold lamassu can be found in the scene where Aladdin and Abu enter the cave in the desert to find the lamp.
Michael Rakowitz, a Northwestern University professor of Art Theory & Practice won a Fourth Plinth commission to recreate the Lamassu that stood in Nineveh, Iraq, from 700 BC until it was destroyed by ISIS in 2015. Rakowitz's sculpture will be displayed in London's Trafalgar Square beginning in 2018.
2 lamassus can be seen on in the background with other animals such turtles on a scene when the main characters march to the egyptian section of the british museum

Games

Lammasu and shedu are two distinct types of good-aligned creatures in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons—with Lammasu having the bodies of winged lions and shedu depicted as human-headed winged bulls.
Lammasu appear in the trading card game as the Hunted Lammasu in the Ravnica expansion, as well as the Venerable Lammasu found in the Khans of Tarkir expansion.
In the Games Workshop miniatures wargame, Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the Lamasu was a mount for the Chaos Dwarf army. It has since returned as part of the Storm of Magic expansion release. A Lammasu briefly appears in the Fablehaven series.
In the video-game Might And Magic Heroes VI the lamassu is a recruitable elite creature of the necropolis faction.

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