Originally called lammasu , they guarded the gates of many cities and palaces of the Mesopotamian civilizations; in particular, those of the Assyrians, who were the ones who represented them with greater dimensions, as we can see in the museums where they are displayed. These man-headed bulls – androcephalus – were believed to drive away both evil spirits and enemies. They were generally represented in pairs, located one on each side of the entrance they guarded.
The iconography of these mythological deities contains many messages. In the first place, the body is that of a bull because this animal was associated with power. His face could reproduce that of the king who ruled when they were sculpted, an allusion underlined by a crown in the shape of a tiara. The claws were of a bull or a lion, and the wings were of an eagle or a hawk, birds that were linked to the sun, as in ancient Egypt.
According to the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894), who excavated the lammasu of Nimrud – next to the Tigris River – the body represents the strength of the animal; the wings, the speed of the birds; and the head, human intelligence.
With one more leg
Perhaps the most impressive winged bulls are those already mentioned from Nimrud and those from Khorsabad, another Assyrian city further north, both in present-day Iraq. The first, today in the British Museum, were built between 883 and 859 BC with imposing dimensions: 3.50 meters high by 3.70 meters long. On display at the Louvre, those in Khorsabad are even larger: 4.20 m by 4.36 m.
An added curiosity is that all were sculpted with five legs, to achieve a double visual effect: when viewed from the front they appear to be still, but in profile they give the impression of being in motion.
Image (CC by 2.0 / edwin.11): Winged bull from the Palace of Sargon II, Louvre Museum.
