Pazuzu

The King of the Wind Demons

Domain: Wind, Plagues & Protection
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Element: Darkness
Relics of Power: Protective Amulet

Speak with Pazuzu

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5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Sumerians, Akkadians & Babylonians

Region

Mesopotamia (modern Iraq)

Period

c. 3500 – 500 BC

The Mesopotamian gods were worshipped by the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, the cradle of writing and cities. Each city raised a ziggurat to its patron god, served by a powerful priestly caste. Their myths, such as the Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh, are among the oldest in the world.

The Akitu festival opened the new year with processions along Babylon's Sacred Way, and the sacred marriage rite symbolically united Inanna and Dumuzi to ensure fertility. Lamentations, hymns, and divination by animal livers marked daily religious life.

At a glance

Pazuzu is the king of the evil wind demons in Mesopotamian mythology, lord of the southwestern winds, linked to disease. A terrifying figure with a man's body, the head of a dog or lion, wings and claws, he became in the 1st millennium BCE a protector: his image on statuettes and amulets was used against the demoness Lamashtu and the harms she brought upon pregnant women and newborns.

3 min read · Reviewed on October 15, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The wings, the claws, the canine head and the burning wind

Family

Parents

Hanbu

Pazuzu

Genealogy according to Inscrição das estatuetas de Pazuzu (Heeßel 2002)

Sources and further reading

Studies

Jeremy Black; Anthony Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia, British Museum Press. 1992.
Nils P. Heeßel, Pazuzu: Archäologische und philologische Studien zu einem altorientalischen Dämon, Brill (Ancient Magic and Divination 4). 2002.
Walter Farber, Lamaštu: An Edition of the Canonical Series of Lamaštu Incantations and Rituals and Related Texts from the Second and First Millennia B.C., Eisenbrauns. 2014.

Name and epithets

The name appears in cuneiform as dPa-zu-zu, with the divine determinative. The Louvre inscription reads Hampa; Heeßel (2002) uses Hanbu, the variant retained in the text discussion.

In the ancient sources

Inscriptions on Pazuzu statuettes and amulets, 1st millennium BCE. Main testimony: the god speaks in the first person, identifying himself as son of Hanbu and king of the wind demons.

The myths

The god's inscription: son of Hanbu, king of the wind demons. No narrated myth of Pazuzu survives like those of Apsu or Tiamat.

Worship and archaeology

The works cited do not describe Pazuzu as the recipient of a temple or regular cult. His use is apotropaic: statuettes, heads and amulets of his face, worn or kept to ward off Lamashtu and the harms of the wind, above a…

How the god was depicted

Black and Green describe Pazuzu with the head of a dog or lion, bulging eyes, a scaly body, wings, claws and a scorpion's tail; the god's entry sums it up: a man's body, canine head, wings and claws.

What scholars debate

Evil demon or protector?. Pazuzu is at once an agent of destructive winds and a protector against greater evil. Heeßel analyses this ambivalence from texts and objects; the current reading is that the terror of his imag…

After antiquity

In the twentieth century Pazuzu gained worldwide fame by appearing in William Peter Blatty's novel (1971) and in the film The Exorcist (1973).

Did you know?

The statuettes carry the god's own speech, presenting himself as son of Hanbu and king of the wind demons. On the Louvre statuette MNB 467, Pazuzu stands on a base with his right arm raised; the cuneiform inscription co…

Codex relic

Protective Amulet. The figure worn as a talisman against the evil winds and against the demoness Lamashtu.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

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