Lamashtu: The Demon Who Preyed on Babies

The Story in Brief

A newborn child should have been safest beside its mother. In ancient Mesopotamian belief, that was exactly where Lamashtu might find it. The demoness was blamed for attacks on pregnant women, new mothers and infants, bringing danger into the most intimate part of the home.

Her appearance combined human and animal features: a woman’s body, a lion-like head, donkey features and the claws of a bird. On protective objects, she could hold snakes while animals fed at her breasts.

But the strangest part of her story is the response she provoked. Families used images of Lamashtu herself to drive her away, and called on another terrifying being, Pazuzu, for protection. Understanding those objects reveals more than a simple contest between a monster and a hero.

A World of Gods, Spirits and Illness

The documentary begins with an imagined birth in Uruk. It is a dramatic way into the subject, rather than a report of an event we can reconstruct from a particular tablet.

Behind that scene lies a world in which supernatural powers could intervene in everyday life. Illness, misfortune and protection belonged within relationships between people, gods and spirits. A household’s safety could depend on more than the strength of its walls.

That did not mean every illness had one supernatural explanation, or that people ignored physical treatment. Remedies and ritual could be used alongside one another. The surviving incantations show one response to suffering, rather than the whole of Mesopotamian medicine.

Lamashtu became especially frightening because she threatened people during pregnancy, childbirth and early infancy. Those were moments when a family could suddenly lose someone despite its attempts to care for them.

Who Was Lamashtu?

Lamashtu is the Akkadian name of the figure also known as Dimme in Sumerian. Early references do not supply a complete biography, and the evidence comes from different periods, places and kinds of source.

The name ‘She Who Erases’ captures the documentary’s presentation of her destructive role. It should not be treated as a securely established literal translation: the origins of both Lamashtu and Dimme remain uncertain.

Incantations describe a being who enters houses and reaches for human victims. The household setting matters. This was danger imagined at a doorway, beside a bed or near a child, rather than only in a distant wilderness.

Nor were adults entirely outside her reach. The traditions associate her with a wider range of illness and harm, although her attacks on mothers and babies became particularly prominent.

The Mother Who Brought Danger

Lamashtu’s appearance was never completely fixed. Surviving objects vary, and a description assembled from every example can suggest a single standard monster that the evidence does not support.

Her familiar animal features make her immediately unsettling. A lion-like head and bird’s claws turn a recognisable body into something that cannot safely belong inside a human household.

The nursing animals are more disturbing still. The image borrows an act associated with care, while the stories describe Lamashtu taking children from their mothers or threatening them through her own milk.

That reversal helps explain her power as an image. The danger is not merely that a predator has entered the room. Something resembling a nurse or mother has become a threat to the child it approaches. This is a way of reading the imagery, rather than a claim that every ancient viewer explained it in those words.

The Daughter of Anu

Lamashtu was also called the daughter of Anu, the god of heaven. Her connection with the divine world complicates the modern label ‘demon’. She was not simply an outsider with no relationship to the gods.

Incantation traditions describe her expulsion from heaven, connecting it with her demand for human flesh. Her divine ancestry remained part of her identity even after that rejection.

Calling her a goddess therefore needs explanation, but calling her a demon does too. Neither word maps perfectly onto a modern division between a benevolent deity and an entirely separate supernatural enemy.

The rituals also make a sweeping claim that no god would oppose her difficult to sustain. Divine authority and protective beings were part of the response to Lamashtu. Pazuzu was an especially striking defender, but he was not the only element of that protection.

How Do You Send a Demon Away?

An image of Lamashtu could seem like the last thing a worried family would want nearby. In ritual, however, giving the danger a visible form made it possible to act upon it.

The documentary explores several approaches. Some involved threatening or burying a representation of the demoness. Others prepared her for departure, supplying objects such as a comb, oil, clothing or transport.

A small boat could carry her likeness with offerings. The aim was to persuade, compel or distract the intruder into leaving the afflicted household.

These were not necessarily stages of one universal ceremony. Different texts and objects preserve different arrangements. Treating every detail as part of a single fixed ritual would flatten that variation.

The practical concern is easier to recognise: identify what has entered the home, establish a defence and send it elsewhere. The rituals gave a family and its specialists actions to perform against a danger they could not otherwise see.

Reading the Plaque of the Hells

The Louvre’s bronze Plaque des Enfers, often called the ‘Plaque of the Hells’, brings several protective elements together. Its upper registers contain divine symbols and supernatural figures. Elsewhere, a patient lies on a bed beside figures wearing fish-like garments.

Below them, Lamashtu holds snakes and nurses animals while travelling on a donkey inside a boat. Objects around her form part of the scene. Pazuzu grips the plaque from behind, his head projecting above it.

The boat is a useful clue to the intended outcome. The demoness is being equipped for removal, rather than welcomed as a permanent member of the household.

That reading connects the object with the departure rituals, while leaving room for the details that distinguish this plaque from other amulets. A museum object is evidence for a particular representation, not proof that every family used an identical one.

Why Call on Pazuzu?

Modern horror made Pazuzu familiar as the demon of The Exorcist. Ancient protective objects tell a different story: his frightening power could be directed against Lamashtu.

He was associated with dangerous winds and was not a harmless guardian. That was precisely what made the arrangement so striking. A force capable of harm could also be useful against another threat.

Small heads of Pazuzu could be worn or suspended, bringing that defence close to the person who needed it. The documentary’s phrase ‘the devil they know’ captures the uneasy bargain, although the modern idea of the Devil should not be imposed on Mesopotamian religion.

For the other side of this relationship, read why anyone would hang a demon’s face in their home.

Watch: Lamashtu — She Who Erases

Watch the Mysteries of Mythology documentary for Lamashtu’s terrifying appearance, her divine ancestry, the rituals intended to drive her away and Pazuzu’s role in protecting the household.

Sources and Further Reading

Musée du Louvre: Plaque des Enfers, AO 22205 — the collection record for the bronze plaque, including its registers, Lamashtu’s boat and Pazuzu.

The Schøyen Collection: Ritual against the Demon Lamashtu, MS 2779 — an inscribed amulet and an account of protective objects and the boat ritual.

Sarah Graff, The Metropolitan Museum of Art: ‘Pazuzu: Beyond Good and Evil’ — the distinction between ancient protective use and the figure familiar from modern horror.

F. A. M. Wiggermann, ‘Lamaštu, Daughter of Anu: A Profile’ — a scholarly study of the texts, imagery and rituals; a scanned copy hosted by Library of Lilith. Particularly useful for the uncertainty surrounding her name and the variety of protective responses.

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) — a specialist edition for readers who want to investigate the textual evidence further.

Related Mysteries

Why Would Anyone Hang a Demon’s Face in Their Home? — explore Lamashtu’s opponent and the protective purpose of his terrifying image.

The Seven Sages Who Taught Humanity: The Apkallu — another route into Mesopotamian protective figures and the fish-cloaked beings familiar from Assyrian art.

The Original Medusa Was NOT a Woman — another frightening face whose role in protection can be missed in modern retellings.