Humbaba

Humbaba is a guard doing his job. Enlil set him over the Cedar Forest as its terror, and the heroes go there specifically to kill him and take the timber — the epic does not pretend otherwise, and Enlil is furious afterwards. In the Sumerian poem he wears seven auras of terror that Gilgamesh strips off one by one; in the Akkadian he appeals for his life and Enkidu talks Gilgamesh out of sparing him. His face survives in clay: Old Babylonian masks draw it as one unbroken coil, which the diviners read as entrails, so that a liver with that convolution in it was Humbaba showing up in the sacrifice.

Parentage

• parent: Hanbi

Domains

• tutelary protection

Powers

• the auras of terror, which the guardian wears and can put off

Relations

• enemy: EnkiduKilled by Gilgamesh and Enkidu together; in the epic he appeals to Gilgamesh and it is Enkidu who refuses the appeal.Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet V: Enkidu presses for the killing and takes part in it. (primary)
• sibling: PazuzuBrother of Pazuzu in the first-millennium demonology, both being sons of Hanbi, king of the underworld demons. Hanbi is attested almost solely as their father, and is recorded in this pass because the Pazuzu amulet inscription names him outright.Reference treatment of Pazuzu: king of the demons of the wind, brother of Humbaba and son of the god Hanbi. (secondary)

Sources

• Humbaba, the Sumerian Huwawa, is the guardian of the Cedar Forest appointed by Enlil, clothed in auras of terror, killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and known in the first millennium as the brother of Pazuzu and son of Hanbi.: Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet V; 'Gilgamesh and Huwawa'. (primary); Reference treatments of Humbaba as guardian of the Cedar Forest and of Pazuzu as his brother. (secondary)