Anzû, also known as ^dZû and Imdugud ( Sumerian: ''AN.IM.DUGUD ^MUŠEN''), is a lesser divinity or monster in several Mesopotamian religions. He was conceived by the pure waters of the

Apsu The Abzu or Apsu ( Sumerian: ; Akkadian: ), also called (Cuneiform:, ; Sumerian: ; Akkadian: — ='water' ='deep', recorded in Greek as ), is the name for fresh water from underground aquifers which was given a religious fertilising qualit ...

and the wide Earth, or as son of

Siris Siris may refer to: Geography *Siris (Magna Graecia), an ancient city in southern Italy *Serres, a city in Macedonia called Siris by the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus * Siris, Sardinia, an Italian commune *Sinni (river) (Siris in Latin), Italy ...

. Anzû was depicted as a massive bird who can breathe fire and water, although Anzû is alternately depicted as a lion-headed eagle. Stephanie Dalley, in ''Myths from Mesopotamia'', writes that "the ''Epic of Anzu'' is principally known in two versions: an Old Babylonian version of the early second millennium C giving the hero as Ningirsu; and 'The Standard Babylonian' version, dating to the first millennium BC, which appears to be the most quoted version, with the hero as Ninurta". However, the Anzu character does not appear as often in some other writings, as noted below.

Name

The name of the mythological being usually called Anzû was actually written in the oldest Sumerian

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...

texts as (''AN.IM.MI^MUŠEN''; the cuneiform sign , or ''MUŠEN'', in context is an ideogram for "bird"). In texts of the Old Babylonian period, the name is more often found as ''AN.IM.DUGUD^MUŠEN''. In 1961, Landsberger argued that this name should be read as "Anzu", and most researchers have followed suit. In 1989, Thorkild Jacobsen noted that the original reading of the cuneiform signs as written (giving the name "^dIM.dugud") is also valid, and was probably the original pronunciation of the name, with Anzu derived from an early phonetic variant. Similar phonetic changes happened to parallel terms, such as ''imdugud'' (meaning "heavy wind") becoming ''ansuk''. Changes like these occurred by evolution of the ''im'' to ''an'' (a common phonetic change) and the blending of the new ''n'' with the following ''d'', which was aspirated as ''dh'', a sound which was borrowed into

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...

as ''z'' or ''s''.Jacobsen, T. (1989). God or Worshipper. pp. 125-130 in Holland, T.H. (ed.), ''Studies In Ancient Oriental Civilization no. 47''. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. It has also been argued based on contextual evidence and transliterations on cuneiform learning tablets, that the earliest, Sumerian form of the name was at least sometimes also pronounced Zu, and that Anzu is primarily the Akkadian form of the name. However, there is evidence for both readings of the name in both languages, and the issue is confused further by the fact that the prefix (''AN'') was often used to distinguish deities or even simply high places. AN.ZU could therefore mean simply "heavenly eagle".Alster, B. (1991)
Contributions to the Sumerian lexicon
''Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale'', 85(1): 1-11.

Origin and cultural evolution

Thorkild Jacobsen Thorkild Peter Rudolph Jacobsen (; 7 June 1904 – 2 May 1993) was a renowned Danish historian specializing in Assyriology and Sumerian literature. He was one of the foremost scholars on the ancient Near East. Biography Thorkild Peter Rudolph Ja ...

proposed that Anzu was an early form of the god

Abu Abu or ABU may refer to: Places * Abu (volcano), a volcano on the island of Honshū in Japan * Abu, Yamaguchi, a town in Japan * Ahmadu Bello University, a university located in Zaria, Nigeria * Atlantic Baptist University, a Christian university ...

, who was also syncretized by the ancients with Ninurta/Ningirsu, a god associated with thunderstorms. Abu was referred to as "Father Pasture", illustrating the connection between rainstorms and the fields growing in Spring. According to Jacobsen, this god was originally envisioned as a huge black thundercloud in the shape of an eagle, and was later depicted with a lion's head to connect it to the roar of thunder. Some depictions of Anzu therefore depict the god alongside goats (which, like thunderclouds, were associated with mountains in the ancient Near East) and leafy boughs. The connection between Anzu and Abu is further reinforced by a statue found in the

Tell Asmar Hoard The Tell Asmar Hoard ( Early Dynastic I-II, ca. 2900–2550 BC) are a collection of twelve statues unearthed in 1933 at Eshnunna (modern Tell Asmar) in the Diyala Governorate of Iraq. Despite subsequent finds at this site and others throughout th ...

depicting a human figure with large eyes, with an Anzu bird carved on the base. It is likely that this depicts Anzu in his symbolic or earthly form as the Anzu-bird, and in his higher, human-like divine form as Abu. Though some scholars have proposed that the statue actually represents a human worshiper of Anzu, others have pointed out that it does not fit the usual depiction of Sumerian worshipers, but instead matches similar statues of gods in human form with their more abstract form or their symbols carved onto the base.

Sumerian and Akkadian myth

In Sumerian and

mythology, Anzû is a divine storm-bird and the personification of the southern wind and the thunder clouds. This demon—half man and half bird—stole the "

Tablet of Destinies In Mesopotamian mythology, the Tablet of Destinies ( sux, ; akk, ṭup šīmātu, ṭuppi šīmāti, script=Latn, italic=yes) was envisaged as a clay tablet inscribed with cuneiform writing, also impressed with cylinder seals, which, as a permane ...

" from Enlil and hid them on a mountaintop. Anu ordered the other gods to retrieve the tablet, even though they all feared the demon. According to one text, Marduk killed the bird; in another, it died through the arrows of the god Ninurta. Anzu also appears in the story of " Inanna and the Huluppu Tree", which is recorded in the preamble to the Sumerian epic poem ''

Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, and is regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with ...

''. Anzu appears in the Sumerian

Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird ''Lugalbanda and the Anzu Bird'' is a Sumerian mythological account. The story is sometimes called ''The Return of Lugalbanda'' or ''Lugalbanda II'' being the second of two stories about the hero Lugalbanda. The first story is known as ''Lugalba ...

(also called: The Return of Lugalbanda).

Babylonian and Assyrian myth

The shorter Old Babylonian version was found at Susa. Full version in ''Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others'' by Stephanie Dalley, page 222 and at ''The Epic of Anzû'', Old Babylonian version from Susa, Tablet II, lines 1-83, read by

Claus Wilcke Claus Wilcke (born 12 August 1939, in Bremen) is a German actor who has played Americans in the German TV shows ''Percy Stuart'' and '' I.O.B. Spezialauftrag''. He has also dubbed many American actors including Elvis Presley and Michael Lando ...

. The longer Late Assyrian version from Nineveh is most commonly called ''The Myth of Anzu''. (Full version in Dalley, page 205). An edited version is at ''Myth of Anzu''.

References

External links

Zu
on ''

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