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Pazuzu is the god of the southwestern wind and is associated with the plague. [1] Pazuzu was invoked in apotropaic amulets, which combat the powers of his rival, [33] the malicious goddess Lamashtu, who was believed to cause harm to mother and child during childbirth. He would protect humans against any variety of misfortune or plague.
Pazuzu first appeared in William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist in 1971. [1] The novel is about a 12-year-old girl, Regan MacNeil, possessed by a demon.The demon is later revealed to be Pazuzu; though never explicitly stated to be the demon, two references were made about his statue, which was uncovered in the prologue by Father Lankester Merrin in northern Iraq.
An elderly Jesuit priest named Father Lankester Merrin is leading an archaeological dig in northern Iraq and is studying ancient relics. After discovering a small statue of the demon Pazuzu (an actual ancient Assyrian demon), a series of omens alerts him to a pending confrontation with a powerful evil, which, unknown to the reader at this point, he has battled before in an exorcism in Africa.
On a pre-Christian temple site in northern Iraq (a parody of the opening scene of The Exorcist), a Pazuzu statue is dug up and sent through Amazon to the Simpsons home due to Homer accidentally ordering it, thinking it said "pizza".
Around the same time, Merrin discovers a passageway leading to a cave underneath the church that houses an ancient pagan temple with the statue of the demon Pazuzu. He also finds evidence that this temple was used to conduct human sacrifices. Upon his return, he sees the local tribe cremate the stillborn baby.
[4] [5] Erbil Citadel and The Ahwar of Southern Iraq were added to the list in 2014 and 2016, respectively, the latter being Iraq's first mixed property. [6] [7] Later on, Babylon was added in 2019. [8] As of 2025, three of the five properties are placed on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger.
The view that Pazuzu might have been modeled on the Egyptian god Bes also found a degree of support among researchers, [167] starting with Anthony Green in the 1980s. [ 169 ] Another possible successor of Humbaba is a lahmu -like figure shown as a vanquished adversary of the gods on seals from the first millennium BCE.
The ancient Mesopotamians believed that their deities lived in Heaven, [9] but that a god's statue was a physical embodiment of the god himself. [9] [10] As such, cult statues were given constant care and attention [11] [9] and a set of priests were assigned to tend to them. [12]