Deity · Mesopotamian · c. 900 BCE
Guardian — the sources' own term: Akkadian lamassu, shedu
Lamassu
Also called Lamma, Shedu
The protective spirit set at a palace gate, and the standing counter-example to the assumption that a Mesopotamian spirit is something to be warded off.
Well sourced
Most of the Mesopotamian material this corpus carries is apotropaic — incantations against Lamashtu, against the sickness a spirit brings. The lamassu is the other side of that ledger, and the reason it matters is that it is invoked rather than repelled. Akkadian incantations ask that the good shedu and the good lamassu be present at a person's side, which is the same grammatical shape a later tradition uses for a guardian angel and predates it by a long way.
The carvings are the best-known part: colossal winged bulls and lions with human heads, set in pairs at palace gates, given a fifth leg so that the figure stands still when seen from the front and strides when seen from the side. The corpus files the sculpture separately as a mark. The entity is here because the texts treat it as a being with an office, not as decoration.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- Udug-hul (Evil Utukku) · c. 1800–600 BCE
- Named there as
- lamassu
- Rank
- Guardian Spirit
- Pantheon
- Mesopotamian
- Order
- Mesopotamian pantheon
- Era
- c. 900 BCE
- Traditions
- Mesopotamian
Traits
- Domain
- Thresholds, palace gates, personal protection
- Traditional form
- A human head, a bull's or lion's body, and wings; carved with five legs so it reads whole from the front and walking from the side
Stats
2 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 2 offices attributed to Lamassu, 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.
- martial2
1 mark
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 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Lamassu, 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 300 years
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as lamassu, Lamassu
The protective spirit invoked to stand at a person's side in the exorcistic series — the same figure the colossal gateway sculptures represent, working at the scale of one household. Described and not quoted, as the series is throughout this corpus.
Invoked to stand at a person's side; the paired shedu and lamassu are asked for as a presence rather than driven off.
Connections
What is it connected to?
No relationship to another figure in this corpus is recorded in the texts cited above. Where an edge exists here it is because a source states it, so an empty section means the sources are silent rather than that the connection is unknown.
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Lamassu?
What rank is Lamassu?
How else is Lamassu spelled?
What is Lamassu said to do?
How old is Lamassu?
Nearest in the corpus
If Lamassu 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 · 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 · 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 · 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 · Mesopotamian
God of plague, war and the underworld, consort of Ereshkigal — and one of the few Mesopotamian gods the Bible names directly.
Anzu
Storm Bird · Mesopotamian
The lion-headed eagle who steals the Tablet of Destinies and is shot down for it — a rebellion against divine order predating any biblical account by a millennium.
Enki
Lord of the Sweet Waters · Mesopotamian
God of the abzu and of cunning, who repeatedly saves humanity by finding the loophole in another god's decree.
The books behind Lamassu
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.
Udug-hul (Evil Utukku)
Anonymous; canonical series of sixteen tablets · c. 1800–600 BCE · Sumerian and Akkadian
Read Udug-hul (Evil Utukku) in full ↗Akkadian Incantation Series & Amulet Inscriptions
Anonymous; recovered from Assyrian and Babylonian sites · c. 1800-600 BCE · Akkadian and Sumerian
Read Akkadian Incantation Series & Amulet Inscriptions in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Robert William Rogers (1864–1930) · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.