A lilu or lilû is a masculine Akkadian word for a spirit, related to Alû, demon. It is disputed whether, if at all, the Akkadian word lilu, or cognates, is related to the Hebrew word liyliyth in Isaiah 34:14, which is thought to be a night bird by some modern scholars such as Judit M. Blair. The Babylonian concept of lilu may be more strongly relatedo to the later Talmudic concept of Lilith and lilin. In Akkadian literature hlilu occurs. In Sumerian literature lili occurs. In the Sumerian king listthe father of Gilgamesh is said to be a lilu.
The wicked Utukku who slays man alive on the plain.
The Lamme, the Lammea, who cause disease in the body.
The Lilû who wanders in the plain.
They have come nigh unto a suffering man on the outside.
They have brought about a painful malady in his body.
Stephen Herbert Langdon1864 Dating of specific Akkadian, Sumerian and Babylonian texts mentioning lilu, lilitu and lili are haphazard. In older out-of-copyright sources, such as R. Campbell Thompson's The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia specific text references are rarely given. An exception is K156 which mentions an ardat liliJo Ann Scurlock and Burton R. Andersen see the origin of lilu in treatment of mental illness. Heinrich Zimmern tentatively identified vardat lilitu KAT3, 459 as paramour of lilu.
The spirit in the tree in the Gilgamesh cycle
translated ki-sikil-lil-la-ke as Lilith in "Tablet XII" of the Epic of Gilgamesh dated c.600 BCE. "Tablet XII" is not part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, but is a later Assyrian Akkadian translation of the latter part of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. The ki-sikil-lil-la-ke is associated with a serpent and a zu bird. In Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld, a huluppu tree grows in Inanna's garden in Uruk, whose wood she plans to use to build a new throne. After ten years of growth, she comes to harvest it and finds a serpent living at its base, a Zu bird raising young in its crown, and that a ki-sikil-lil-la-ke made a house in its trunk. Gilgamesh is said to have killed the snake, and then the zu bird flew away to the mountains with its young, while the ki-sikil-lil-la-ke fearfully destroys its house and runs for the forest. Identification of ki-sikil-lil-la-ke as Lilith is stated in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. According to a new source from Late Antiquity, Lilith appears in a Mandaic magic story where she is considered to represent the branches of a tree with other demonic figures that form other parts of the tree, though this may also include multiple "Liliths". Suggested translations for the Tablet XII spirit in the tree include ki-sikil as "sacred place", lil as "spirit", and lil-la-ke as "water spirit". but also simply "owl", given that the lil is building a home in the trunk of the tree. A connection between the Gilgamesh ki-sikil-lil-la-ke and the Jewish Lilith was rejected by Dietrich Opitz and rejected on textual grounds by Sergio Ribichini.
