Babylonian Story Of Bird-God Anzu ‘The Wise One’ And His Underworld Realm

A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - Only a fragmentary but still very interesting Babylonian myth tells the story of a gigantic bird with a lion’s head, whose flapping wings were so powerful that they would cause sandstorms, tornadoes and thunder.

This gigantic creature, half man and half bird with huge wings and a beak "like a saw," that could walk on two legs like a human and was known as Anzu/Zu (‘the wise one’).

Votive relief showing evil bird-god Anzu/Imdugud, during the rule of Entemena, King of Lagash, 2400 BC. Credits: Louvre

Originally, the story was an earlier Sumerian myth, according to which, this creature was associated with  Sumerian storm demon – the Anzu bird, which is represented among the stars by Pegasus and Taurus. The Akkadians had yet another version of the evil bird-god Zu, named Imdugud/Anzu - ‘the wise one of heaven’.

See also:

Utnapishtim And The Babylonian Flood Story

Aqrabuamelu – Mysterious Scorpion Men In Babylonian Mythology

More Myths And Legends

The evil Zu had one special wish, which was hard to fulfill: he wanted to rule the gods.

In one of the myths, Imdugud (or Anzu) steals the Tablet of Destiny from the great god of the Mesopotamian pantheon, Enlil, who granted kingship and commanded the fates; his command could not be altered.

Cylinder seal (the Seal of Adda) depicts the judgment of terrifying evil god-bird Anzu/Imdugud; Akkadian period, 2350-2100 BCE. Credits: British Library.

Mesopotamian sky-god, Anu asked two gods to volunteer to slay Anzu, but they refused in the face of the supreme power Anzu, now possessed. With the stolen Tablet of Destiny (or in Sumerian: ‘me’), a sort of divine template, the evil bird-god escaped to a shelter on a mountain top in Arabia. He knew that the wearer of this tablet had the full control of the universe and fates of all.

Eventually, a brave champion appeared on the scene. The Babylonian sources say it was Marduk and in the Sumerian version of the story, it was Lugalbanda, the father of Gilgamesh, husband of the goddess Ninsun and the third king of the city of Uruk.

In other versions of this myth, the god Ninurta, son of Enlil and Ninhursag was the hero who managed to retrieve the divine template of Enlil, by killing the bird with his arrows.

The story survived only in fragments, therefore no details regarding Anzu’s defeat are known.

There is only a cylinder seal impression that suggests that evil thief Anzu, the enemy of the high gods, was finally brought before Ea depicted as the water god, for judgment.

Written by – A. Sutherland  - AncientPages.com Senior Staff Writer

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