Deity Β· Mesopotamian Β· c. 1800 BCE
Lamashtu
Also called Dimme Β· also recorded as πππ¨ (per Wikidata)
A daughter of the sky god who preys on pregnant women and newborns. She is the closest parallel to Lilith, and most likely the actual ancestor.
Well sourced
Lamashtu is the strongest candidate for the actual ancestor of Lilith, and the incantation literature against her is substantial enough to argue from. She is a daughter of the sky god Anu, which is the detail that matters: she is not a demon sent by anyone, she acts on her own authority and cannot be dismissed by appeal to a higher power, and the counter-measures against her are correspondingly elaborate. What she does is seize infants from the womb and from the breast. That the oldest heavily attested harmful spirit in the record is female, high-born, and specialised in exactly the death that was most common is not a coincidence anyone has to strain to explain.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
None; known from incantation plaques and amulets meant to drive her off, which is the opposite of a cult.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- The Lamashtu Series Β· c. 1800β600 BCE
- Rank
- Demoness
- Pantheon
- Mesopotamian
- Order
- Mesopotamian demons
- Base of operations
- None; known from incantation plaques and amulets meant to drive her off, which is the opposite of a cult.
- Era
- c. 1800 BCE
- Traditions
- Mesopotamian
- Placed in
- The Assembly of the Gods
Traits
- Domain
- Childbirth, infant death, fever
- Traditional form
- Lion-headed with a donkey's ears, suckling a pig and a dog
Stats
Known connections
Identified with
2 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 2 offices attributed to Lamashtu, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- malefic2
malefic
- Causes Sicknessno text cited
- Tormentsno text cited
2 marks
Which marks is it attached to?
A mark a figure carries and a mark used against a figure are opposite claims, so each link says which it is.
2 claims
What is it blamed for?
Harms attributed to this figure by a named text. An attribution is not a diagnosis, and where a claim carries a grading it is about how well it rests on the passage it cites.
Death in Childbirth
c. 1800-600 BCEEnters the house to touch the pregnant woman's belly and seize the child from the nurse; brings fever, miscarriage and the death of infants.
Bronze plaques showing her driven back to the underworld, and Pazuzu-head amulets hung at the door β a hostile spirit used against a worse one.
Fever
c. 1800-600 BCEBrings fever and wasting to mother and infant alike, entering the house to touch the belly of the pregnant woman.
Amulets bearing the head of Pazuzu, hung at the door or worn at the neck, with the incantation recited over them.
2 texts
Which texts say so?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Lamashtu, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts spanning roughly 200 years
Three tablets of canonical material directed at this one figure. That she has a series of her own is the finding: no other spirit in this corpus is important enough to be given one, and its subject throughout is keeping her from mothers and infants. Described here and never quoted, per the standing rule.
The incantation series against her runs to several tablets. She seizes infants from the womb and the breast, and acts on her own authority rather than on orders, which lesser demons do not.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Ancestor of Lilith
The child-threatening demoness of the incantation bowls, inherited through the Mesopotamian lilitu.
Thwarted by Pazuzu
Not an angel and not benevolent: a wind demon used against a worse one, which is the whole logic of the amulets bearing his head.
Identified with The Lords of Xibalba
Powers named for the diseases they inflict.
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Lamashtu?
Is Lamashtu the same as Lilith?
What rank is Lamashtu?
How else is Lamashtu spelled?
What is Lamashtu said to do?
How old is Lamashtu?
Nearest in the corpus
If Lamashtu is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Ereshkigal
Queen of the Great Below Β· Mesopotamian
Sovereign of the underworld who strips Ishtar of a garment at each of the seven gates and hangs her on a hook.
Ishtar
Queen of Heaven Β· Mesopotamian
Goddess of love, war and the planet Venus, whose descent into the underworld is among the oldest recorded narratives.
Marduk
King of the Gods Β· Mesopotamian
Splits Tiamat and builds the world from her body, and is voted fifty names and supreme authority for doing it.
Nergal
God of the Underworld Β· Mesopotamian
God of plague, war and the underworld, consort of Ereshkigal β and one of the few Mesopotamian gods the Bible names directly.
Anzu
Storm Bird Β· Mesopotamian
The lion-headed eagle who steals the Tablet of Destinies and is shot down for it β a rebellion against divine order predating any biblical account by a millennium.
Enki
Lord of the Sweet Waters Β· Mesopotamian
God of the abzu and of cunning, who repeatedly saves humanity by finding the loophole in another god's decree.
The books behind Lamashtu
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
The Lamashtu Series
Anonymous; canonical series of three tablets Β· c. 1800β600 BCE Β· Akkadian
Read The Lamashtu Series in full βAkkadian Incantation Series & Amulet Inscriptions
Anonymous; recovered from Assyrian and Babylonian sites Β· c. 1800-600 BCE Β· Akkadian and Sumerian
Read Akkadian Incantation Series & Amulet Inscriptions in full βCover: Public domain Β· Robert William Rogers (1864β1930) Β· Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference siteβs credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed β not the date the page was rebuilt.