Anzu
Mesopotamian · deity · mythic · deity
Anzu is what a thunderhead looks like if you give it a body: a lion's head on an eagle, which is exactly the shape of the Tell al-Ubaid relief. The myth is about administration. The Tablet of Destinies is the document by which the chief god decrees what happens, Anzu steals it while Enlil is bathing, and the difficulty is not that he is strong but that he now holds the office — he can order an arrow to go back to being a reed. The gods are asked in turn to go after him and decline; Ninurta goes, and wins by wearing the bird out rather than by out-ranking it. One version of the text gives the kill to Marduk, which is the usual Babylonian editing.
Domains
- storm
Powers
- to unmake a weapon in flight by the authority of the Tablet of Destinies
Relations
- enemy: Ninurta
Sources
- The Akkadian Anzu epic (the Epic of Anzu).
- Reference treatment of Anzu as storm bird, of the theft of the Tablet of Destinies and of the versions in which Ninurta or Marduk kills him.