Pazuzu

Pazuzu is the best-known Mesopotamian demon in the modern world for reasons that have nothing to do with Mesopotamia, and the actual figure is more interesting than the film. He is the king of the wind demons, son of Hanbi and brother of Humbaba, and the wind he brings is the southwestern one that carries fever and dries the fields. He was worn anyway — bronze heads with a loop at the back, hung around the neck of a pregnant woman or set by a cradle — on the logic that the thing that frightens you is also the thing that frightens what you are afraid of. His head sits at the top of the Lamashtu plaques, looking over the edge at her. The first millennium made a whole household practice out of this, none of it temple cult.

Parentage

• Hanbi

Domains

• wind
• protection

Relations

• sibling: Humbaba
• enemy: Lamashtu

Sources

• Reference treatments of Pazuzu: his parentage and brother, his wind, his iconography and his apotropaic use on amulets.