‘Demons’ in the ancient Middle East

Still from the film The Exorcist. Warner Bros Pictures.

From the title antagonist in The Exorcist to sporadic cameos on Ancient Aliens, as Dungeons & Dragons characters and as the originating figures in vampire lore, Mesopotamian demons have permeated throughout popular media in the modern West. These portrayals depict demons as powerful figures capable of great destruction and harm, but how accurate was this picture in reality for everyday inhabitants of the ancient Middle East?

We are already operating at a slight disadvantage in how we think of these figures as ‘demons.’ This is our modern word choice—Mesopotamians did not have a word to collectively categorize these creatures. The pejorative connotation of the term in the development of Judeo-Christian intellectual thought subconsciously leads us to associate ‘demon’ with something that is inherently bad, or that occupies the spot of archvillain in a typical good vs. evil storyline. However, demons in the ancient Middle East could be any mixture of helpful, harmful, or neutral, depending on how people viewed individual creatures in particular time periods or in which context people either invoked or dismissed them. They belong to a wider repertoire of Mesopotamian (super)natural figures, including ghosts, monsters, witches, heroes, and sages, which interact with humans and/or the gods in myths, rituals, and occasionally everyday life, including religious and political spaces.

So what types of evidence for demons do we have from the ancient Middle East? In ritual texts and myth, ‘demons’ are defined by and described according to their social and visual ‘otherness’ from regular humans and gods. They were created and exist outside of the ordered and familiar spaces of Mesopotamian cities, although they can enter cities and houses when they are up to no good: “it is they (who) walk about stealthily in the street at night, it is they (who) destroy the cattle pens and level the sheepfolds” (Udug-hul IV, 70-71). Demons usually roam the wild steppe, guard distant mountain passages (that can lead to the Underworld), or swim around in the giant underground ocean known as the Apsû. They do not act or look ‘normal’ and do not have the same social or familial relationships present in humans, gods, or animals. For example, the Sumerian myth Dumuzi’s Dream describes the gallû-demons that chase the god Dumuzi, which are described as “a motley crew, who know not food, who know not drink, who eat no sprinkled flour, who drink no poured water” (111-113). As the key components of bread and beer, water and flour were staple ingredients used by every city dweller, and any being who could exist without these would be considered highly unnatural. Demons also do not follow or respect social norms: “they know neither prayer nor supplication; they harass the man in the street” (Udug-hul VI, 87-88). In this sense, demons are the OG chaotic neutral on the creature alignment chart.

Visual representations of Mesopotamian demons can vary widely; however, they do seem to follow some shared principles. Demons can appear gendered or genderless, and usually are composed of various combinations of human and animal parts, although some can appear fully human. For example, the ugallu has the head of a lion, torso and arms of a man, and the feet of a taloned bird-of-prey, whereas the lahmu looks fully human, albeit with a distinctive head of curly hair.

Images in the ancient Middle East in general were perceived as imbued with a great deal of affective and visual power; as such, harmful demons are rarely depicted. Harmful demons were very much thought of as ‘real’, capable of inducing physical injury and death, and drawing their likeness could be interpreted as inviting their unwanted presence. Special practitioners known as āšipu would be hired to help an individual when their living space or self was thought to be negatively affected by some transgression, illness, or malevolence, and part of an āšipu’s job was to create images of both helpful and harmful demons in order to complete the necessary rituals and prayers to restore divine favor. Any effigy of a harmful being would be destroyed during the course of the ritual, usually via burning or drowning.

Bronze Lamaštu incantation plaque, with the figure of Pazuzu appearing at the top of the plaque. Neo-Assyrian period (c. 9th-7th c BCE). ©RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) (right). Bronze pendant with the head of Pazuzu, ca. 8th-7th century BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art (left)

There are, however, two notable exceptions to this general rule: the female demon Lamaštu and the male demon Pazuzu (of The Shining fame). In the first millennium BCE, Lamaštu is depicted with the head of a lion, a bare-breasted and hairy body, with bird talons. She rides along on the back of a donkey with two snakes grasped in her hands, ready to carry off and consume the newborn infants of unsuspecting mothers. One of the most effective ways to counteract her malevolent intentions was through beseeching the assistance of another otherwise harmful demon: Pazuzu. Small bronze effigies of Pazuzu’s head would be worn by expectant mothers, and plaques depicting Lamaštu in all her gory glory also show Pazuzu working to thwart her. These plaques were presumably placed in a special area of the home to ‘confront’ Lamaštu should she choose to appear. A recently re-examined medical tablet from the Assyrian city of Aššur shows an as yet visually-unaccounted for demon, which suggest that images could have been sanctioned for use in specific ritual contexts to avert negative symptoms brought about by a demon’s maleficence (Arbøll 2019).

By the early 1st millennium BCE, many demons who once were responsible for creating strife and chaos were instead used as protective figures against other types of malevolent entities and (extra)physical phenomena, including ghosts, harmful magic users, monsters, disease, loss of income, divine anger, and other demons. This major shift was chronicled in the Babylonian myth Enūma eliš, which describes a battle of cosmic proportions between the sea goddess Tiāmat and the Babylonian god Marduk. Tiāmat creates a whole slew of demon spawn to help her avenge the murder of her lover, but after her defeat by Marduk, the destructive power of her children is instead harnessed and controlled for use by the reigning pantheon of Mesopotamian gods, and, by extension, ordinary people.

Gypsum sculpture of human-headed winged lion (lamassu) from Nimrud, ca. 883-859 BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Some of the most famous examples of helpful demons come from the palace of the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883-859 BCE) at Nimrud, which was an imperial capital. They appear as monumental figures on relief slabs lining the palace walls and as sculpture at entrances to particular rooms and courtyards. The purpose of these figures was to protect the king and the spaces through which he walked and lived: any enemies, either human or demonic, would be repulsed by the imposing presence of massive human-headed winged bulls standing guard, and the king himself (as well as his family and courtiers) would benefit from the purificatory actions of winged figures known as apkallu on the palace walls. Helpful demons can also appear in miniature: the aforementioned ugallu and lahmu are rendered as figurines and plaques around c. 8-12 cm tall and placed at the entrances and corners of private houses and royal palaces. Again, the āšipu was an important figure in determining the relevant choice and placement of helpful demons in the home.

Demons were clearly active participants in the everyday lives of ancient peoples, both their presence and actions perceived as inherently real.

Images:

1. Still from the film The Exorcist. Warner Bros Pictures.

2. Bronze Lamaštu incantation plaque, with the figure of Pazuzu appearing at the top of the plaque. Neo-Assyrian period (c. 9th-7th c BCE). ©RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre).

3. Bronze pendant with the head of Pazuzu, ca. 8th-7th century BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

4. Gypsum sculpture of human-headed winged lion (lamassu) from Nimrud, ca. 883-859 BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

5. Gypsum wall relief panel of a lahmu, ugallu, and probably the House God. Palace of Ashurbanipal, Nineveh, c. 645-640 BCE. ©Trustees of the British Museum

‘Demons’ in the ancient Middle East

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