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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And on today's episode of

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Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, our month long celebration of

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Speaker 3: Halloween continues. Now, if you've been a listener for a while,

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Speaker 3: you know what's going on. You know what we do

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Speaker 3: every October. But if you are new to the show,

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Speaker 3: here's the deal. Every October we devote all of our

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Speaker 3: core episodes, our Tuesday and Thursday episodes to seasonally creepy

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Speaker 3: subject matter things about ghosts, monsters, devils, curses, horrors, and frights.

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Speaker 3: So last week we talked all about spooky trains, about

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Speaker 3: locomotive horror stories, ghost trains, and the phenomenon of the

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Speaker 3: Victorian railway madness. Today, we are beginning a new series

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Speaker 3: on the demons and monsters of ancient Mesopotamian religion because

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Speaker 3: they had some really exquisite demons, and as a concrete

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Speaker 3: example to kick things off today, I wanted to start

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Speaker 3: by talking about a specific ancient artifact. For my money,

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Speaker 3: one of the creepiest looking artifacts from all of antiquity,

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Speaker 3: and that is a mask of Humbaba.

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Speaker 2: Ah Mbaba is an old friend of the show. We've

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Speaker 2: talked about Humbaba, not stuff to blow your mind before.

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Speaker 3: One of my favorites. Definitely, Humbaba came up in our

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Speaker 3: series on the origins of the religious imagery of the Halo,

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Speaker 3: because Humbaba, as described in the Epic of Gilgamesh, famously

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Speaker 3: has these seven auras or radiances that are kind of

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Speaker 3: like an evil halo. But first I want to talk

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Speaker 3: specifically about this artifact, and then we can talk a

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Speaker 3: bit more about Humbaba as an idea. So this artifact

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Speaker 3: is a baked clay disc picting a hideous face. It's

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Speaker 3: roughly three point three inches in height and in width,

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Speaker 3: and it was produced during the Old Babylonian period between

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Speaker 3: about eighteen hundred and sixteen hundred BCE. It was excavated

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Speaker 3: by the nineteenth century Assyrian archaeologist Hormuz Ressam from the

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Speaker 3: site of the ancient Babylonian city of Sipper, which is

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Speaker 3: on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in modern

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Speaker 3: day Iraq. Today, this artifact is held in the collection

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Speaker 3: of the British Museum. Now, this sculpture is absolutely worth

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Speaker 3: looking up if you are able, but if not, I'm

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Speaker 3: gonna do my best to describe it. The mask shows

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Speaker 3: a humanoid face frozen in a pitiless grimace. It's got

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Speaker 3: the teeth clenched. The head is rounded in shape with

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Speaker 3: bulges in the outline of the head where the ears

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Speaker 3: would be, and it has wide, blank, empty gray eyes. Now,

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Speaker 3: I know, in some cases these ancient Mesopotamians stay statues

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Speaker 3: and sculptures would have been painted, and the paint has

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Speaker 3: simply weathered away over the years, which is the reason

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Speaker 3: some of these ancient statues have such unsettling blank eyes,

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Speaker 3: just these empty, cloudy pools of stone with no pupil

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Speaker 3: or iris. I don't know if that's the case with

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Speaker 3: this clay sculpture or if this is the way it

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Speaker 3: was always intended to look. Either way, the state in

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Speaker 3: which it has arrived to us in modernity is extremely

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Speaker 3: unsettling looking. But I think the most interesting detail about

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Speaker 3: it I haven't gotten to yet, and that is the

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Speaker 3: texture of the flesh. The entire surface of this monstrous

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Speaker 3: face is molded with a pattern like a labyrinth, so

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Speaker 3: it's you have a long, single thick line like a

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Speaker 3: rope folded over and over upon itself to form every

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Speaker 3: part of this head, the hair, the forehead, the ears,

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Speaker 3: the nose, the cheeks, and the double rows of clenched

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Speaker 3: killer teeth. I think you can even see where the

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Speaker 3: coil is supposed to be at its midpoint, you know

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Speaker 3: where it folds over on itself. It's at the left

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Speaker 3: side of the mouth, where the jaws open. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: This is very unsettling looking, and if I were to

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Speaker 2: compare it to anything, it makes me think of the

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Speaker 2: character prune Face from the nineteen ninety Dick Tracy movie. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's like that level of like wrinkliness, but then with

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Speaker 2: this also this vicious grin, this growling toothy mouth. So yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's pretty intimidating.

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Speaker 3: But I think at least prune Face had pupils in his.

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Speaker 2: Eyes somewhere in there. It was heavily littered.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the name implies, Okay, so Humbaba or huahwah. These

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Speaker 3: are different, and this will come up throughout the series.

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Speaker 3: Most of these entities we're going to be talking about

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Speaker 3: have multiple names from different languages and stages in their

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Speaker 3: cultural evolution. So this character is known as Huawa in

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Speaker 3: Sumerian sources and Humbaba in Akkadian sources. I'm going to

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Speaker 3: be calling him Humbaba.

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Speaker 2: The other side of the coin is that there are

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Speaker 2: best practices for pronouncing a lot of these words and

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Speaker 2: these names, so we can we can certainly get them wrong.

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Speaker 2: But on the other hand, we can't, without any degree

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Speaker 2: of failure, get it one hundred percent right, because nobody

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Speaker 2: knows one hundred percent exactly how any of these given

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Speaker 2: words or names were pronounced in the ancient world in

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Speaker 2: their original setting.

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Speaker 3: Very good point, Rob, We will be doing our best

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Speaker 3: with all of these ancient Mesopotamian words and names. We

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Speaker 3: will undoubtedly get some of them wrong in ways that

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Speaker 3: will be detectable to people who specialize in these ancient languages.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, to some extent, we don't fully know how

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Speaker 3: everything was pronounced in every case.

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Speaker 2: And you know, probably better that we don't hit it

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Speaker 2: dead on because we don't want to summon any of

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Speaker 2: these entities. Many of them have been as sleep for

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Speaker 2: a very long time. We don't want to invite them

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Speaker 2: into our modern world.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's often the case in these mythologies that you

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Speaker 3: might have a dead god that isn't really dead forever.

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Speaker 2: Oh you know, The other thing that we risk is

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Speaker 2: if we chance on a mispronunciation of one of their

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Speaker 2: names that just hasn't been done before, we might chance

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Speaker 2: upon the original pronunciation that therefore summons them into the

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Speaker 2: modern world. That's like even the experts haven't been saying

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Speaker 2: one hundred percent right, we could air into the summoning space.

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Speaker 3: I can't even think about that, okay. So Baba or

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Speaker 3: Huahbah is a character who features prominently in ancient Mesopotamian literature,

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Speaker 3: most famously in the different versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

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Speaker 3: As I said earlier, we talked about him at some

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Speaker 3: length in that series on the iconography of the Halo,

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Speaker 3: because whom Baba is described as having these seven terrifying auras,

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Speaker 3: these strange layers of deadly radiance that are taken off

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Speaker 3: one by one before he is eventually killed by Gilgamesh

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Speaker 3: and Gilgamesh's companion in Kidu. In Gilgamesh, Humbaba is described

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Speaker 3: as a giant, terrifying humanoid creature assigned by the god

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Speaker 3: in Leal, the lord of Winds, to be the guardian

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Speaker 3: of the Cedar forest, and, according to the Stephanie Dally

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Speaker 3: translation of Gilgamesh, This is in Tablet two. Humbaba is

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Speaker 3: meant to be quote the terror of the people, Humbaba,

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Speaker 3: whose shout is the flood weapon, whose utterance is fire,

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Speaker 3: and whose breath is death. And we're told that Humbaba

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Speaker 3: can hear a rustling of branches in his forest from

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Speaker 3: sixty leagues away. So who would dare walk inside the

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Speaker 3: forbidden pines? Now, even though we've talked about Humbaba before,

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Speaker 3: I do think we probably want to come back and

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Speaker 3: talk about him some more. We might get into some

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Speaker 3: more depth in part two of this series, but specifically

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Speaker 3: in the context of this clay mask from ancient Sipper,

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Speaker 3: there is a question about the way that it looks.

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Speaker 3: What is the deal with the labyrinthine design on the

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Speaker 3: face is? Why is it represented as a horrific face

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Speaker 3: with these deep wrinkles. The prune face look and the

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Speaker 3: wrinkles seem to be formed out of a folded rope.

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Speaker 3: There is an answer to this. We know conclusively why

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Speaker 3: it looks that way. The rope that makes the face

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Speaker 3: is not a rope. There is a cuneiform inscription on

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Speaker 3: the reverse side of the mask which tells us this

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Speaker 3: inscription is written by the hand of Warad Marduk, a diviner,

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Speaker 3: son of Kubarum, also a diviner. And what the diviner

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Speaker 3: says is, according to the British Museum's translation quote, if

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Speaker 3: the coils of the colon resemble the head of Huawa.

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Speaker 3: This is an omen of Sargon who ruled the land.

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Speaker 3: Oh man, oh yeah. And then there's a part with

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Speaker 3: some text missing, but it says if and then there's

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Speaker 3: an illision, the house of a man will expand, so

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Speaker 3: it's saying the coils of a colon. This horrifying mask

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Speaker 3: is supposed to represent the piled up intestines of a

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Speaker 3: slaughtered animal, which have been used in tons of cultures

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Speaker 3: all throughout history as a stimulus for divination, meaning that

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Speaker 3: a diviner could read signs of the future and gain

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Speaker 3: access to privileged information by looking at the guts of

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Speaker 3: a slaughtered animal, sometimes at the liver as well, or

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Speaker 3: sometimes the intestines. In this case, I believe the animal

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Speaker 3: is supposed to be a sheep, but you know, in

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Speaker 3: various usages you would get different animals, might be a

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Speaker 3: sheep or a goat, or an ox or so forth.

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Speaker 3: In this particular case, the inscription suggests that if the

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Speaker 3: diviner sees entrails that coil to represent the face of Humbaba.

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Speaker 3: This is an omen of maybe successful conquest or expanding power,

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Speaker 3: or the expansion of one's house. So according to a

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Speaker 3: book we were both consulting called Gods, Demons and Symbols

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Speaker 3: of Ancient Mesopotamia and Illustrated Dictionary. This is by a

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Speaker 3: couple of scholars named Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, British

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Speaker 3: Museum Press, nineteen ninety two. According to this book, the

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Speaker 3: face of Huawa seen by a diviner typically means revolution

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Speaker 3: in the state, which I guess doesn't sound so great

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Speaker 3: if you are currently the king. And a lot of

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Speaker 3: times these divinations would be given to a powerful person,

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Speaker 3: recorded as given to a powerful person such as a king.

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Speaker 3: But the authors also suggest there some evidence that clay

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Speaker 3: masks representing the face of Humbaba were hung up on walls,

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Speaker 3: maybe in palaces and temples as charms to ward off evil.

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Speaker 3: So as terrifying as this kind of face looks, masks

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Speaker 3: like this may have been thought to have the power

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Speaker 3: to ward off evil rather than bring it, which is

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Speaker 3: what we today call apotropaic magic, protective or warding off magic.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and we'll get into at least one other

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Speaker 2: key example of this as we proceed through this episode.

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Speaker 3: Now, like I said, we may have to come back

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Speaker 3: to Humbaba later in this series, but I also think

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Speaker 3: we should near the beginning of the series definitely acknowledge

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Speaker 3: the ancient Mesopotamian supernatural entity that will be most recognizable

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Speaker 3: to fans of modern horror movies because of his appearance

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Speaker 3: in The Exorcist, and that is the demon Pazuzu.

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Speaker 2: That's right, Bazuzu cast a long shadow over modern horror

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Speaker 2: cinema and horror fiction. Also just really stands out the

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Speaker 2: iconography of this particular demon because it features a pair

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Speaker 2: of wings that in silhouette kind of look like an

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Speaker 2: X behind a humanoid body, has like a horned dog

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Speaker 2: like head, very fierce eyes and face, and yeah, works

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Speaker 2: great in silhouette and is used not only in The

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Speaker 2: Exorcist that we mentioned this on Weird House Cinema, but

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Speaker 2: the when we did an episode on Ridley Scott's Legend.

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Speaker 2: The same statue also shows up two different times in

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Speaker 2: the movie Legend, just in the background or in the foreground.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's funny. And the Exorcist was already out at

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Speaker 3: that point. That's the funny thing.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think Pazzuzu got representation, and it was

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Speaker 2: either like, let's get some more gigs, Let's get some

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Speaker 2: more projects. I want to work with Ridley Scott.

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Speaker 3: Now, later we will get to the question of whether

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Speaker 3: these cinematic portrayals accurately captured the spirit of Pazuzu. Maybe

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Speaker 3: they partially do, and maybe there's some ways they don't.

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Speaker 3: They don't get it quite right, but at least within

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Speaker 3: the story of The Exorcist, Pazzuzu is the name given

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Speaker 3: to a demon that possesses and torments the twelve year

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Speaker 3: old Reagan McNeil. And this is the story in the

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Speaker 3: original nineteen seventy one novel by William Peter Blattie, and

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Speaker 3: it's carried over into the nineteen seventy three film adaptation

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Speaker 3: directed by William Friedkin. Though in the original novel and movie,

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Speaker 3: the demon does not run around saying I am Pazzuzu.

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Speaker 3: You get more of that in like The Exorcist to

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Speaker 3: the Heretic, I think, which is, you know, there's a

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Speaker 3: kind of downgrading of some of the subtleties of the

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Speaker 3: original in that, but the connection with Pazuzu is established

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Speaker 3: primarily through a prologue in the film in which the

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Speaker 3: Catholic priest Lancaster Marrin is This is the character who

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Speaker 3: ultimately leads and performs the exorcism rights in the third

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Speaker 3: act of the movie, he's working at an archaeological dig

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Speaker 3: in Iraq, and in multiple contexts you see him encounter

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Speaker 3: a state of a frightening, monstrous creature from ancient times.

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Speaker 3: And one thing I always liked about The Exorcist is

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Speaker 3: that the meaning of this confrontation is never made too explicit,

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Speaker 3: so it doesn't get corny. We don't get Maren facing

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Speaker 3: off against it at the beginning and saying, you know,

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Speaker 3: giving some monologue like you are evil, Pazuzu, I must

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Speaker 3: defeat you. You know that you don't get a direct

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Speaker 3: address till towards the end of the film. Instead, there

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Speaker 3: is just this vague, powerful sense of dread that the

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Speaker 3: entity depicted in these ancient artworks is somehow present now

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Speaker 3: and is powerful, and its shadow has somehow fallen over

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Speaker 3: our lives now. Of course, while I love The Exorcist,

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Speaker 3: you know it's a great horror movie. In the modern world,

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Speaker 3: you shouldn't go to the Exorcist to understand what an

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Speaker 3: entity like Pazuzu originally was and originally meant. In The Exorcist,

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Speaker 3: Pazuzu is rendered as a demon in the modern Christians

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Speaker 3: sense of the word, meaning a malevolent spirit, a minion

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Speaker 3: of Satan which can possess the bodies of innocent humans

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Speaker 3: and use them to Satanic ends. So this is a

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Speaker 3: Christian demon, specifically a demon as imagined by a twentieth

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Speaker 3: century Catholic author. But this leads to the question, what

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Speaker 3: was Pazuzu in his original time and place. Does it

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Speaker 3: make sense to call him a demon? And if it does,

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Speaker 3: should we at least modify our understanding of the English

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Speaker 3: word demon a little bit for the purpose of the discussion,

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Speaker 3: Maybe a little bit less the Catholic William Peter Bladdie

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Speaker 3: demon and maybe more a demon in the broader Greek

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Speaker 3: sense of the term.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a This is a very important question

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Speaker 2: to ask before we proceed into any more detailed discussion

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Speaker 2: on these various demons. Yeah, what is a demon? We

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Speaker 2: certainly it's one of those terms that you just throw

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Speaker 2: it out there and it's going to summon various images

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Speaker 2: and ideas. You might, for instance, think of the ball

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Speaker 2: rog and various chaotic evil denizens of the Abyss from

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Speaker 2: dungeons and dragons, and of course these are all based

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Speaker 2: on entities from other you know, faiths and traditions and

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Speaker 2: so forth. You might also well think of the name

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Speaker 2: of various names from Christian demonology, particularly those that crossed

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Speaker 2: over out of theology and into popular culture for everything

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Speaker 2: from horror movies to rock music. And again many of

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Speaker 2: these given names, Many of these entities were appropriated from

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Speaker 2: other cultures and faiths, some transformed into Christian demons, and

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Speaker 2: in their original context were considered gods or some other

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Speaker 2: spiritual entities. And yet at the same time, even in

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Speaker 2: discussing mythic, legendary and folkloric entities, either casually or even

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Speaker 2: from like from the level of scholarship and academia, the

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Speaker 2: word demon is often used instantly provides a starting point

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Speaker 2: from which to potentially understand perhaps a foreign concept or

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Speaker 2: a creature or entity in another tradition you know. And

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Speaker 2: you see this with other words as well, like you'll

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Speaker 2: frequently if you're reading about, say, Chinese mythology and Chinese

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Speaker 2: legend and law, you might read about goblins or trolls.

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Speaker 2: You might read about ogres in Japanese lore and so forth.

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Speaker 2: You know, there's certain types of monsters, types of figures,

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Speaker 2: types of imaginary beings that seem largely universal, and when

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Speaker 2: you get into the particulars, yes, things change a bit,

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Speaker 2: but in general you can often safely say, well, this

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Speaker 2: is a demon from this particular faith. There's still a

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Speaker 2: lot of room for error, and there is a lot

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Speaker 2: of error out there when you look into especially like

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Speaker 2: historic understandings of some of these entities. So yeah, we

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Speaker 2: can throw out the word demon, and we can strike

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Speaker 2: close to the truth. We can strike close to perhaps

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Speaker 2: the original intended meaning here. And as such we can

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Speaker 2: loosely think of demons as as the following evil supernatural

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Speaker 2: spirits or beings of some sort that were never human,

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Speaker 2: are not mortal, and yet exist beneath the status of

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Speaker 2: gods and sometimes demi gods. They are often conceived as

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Speaker 2: punishers in the afterlife, though they're also frequently seen as

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Speaker 2: spreaders of sin, disease, death, and temptation in the world

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Speaker 2: of the living. In Christian traditions, they are often described

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Speaker 2: as fallen angels, followers of the rebel angel Lucifer now Satan,

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Speaker 2: the ruler of Hell, and in other traditions they may

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Speaker 2: seem at times more part of a cosmic order than

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Speaker 2: agents in rebellion against said order. But even then you'll

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Speaker 2: still find room in such tradition systems for a notion

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Speaker 2: of something that is seen as an agent of misfortune

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Speaker 2: or temptation out there working in the world, something that

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Speaker 2: is an enemy of mortal men and may be working

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Speaker 2: outside of the graces of the divine. Now, the word

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Speaker 2: itself in English demon derives from the Greek demos, which

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Speaker 2: could be benevolent or malevolent. Like in the Greek tradition,

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Speaker 2: this could be a good supernatural being or a bad

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Speaker 2: supernatural being. Just because it was demos, just because it

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Speaker 2: was a demon in this context doesn't mean it's necessarily

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Speaker 2: evil and out to get you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you can interpret it as like a spirit.

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Speaker 2: Now, turning to more specifically to the ancient Mesopotamian world,

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Speaker 2: one of the books that we look to here was

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Speaker 2: a book titled God's Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia,

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Speaker 2: an Illustrated Dictionary. This was originally published in nineteen ninety

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Speaker 2: two and the authors here are Jeremy Black and Anthony Green,

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Speaker 2: and illustrated by Tessa Rickards. The authors here point out

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Speaker 2: that the word demon works as an a is an

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Speaker 2: approximate translation of a couple of different terms that refer

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Speaker 2: to both good and evil spirits, so very much in

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Speaker 2: the Greek sense of the word demon. These terms are

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Speaker 2: in Akkadian rabisu and in Sumerian moscin, both of which

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Speaker 2: again can refer to good and or evil spirits. I've

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Speaker 2: also seen more head on translations that define the rabisu

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Speaker 2: as lurker and moscum as deputy or attorney. The authors

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Speaker 2: point out that during the Neo Assyrian period, roughly what

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Speaker 2: nine twelve through six O nine BCE, there were spells

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Speaker 2: that basically said evil rabisu, please see yourself out. Good

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Speaker 2: Rubisu come on in. So you'd see a lot of

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Speaker 2: this sort of thing, like you want the good demons,

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Speaker 2: you don't want the bad demons, but you're not just

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Speaker 2: like no demons allowed, Like yes, of course the good

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Speaker 2: demons can come in.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Black and Green's book includes a one tablet that's

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Speaker 3: sort of a figuring mating clay from the Neo Assyrian period.

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Speaker 3: They say it's probably from the seventh century BCE that

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Speaker 3: depicts a god named Ilamu, which means Harry. And if

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Speaker 3: you look at the tablet, yeah, he's got like real

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Speaker 3: like hair coming out. It almost looks like Medusa, the

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Speaker 3: locks of hair coming out like snakeheads. But yeah, he's

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Speaker 3: a hairy guy. And written on his arms, so the

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Speaker 3: canea form is actually like spanning, it's going running down

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Speaker 3: the length of his biceps, his arm. One arm says

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Speaker 3: get out, evil demon, and the other one says, come in,

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Speaker 3: good demon. And I was actually reading in another book,

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Speaker 3: a book called Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia by the French

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Speaker 3: historian Jean Botero. This is translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan,

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Speaker 3: and Boto argues that there really was no word in

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Speaker 3: any of the ancient Mesopotamian languages that meant specifically demon

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Speaker 3: in the way we use it, like specifically categorizing the

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Speaker 3: class of evil harmful spirits. Instead, these evil harmful spirits

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Speaker 3: would be referred to sort of by their individual names

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Speaker 3: rather than as a class of types of beings. And

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Speaker 3: as far as classes of beings, you would just have

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Speaker 3: this larger like, yeah, you got spirits and they could

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Speaker 3: be good or bad.

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Speaker 2: Now, the Rubisu mentioned how sometimes translated as lurker, and

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Speaker 2: it does seem to lurk. It sort of haunts, it

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Speaker 2: lingers around an affected individual.

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Speaker 3: Now.

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Speaker 2: Black and Green also stressed that in modern studies of

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Speaker 2: ancient Mesopotamian art and iconography, Again this is a book

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Speaker 2: from ninety two, so acknowledging that there could potentially be

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Speaker 2: some shift here, but this seems to still be the

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Speaker 2: case based on even far more recent papers dealing with

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Speaker 2: specific entities. But they stress that the term demon is

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Speaker 2: generally applied to any entity that is an upright human

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Speaker 2: body and also has like hybrid creature elements, while full

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Speaker 2: on animal combinations or something like on all fours, those

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Speaker 2: are considered monsters. So, for instance, across between a lion

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Speaker 2: and a duck, that would be a monster. A cross

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Speaker 2: between a lion, duck and a human like where it's

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Speaker 2: more or less humanoid shape, that would be a demon.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. From what I gather, the really rough way of

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Speaker 3: thinking about it is that if it's bipedal, it's usually

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Speaker 3: a demon, and if it's on all fours, it's probably

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Speaker 3: a monster. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Now, they stress that demons are actually rare in ancient Mesopotamia,

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Speaker 2: mythology and the names. Certainly, this is the case with

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Speaker 2: name demons. The names we know are mostly via they're

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Speaker 2: mention in various spells, and in many cases we have

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Speaker 2: little information regarding their nature or appearance, certainly as far

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Speaker 2: as evil demons and evil gods are concerned. And this

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Speaker 2: might be because it was just considered inappropriate to depict

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Speaker 2: some of them under most circumstances. Though, as we've discussed

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Speaker 2: already and will continue to discuss, there are cases where

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Speaker 2: you really want to show that horrid face in full detail,

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Speaker 2: otherwise it might endanger you to create their image. You know,

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Speaker 2: you don't want to. You don't want to summon the

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Speaker 2: demon into your presence, even if you were discussing it

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Speaker 2: or ultimately using it to ward off something else. But

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Speaker 2: also it seems like sometimes you need an image of

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Speaker 2: the demon if you are trying to ward it off.

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Speaker 2: So I guess it comes down to the basic idea

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Speaker 2: that visual depictions and symbolic depictions of these entities is powerful,

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Speaker 2: and it can be powerful in a way that helps

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Speaker 2: deter them, or it can be powerful in a way

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Speaker 2: that attracts them. But they write that quote in some cases,

398
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Speaker 2: descriptions of their appearances are so vague and inconsistent as

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Speaker 2: to suggest they were not well established. So that's the

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Speaker 2: other side of the coin. It just might be well,

401
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:51,919
Speaker 2: it's not really you know, there's not really a canon

402
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:55,640
Speaker 2: for how this particular entity looked or even how it behaved.

403
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Speaker 2: You know, we might think about in our own like

404
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 2: pop culture world, in our own like urban legend world,

405
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 2: you have a general idea what I mean, you have

406
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Speaker 2: a very clear idea what some entities look like. Like

407
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Speaker 2: Jason Vorhees. Yeah, you know what he looks like. You've

408
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Speaker 2: seen it in various films. There's shifts and how he's depicted,

409
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Speaker 2: but there's there are a number of elements that need

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Speaker 2: to be in place. Meanwhile, something like I don't know

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Speaker 2: Bloody Mary, it seems a bit more vague, like I

412
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Speaker 2: don't know if there's a particular canon as to how

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Speaker 2: she is supposed to look.

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Speaker 3: This I thought was really interesting, and this makes me

415
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Speaker 3: think we should actually come back sometime into a whole

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Speaker 3: Halloween series on. Yeah, what you could call like canonically

417
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Speaker 3: bounded versus unbounded monsters, Monsters that have a very tight,

418
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Speaker 3: canonically set description and those that are extremely vague and

419
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Speaker 3: in the case of the ones that are vague, where

420
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Speaker 3: does the horror come from? Because you know, when a

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Speaker 3: monster is, like say, represented in a movie, you know

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Speaker 3: what that movie representation looks like and you can picture it.

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Speaker 3: But when there's a monster that is you don't even

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Speaker 3: get a very clear physical description. Where is the horror based?

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Speaker 3: What is it you're imagining?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, and I should probably draw in an example

427
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Speaker 2: that doesn't originate in a visual medium. I think if

428
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 2: I think back on entities, unreal entities that I had

429
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 2: varying degrees of fear of as a child, well, I

430
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 2: can think of the Boogieyman, and I can think of

431
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:22,600
Speaker 2: gray aliens like the kind that you know are going

432
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 2: to potentially kidnap you and probe you and so forth,

433
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:29,679
Speaker 2: And there's more of a definite idea of what a

434
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 2: gray looks like, whereas the Boogieman, Yes, there are I mean,

435
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 2: the big Boogeyman is sometimes depicted in certain ways, like

436
00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:39,640
Speaker 2: I remember there being a way that the real Ghostbuster's

437
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 2: cartoon depicted the Boogieman. But for the most part, the

438
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 2: Boogeyman is up for grabs. There's no definite way that

439
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:48,360
Speaker 2: it looks, but the fear of it. Certainly when you're

440
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 2: young can still be palpable.

441
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 3: Oh lord, I just looked up the Real Ghostbusters boogieman.

442
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 3: It looks why is it wearing a tuxedo?

443
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:00,400
Speaker 2: I remember that being a pretty wild episode. There were

444
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:03,120
Speaker 2: some episodes of The Real Ghostbusters that went pretty hard.

445
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 3: It looks like a pale rock and roll grimlin with

446
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:12,040
Speaker 3: a disproportionately huge face, wearing lots of lipstick, with sharp teeth,

447
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:17,400
Speaker 3: big long nose, purple punk haircut, and a tuxedo coat

448
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 3: with long tails. So it's dressed for a formal dinner.

449
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a bad dude, all right. So anyway,

450
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 2: the main point here is that, yeah, some of these

451
00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 2: creatures would have been perhaps unbounded, you know, and we

452
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 2: would have been vague and inconsistent, but others became extremely

453
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 2: important in ancient Mesopotamian mythology and in religious practice. And

454
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 2: we have at least one case of a sort of

455
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:56,880
Speaker 2: demonic face turn, of an evil entity becoming if not good,

456
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 2: at least useful for our protection. And you know, I

457
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:05,919
Speaker 2: guess this under the line is an important reality that

458
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,679
Speaker 2: we have discussed in the past and the show, and

459
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 2: that is that religion and belief transform and evolve. Over time,

460
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:18,919
Speaker 2: New ideas emerge, foreign ideas enter into a different region

461
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 2: or a different belief system. Things change, and it impacts

462
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:26,880
Speaker 2: the exact form and function of various fantastic entities and creatures,

463
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:30,960
Speaker 2: sometimes utterly transforming them. And this is especially the case

464
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 2: here today because we're ultimately considering the passage of thousands

465
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 2: of years here, and we're not only talking about like

466
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 2: subtle changes in belief or Okay, well, this god becomes

467
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 2: a little more popular, this demon becomes a little more popular.

468
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 2: Sometimes we're talking about the emergence of groundbreaking new concepts

469
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 2: and how people considered their place in the cosmos and

470
00:28:51,720 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 2: the structure and function of the unseen world. Now. Black

471
00:28:56,120 --> 00:29:00,280
Speaker 2: and Green proposed a simplified five phase chronology for the

472
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:04,120
Speaker 2: development of gods and demons in ancient Mesopotamia. And I'm

473
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 2: going to roll through it here real quick, because I

474
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 2: feel like it's you may get lost in some of

475
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 2: the dates here and the different periods, but I think

476
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 2: the overall flow is important, all right. So first up

477
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 2: is the formative phase.

478
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 3: They write it.

479
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 2: During the late Ubaid and Uru periods, very roughly in

480
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 2: the neighborhood of the fourth millennium BCE, we have the

481
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 2: earliest composite beings envisioned, combining various elements of different animals.

482
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 2: Up next the optimistic phase. This would have been during

483
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 2: the Acadian period around let's say two twenty three thirty

484
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 2: four through twenty one to fifty four BCE, and this

485
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:47,520
Speaker 2: is when we have galyptic scenes depicting the capture and punishment,

486
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 2: the busting, if you will, of evil demons.

487
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 3: Makes me feel good, yeah.

488
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 2: And then we have the balanced phase during the Old

489
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 2: Babylonian period eighteen ninety four BCE through fifteen ninety five BCE,

490
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 2: and we have cylinder and seal designs that often mixed

491
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 2: images with good and bad associations. So that's the balance.

492
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, the good entities the bad entities

493
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 2: finding balance. Then we have the transformative phase during the

494
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 2: fourteenth through eleventh centuries BCE. The human centric imagery of

495
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 2: the Old Babylonian period gives way to mostly animal headed hybrids.

496
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 2: And then finally we get the demonic phase. And as

497
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 2: the name implies, this is the period during which quote

498
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 2: individual evil demons were depicted in their full horror in

499
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 2: Neo Assyrian and neo Babylonian art. And it's interesting too

500
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 2: that they point out that this demonic phase lines up

501
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 2: with the emergence of a new first millennium BCE theological model,

502
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 2: that of a demonically populated hell. This is of course key,

503
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 2: the key theological invention because it foreshadows, you know, the

504
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 2: medieval Christian image of a demonic afterlife. It also mirrors

505
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 2: the various hell realms of Buddhism and Hinduism, and it

506
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 2: essentially like adds this entirely different realm to one's understanding

507
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 2: of the unseen world.

508
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 3: That's right. I mean a lot of modern Christians might

509
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 3: not remember this, but say, in the Hebrew Bible, you

510
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 3: don't get depictions of a demonically populated hell with tortures

511
00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 3: for the damned. That's not there that emerges in early

512
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 3: Christian theology.

513
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I mean, for my money, you can

514
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:29,719
Speaker 2: throw it out right now. You don't have to keep

515
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 2: it if you got it now. One question that the

516
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 2: author's raise here is what made this vision of the

517
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 2: afterlife different from that of say, ancient Egyptians. We've talked

518
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 2: on the show before about the robust vision of the

519
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:48,719
Speaker 2: afterlife that was modeled in an Egyptian belief the idea

520
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 2: that the afterlife is certainly a realm of danger. It

521
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 2: is not a you know, it's not a just one

522
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 2: big heavenly celebration. There are a lot of dangers and

523
00:31:56,680 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 2: entities out there, but it's also a realm of great possibility.

524
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 2: So a person of means and power and magical ability

525
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 2: could potentially translate all of that over into their next

526
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 2: life in the field of reeds.

527
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 3: That's right. So even among ancient cultures that had a

528
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 3: religious idea of an afterlife, of some sort of place

529
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 3: you go after death, there's a lot of diversity in

530
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 3: what that afterlife looks like and what you do there.

531
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, now, I think there's probably still a lot of

532
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 2: room to get into the nuances of either broad regional

533
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 2: religious traditions. But Black and Green contend that in general

534
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 2: we see a strong sense of Mesopotamian pessimism in regards

535
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 2: to the afterlife. According to Black and Green, the region

536
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 2: in general at this time was one of agriculture and clay,

537
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 2: but little else in abundance, certainly for the common denizen

538
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 2: of this region. So almost every aspect of life they

539
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 2: write was likely quite harsh compared to ancient Egypt, and

540
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 2: this colored an equally harsh view of the afterlife. So

541
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:05,600
Speaker 2: immortality that's for the gods. Mortal man, however, is just

542
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 2: doomed to die, passing on only into a shadowy realm,

543
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 2: where in Sumerian traditions, the shades of the dead consume

544
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 2: only the ashes, and in a serio Babylonian traditions, the

545
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 2: grim afterlife is the domain of demons and monsters black

546
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 2: and green. Right that Eventually traditions and belief systems developed

547
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 2: by which you can affect your arrival and status in

548
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:31,320
Speaker 2: the afterlife or that of a loved one via proper burial.

549
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 2: But earlier on it was probably either based around a

550
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 2: cult of the dead, via which you might you know,

551
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:41,280
Speaker 2: communicate with deceased family members, or it was just a

552
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 2: means of preventing their spirits from haunting you after they've died.

553
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:49,520
Speaker 2: But yeah, especially early on, there's not this sense that, oh,

554
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 2: we need to talk to Grandma or communicate with Grandma,

555
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 2: or have offerings for Grandma to make sure she's doing okay. Like, no,

556
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 2: there's not really any doing okay in this afterlife. It's

557
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 2: a world of ash and shadow. But we don't want

558
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:04,680
Speaker 2: Grandma to come back from the realm of ash and

559
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 2: shadow and start haunting us. Things are bad enough here,

560
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 2: we don't need her here as well.

561
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 3: But at some point you get the idea of, well,

562
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 3: maybe we could send some food, send some care packages

563
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 3: to Grandma in the afterlife and that might help a

564
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 3: little bit.

565
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:23,320
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So so again we enter this demonic period.

566
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:28,239
Speaker 2: We suddenly have this idea of afterlife where are there

567
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 2: may be demons everywhere? And it also comes around the

568
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 2: same time as new practices such as erecting statues and

569
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:40,759
Speaker 2: reliefs of magically protective beings in palaces and in temples,

570
00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 2: as well as burying clay images of such entities in

571
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:48,760
Speaker 2: building foundations to protect that building and its occupants against

572
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:53,480
Speaker 2: demons and disease. They're right, quote diverse and cultural background

573
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 2: and original significance. The various gods, demons and monsters involved

574
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 2: were brought together into a fairly restricted visual series of

575
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 2: this time, and for the first time they came to

576
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 2: be treated as a group in mythological narratives. So you know,

577
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 2: demonic avengers assembled.

578
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:09,799
Speaker 3: I guess.

579
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 2: Now most of the demons from this period of ancient

580
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:18,400
Speaker 2: Mesopotamian belief they still in their punishment of mortals and

581
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:22,479
Speaker 2: their spreading of disease and death. They were mostly still

582
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 2: doing it at the behest of the greater gods, so

583
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 2: you can think of them as being still part of

584
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 2: the system, you know, like that. You don't like what

585
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:35,279
Speaker 2: they're doing, but they have some right to do it.

586
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 2: And maybe the ultimate blame lies in how I'm living

587
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 2: my life or what I'm not doing to protect against

588
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:42,880
Speaker 2: their offenses.

589
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, did I do something to be taken by the

590
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 3: grip of this demon? And that grip is usually a

591
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:51,160
Speaker 3: disease of some kind.

592
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:54,279
Speaker 2: Right, But there do sing to be exceptions to the rule,

593
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:58,879
Speaker 2: and one exception in particular, and it may be due

594
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 2: to the fact that some acts of demons and some

595
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 2: events in life are just too horrific to be attributed

596
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:09,480
Speaker 2: to the gods. And that brings us to the entity

597
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 2: known as La mache To. So I've looked up lamache

598
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:18,280
Speaker 2: To in one of my favorite sources for entities like this, spirits, fairies, Lepricaus,

599
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:22,360
Speaker 2: and Goblins and Encyclopedia by folklorist Carol Rose, and she

600
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:27,239
Speaker 2: describes lamache To as the Babylonian demoness of disease and

601
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 2: describes depictions as often being that of a woman stripped

602
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 2: to the waist suckling a pig and a dog, with

603
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 2: a comb and a spinning worl in each hand, representing

604
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 2: the gendered tasks of wife and mother, these being the

605
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:47,280
Speaker 2: core targets of her wrath because she is a demon

606
00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:51,400
Speaker 2: that attacks pregnant women and new mothers, bringing death and disease,

607
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:56,280
Speaker 2: particularly to infants. She is a daughter of the sky god,

608
00:36:56,760 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 2: but according to Black and Green, she seems to be

609
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:04,240
Speaker 2: operating she's seldom to be operating outside of the domain

610
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 2: of the gods, so she's not doing evil because she

611
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:10,839
Speaker 2: has been ordered to. She's doing it for her own purposes,

612
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:14,760
Speaker 2: perhaps for her own delight, like she's just pure chaotic evil,

613
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:18,359
Speaker 2: I guess. Black and Green likewise describe her based on

614
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 2: depictions as a humanoid creature with the head of a lion,

615
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 2: teeth of a donkey, naked human breasts, a hairy body,

616
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:29,920
Speaker 2: blood stained hands, long fingers and nails, and taloned bird

617
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:33,320
Speaker 2: like feet. Her animal she has like a siventure animal,

618
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:35,919
Speaker 2: and she rides this animal. It is the donkey, and

619
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:39,240
Speaker 2: she sometimes holds a snake in each hand as well,

620
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 2: and she also has a boat to travel through the underworld.

621
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:48,439
Speaker 2: She's also sometimes depicted with donkey ears, as are other

622
00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 2: entities in Mesopotamian myth and it's less scary it does

623
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 2: it does to us outsiders, and apparently this has caused

624
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 2: various translations to change donkey ears to lion ears when

625
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 2: when this entity has been taken into other cultures and regions.

626
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:11,319
Speaker 2: But the authors suspect that at the time and to

627
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:14,760
Speaker 2: the target audience, it was seen as a fitting animal

628
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:18,880
Speaker 2: to invoke with such a demon, as the wild donkey

629
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 2: was held to be swift footed. So I guess in

630
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 2: the regional context, like what is like the fastest animal

631
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 2: to traverse a rough terrain, it would perhaps be the

632
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 2: wild donkey, and therefore it is a fitting creature for

633
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 2: a swift demon to ride in iconography.

634
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 3: Okay, Now I can see how some of our associations

635
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:43,760
Speaker 3: with various domestic animals, like whether they could be conceived

636
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:47,360
Speaker 3: as scary or not, that could be purely cultural. Because

637
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:50,200
Speaker 3: remember we did the series about why the goat is

638
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:53,799
Speaker 3: associated with demons. I can imagine a culture where that

639
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:57,560
Speaker 3: is not a common association, thinking like, what what's scary

640
00:38:57,600 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 3: about a goat? A goat because it.

641
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:03,239
Speaker 2: Met goats, like they can be real sweet.

642
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:06,840
Speaker 3: Goats can be cute. Oh yeah, so I think you

643
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:09,320
Speaker 3: can imagine a similar thing going on with the donkey

644
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,319
Speaker 3: ears there that like, donkey's not scary to us because

645
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 3: we just don't have the right history of cultural association.

646
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, you might even be able to get into like

647
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:22,239
Speaker 2: what sounds are considered funny in English, you know, like

648
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:27,759
Speaker 2: the like sounds are often funny donkey, monkey clown, you know,

649
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:31,280
Speaker 2: And you're gonna have a different set of linguistic values

650
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 2: in a different language and of course in a different time,

651
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 2: different region and so forth, as well as other factors.

652
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 2: So again we're talking about La mache too, not to

653
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:44,360
Speaker 2: be confused with La Masu. Lamasu is a benevolent demon

654
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 2: often depicted as you know, a winged lion or bull

655
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 2: with a human head. But no, La mache Too is

656
00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:56,319
Speaker 2: a being of intense darkness and one that again is

657
00:39:56,960 --> 00:40:00,840
Speaker 2: seeming to act independently of the gods, flicks harm on

658
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 2: mortals for her own purposes. It's not part of a

659
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 2: divinely orchestrated punishment system, and so we attribute to her

660
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 2: cases of miscarriage, cases of infant mortality related illnesses that

661
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 2: may be affecting pregnant women or new mothers, and it's

662
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 2: said that what is happening is that she'll slip into

663
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,440
Speaker 2: a woman's room at night, a pregnant woman's room, and

664
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 2: touch her stomach seven times to kill the child inside

665
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 2: her other times and another telling she just straight up

666
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 2: like steals children in the night. And she is also

667
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 2: sometimes depicted as bringing disease to men as well, So

668
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 2: she is I guess equal an equal opportunity offender in

669
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:44,840
Speaker 2: that department. So she is an enemy to all mortals,

670
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:48,360
Speaker 2: and she is an enemy most vitally to not only

671
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 2: our generation but the next generation, like she is like

672
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:56,400
Speaker 2: a dire threat to the enterprise of humanity.

673
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:01,840
Speaker 3: So feelings about the Donkey years aside a truly horrifying being.

674
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:04,799
Speaker 2: Yes, now what are you gonna do? How are you

675
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:08,360
Speaker 2: going to fight an evil like that? Well, this is

676
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:10,560
Speaker 2: where we come back to Pazuzu.

677
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 3: Pazuzu our old friend.

678
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:16,040
Speaker 2: Yes, perhaps the most well known ancient Mesopotamian demon of

679
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 2: our age due to its invocation in horror cinema, in

680
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 2: horror literature, and horror imagery. Pazuzu was an Assyrian in

681
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:30,879
Speaker 2: Babylonian demon or demonic god of the first millennium BCE. Again,

682
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:35,720
Speaker 2: you're probably familiar with this striking profile, a humanoid entity

683
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 2: wing it in such a way as to create a

684
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 2: sort of X shape. It could almost look like he

685
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 2: has four wings, though I think we're perhaps to see

686
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:49,760
Speaker 2: this as the upper and lower parts of two wings,

687
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 2: but again it kind of creates this X shape behind him. Yeah,

688
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 2: he has a dog like face, taloned feet, bulging eyes,

689
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:01,120
Speaker 2: scaly body, and if you look closely, there's also a

690
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 2: snake headed penis there. He generally has the right hand

691
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:08,880
Speaker 2: held up as if you know, in pledging something, and

692
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 2: the left hand is down, and sometimes there's a scorpion's

693
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 2: tail as well.

694
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:14,279
Speaker 3: So Pazusu is.

695
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:16,719
Speaker 2: Kind of an enigma here because on one hand, he

696
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 2: was definitely held up to be a malevolent demon of

697
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,800
Speaker 2: the underworld. You know he is. He is not your friend,

698
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 2: but he also comes to serve as a potent protector,

699
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:30,840
Speaker 2: invoked in amulants to protect women against the evil of

700
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 2: lamashe tou. He has often depicted driving her and her

701
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 2: donkey steed back into the underworld, and these images might

702
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:41,319
Speaker 2: be displayed in the home as a part of a

703
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:45,439
Speaker 2: protective plaque, and then you also have amulets of Pazuzu's

704
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:48,840
Speaker 2: head that could be worn, it seems, by pregnant women.

705
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:53,480
Speaker 2: So you would actually wear the horrific like dog like uh,

706
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:57,880
Speaker 2: you know, gorgon face of the zuzu on your body

707
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 2: to keep lamash Tou from get close to you and

708
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:03,560
Speaker 2: reaching out to you and touching you seven times with

709
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 2: their awful hand.

710
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 3: That is interesting in a very different kind of association

711
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 3: than we get in The Exorcist.

712
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And in a sense, I feel like the

713
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 2: Exorcist does Bazuzu dirty, where Bazuzu is just an absolute

714
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:21,959
Speaker 2: enemy of law and order in humanity, where in reality,

715
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 2: I think he's he's more in between. He's more of

716
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 2: a tweener, you know, he's he's not a complete heel,

717
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 2: he's not a complete face, but he's you know, kind

718
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:34,160
Speaker 2: of doing like a semi face turn here. I you know,

719
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:37,879
Speaker 2: I I inevitably came back to the quote from Dame

720
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 2: Judy Dinch and the Chronicles of Riddick. You know, she says,

721
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:43,360
Speaker 2: in normal times, evil would be fought by good, but

722
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 2: in times like these, well it should be fought by

723
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:47,160
Speaker 2: another kind of evil.

724
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 3: Oh what's good? For the necromonger is good for thelmashe tou.

725
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:56,480
Speaker 2: Now, Bazuzu also protects against pestilential wins so winds carrying

726
00:43:56,520 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 2: pestilence because he is. And I was shooting about looking

727
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:02,719
Speaker 2: at a number of different sources that dealt more specifically

728
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:05,960
Speaker 2: with Bazuzu, and one I looked at is a paper

729
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 2: by Maraja Todorovska. It's titled Demonic, Hybrididy and Liminality Bazuzu

730
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:17,400
Speaker 2: and lamashe Tou. This is from twenty twenty three. She

731
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 2: refers to him as the king of evil winds and

732
00:44:20,160 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 2: the ruler over the worst of the wind demons, who

733
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:25,400
Speaker 2: he can also seem to control to some extent. I

734
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:27,160
Speaker 2: don't know if he's straight up controlling them or he

735
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:29,719
Speaker 2: is just like the roughest, toughest of the bunch and

736
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 2: he can beat them into submission in the same way

737
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:35,280
Speaker 2: that like Godzilla is the king of monsters, not because

738
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:38,279
Speaker 2: there's like a detailed hierarchy, but because he can whip

739
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 2: all the other ones.

740
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 3: That's right. He's not giving orders to the other monsters.

741
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 3: He's the monster you call when you got a monster

742
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 3: messing with your city.

743
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:48,920
Speaker 2: Right, right, And yeah, the Godzilla world does line up

744
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:53,040
Speaker 2: with this rationale as well, so Pazuzu can break the

745
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 2: wings of dangerous wind demons. And this source also points

746
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:01,360
Speaker 2: to the likely foreign origins of Bazus, given that he

747
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:04,840
Speaker 2: was a late introduction to regional beliefs and traditions. He

748
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:08,520
Speaker 2: doesn't pop up visually till the eighth century BCE, and

749
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:11,799
Speaker 2: textually he doesn't pop up to the seventh The Metropolitan

750
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:14,319
Speaker 2: Museum of Art also has some resources about him because

751
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:18,040
Speaker 2: they have some images of Pazuzu in their collection. They

752
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:20,400
Speaker 2: point out that he was associated with the cold winds

753
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 2: that blew into present day Iraq from the Zagros Mountains

754
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:27,000
Speaker 2: on the border with present day Iran, though they also

755
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 2: stretched into southeastern Turkey. These mountains and these winds were

756
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:37,440
Speaker 2: thought to carry pestilence. These mountain regions had long been

757
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 2: inhabited by humans from very early times. They were also

758
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 2: known to have been Neanderthals that lived there at one point,

759
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:50,279
Speaker 2: and in fact, the earliest known human remains in Mesopotamia,

760
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 2: or at least at one point. The earliest known human

761
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:57,719
Speaker 2: remains in Mesopotamia were excavated in Shaannadar Cave in the

762
00:45:57,800 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 2: Zagros mountains, according to Black and Green in their nineteen

763
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:05,200
Speaker 2: ninety two book, But Yeah, Bazuzu is often depicted as

764
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 2: climbing mountains in order to engage in battle against other demons,

765
00:46:10,280 --> 00:46:13,160
Speaker 2: particularly other wind demons. But who knows what kind of

766
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 2: demon Bazuzu might battle. You might be able to to

767
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 2: convince him to do battle against an evil demon that

768
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:24,360
Speaker 2: is coming after you. Now, it's interesting to note that

769
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 2: when we look at some of these Pazuzu amulets, but

770
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:29,839
Speaker 2: you know that would be worn by a pregnant woman

771
00:46:30,200 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 2: that has the face of Bazuzu, and it's all about

772
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:38,240
Speaker 2: keeping La Machhetu away from you. If you you flip

773
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:40,800
Speaker 2: them over, you would see that they would also have

774
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:44,399
Speaker 2: inscriptions of like straight up benevolent gods on the back,

775
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 2: the side that's facing you, that's touching your chest. Perhaps

776
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:51,920
Speaker 2: because again, Pazuzu is not your friend. He is a

777
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:58,320
Speaker 2: very dangerous wind demon, you know, master of evil winds,

778
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:00,200
Speaker 2: and at the end of the day, he's not something

779
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:02,320
Speaker 2: you want to mess with. You don't want his attention

780
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 2: to fall back on you. And so you know, it's

781
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 2: like you want to keep the face of that ambulant

782
00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:10,600
Speaker 2: pointing out to where your enemy may may come from,

783
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 2: but you don't want it looking in at you. You

784
00:47:12,640 --> 00:47:15,239
Speaker 2: don't want to somehow manifest his rage at you.

785
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 3: M Yeah, that's interesting.

786
00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating, and it's something I think that may

787
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 2: feel foreign to people who are more used to the

788
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:26,439
Speaker 2: trappings of a monotheistic religion. You know, the idea that, yeah,

789
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 2: you can turn to a dangerous entity or potentially dangerous entity,

790
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 2: one that's not a typical ally of human beings in

791
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:37,320
Speaker 2: order to deal with certain evil, supernatural threats. You know,

792
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 2: you can. Essentially it's like almost like hiring a bounty

793
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:45,719
Speaker 2: hunter in the Star Wars universe, Like, yeah, Pazuzu, you know,

794
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 2: he can do this job for you. But you know

795
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:50,480
Speaker 2: you're making a deal with a ultimately a pretty dangerous

796
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:53,439
Speaker 2: and unsavory character, so you got to be careful. Yeah,

797
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:56,280
Speaker 2: but at least he's not the Empire, you know. So again,

798
00:47:56,520 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 2: you know, I can't help but think Pazuzu is done

799
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:02,880
Speaker 2: dirty to a certain extent in The Exorcist. You know,

800
00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:06,759
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm not prepared to do like a

801
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 2: full analysis of how Pazuzu would behave in the Exorcist

802
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 2: and or of another demon would be more fitting for

803
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 2: the role. But yeah, it seems like if you knew

804
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 2: how to manage your use of Pazuzu and your invocation

805
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:27,120
Speaker 2: of Pazuzu, you could very much use him to protect yourself.

806
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 3: If one were forced to try to reconcile the canon here.

807
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:35,479
Speaker 3: I think what you can maybe say is that within

808
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 3: the world of the Exorcist, it's actually just a separate

809
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 3: Christian demon that is taking on the image and name

810
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 3: of Pazuzu. Is just saying like, I assume this form.

811
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, because otherwise you'd be tempted to say, well, actually

812
00:48:49,760 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 2: the god that they are calling on should be Pazuzu.

813
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:55,840
Speaker 2: The demon and the entity they're trying to drive away

814
00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:59,719
Speaker 2: should be a lamache To who is ultimately here not

815
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:02,800
Speaker 2: a acting a baby or a pregnant woman, but is

816
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 2: at least attacking like a young girl, which is maybe

817
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 2: not too far away from her, you know, usual targets

818
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:10,280
Speaker 2: of aggression.

819
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:13,320
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I think that probably marks the end of

820
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 3: our first part here, but we're going to be back

821
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 3: to talk about some more demons and frightening entities of

822
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:22,840
Speaker 3: ancient Mesopotamian religions in the next episode.

823
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:27,240
Speaker 2: That's right, because there are more demons, there are more gods,

824
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:31,680
Speaker 2: there are more strange monster like creatures. So we're going

825
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 2: to get into it in the next episode. In the meantime,

826
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 2: we'll just remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind

827
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:39,520
Speaker 2: is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes

828
00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays and

829
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:46,320
Speaker 2: on Fridays. We set aside most series concerns to just

830
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 2: talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. And

831
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:52,839
Speaker 2: of course this month everything is Halloween themed. Weird House

832
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:57,000
Speaker 2: is Halloween themed, our core episodes are Halloween themed, so

833
00:49:57,440 --> 00:50:01,279
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834
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:04,800
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835
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836
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:11,680
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837
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:13,480
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838
00:50:13,600 --> 00:50:17,160
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839
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:19,840
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840
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841
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842
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:28,640
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843
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844
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845
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846
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847
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848
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:42,720
Speaker 3: For huge things. As always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.

849
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:44,759
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850
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:47,360
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851
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:49,479
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852
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853
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854
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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.