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Pazuzu

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This article is about the Assyro-Babylonian god Pazuzu. For other uses, see Pazuzu (disambiguation).

Template:Mesopotamian myth (demons)

Assyrian demon Pazuzu, first millennium BC, Louvre Museum.

In Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, Pazuzu (Sometimes Fazuzu or Pazuza) was the king of the demons of the wind, and son of the god Hanbi. He also represented the southwestern wind, the bearer of storms and drought.

Iconography

Pazuzu is often depicted as a combination of diverse animal and human parts. He has the body of a man, the head of a lion or dog, eagle-like taloned feet, two pairs of wings, a scorpion's tail, and a serpentine penis. He is often depicted with his right hand pointing upward.

Mythology

Pazuzu is the demon of the southwest wind; [South-West U.S.] known for bringing famine during dry seasons, and locusts during rainy seasons. Pazuzu was said to be invoked in amulets which combat the powers of his wife,[1] the malicious goddess Lamashtu, who was believed to cause harm to mother and child during childbirth. Although Pazuzu is, himself, an evil spirit, he drives away other evil spirits, thus protecting humans against plagues and misfortunes. The main most infamous and secludedly historic cases of the deamon, date back to a 12 and a half year old boy. "Robbie Thomas"; "Robbie Tamberstine", in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1948. Which has inspiration to William Blattey's novel; The Exorcist. A girl in her early 20s in Rome; in the early late 2000s, and a 17 year old boy in Shreveport, Louisiana in 2011. Alias Greg Livingston.

Wilfred Lambert (1968) identified a fibula with a Pazuzu head at Megiddo [2] and also a Sumerian-Akkadian invocation.[3]

In modern culture

Main article: Pazuzu (The Exorcist)

In the 1971 novel The Exorcist and the movie based on the novel, Pazuzu is supposedly one of the evil spirits that possesses the young girl Regan MacNeil. He reappears in the 1977 sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic. In this movie, Pazuzu is both named as the demon antagonist of Regan MacNeil and the unwitting helper of Father Philip Lamont (played by Richard Burton), as he seeks to finally free Regan from his hold. In the end, Father Lamont finally defeats the demon and accompanies Regan as she apparently heads toward a life in holy orders.

Roberto Cuoghi's 2008 statue Pazuzu, described by New Yorker critic Peter Schjeldahl as "robustly ugly" and standing nearly 20 feet tall, was featured in the 2010 exhibition Skin Fruit at the New Museum in New York City.[4]

Pazuzu appears on the album cover of the Gorillaz compilation album D-Sides and as a statue in front of the band's former recording studio.

Pazuzu is the demon that haunts Adèle Blance-Sec in Tardi's graphic novel "The Demon of the Eiffel Tower" ("Le Démon de la tour Eiffel," 1976). Pazuzu also appears in "Mummies on Parade" ("Mommies en folie," 1978).

References

  1. ^ "Statuette of the demon Pazuzu with an inscription". Louvre website. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
  2. ^ Lambert, W. L. 1968. Inscribed Pazuzu Heads from Babylon. Forschungen und Berichte 10: 417 1970)
  3. ^ "1970 hat WG Lambert, FuB 12 (1970), S. 41-47 eine sumerisch- akkadische Pazuzu-Beschwörung rekonstruiert"
  4. ^ Peter Schjeldahl, "Big Time: Skin Fruit at the New Museum", The New Yorker 15 March 2010, online edition retrieved 26 March 2010.
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