In 1892 the Rev. G. J. Chester presented to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, a freestanding figure in bronze of an Assyrian demon, which he said came from San el-Hagar, a small fishing village close to the mound of Tanis in the Egyptian Delta. Recently, when this figure was cleaned for the first time, a badly corroded inscription in Aramaic or Phoenician characters was revealed down the outside of each leg. Fortunately, it was still possible to make out some portions of the text. Although this does not provide direct evidence of the figure's identity, close similarity to a well-known inscribed figure of a demon in the Louvre, and the absence of any female characteristics which might denote the iconographically similar Lamashtu, indicate that this is the demon Pazuzu. See Plate VIII.The figure is 10·8 centimetres high and represents the demon standing on a small rectangular base. Although the ears are human, the bulging eyes, wrinkled jowls, snout-like nose and protruding tongue give the face a leonine expression. A pair of goat's horns rising from the brow curve back to form part of a suspension loop on top of the head. The arms are raised on either side of the head with the ‘hands’ open, empty palms held forward. These are too worn to show certainly whether they were the animal paws usual on these figures. Though the double pair of wings is badly damaged, the feathers are carefully incised on both back and front of the surviving fragments. A pronounced ridge runs over each shoulder from the centre of the back to the chest, so that the wings appear to be strapped on to the body. The creature is ithyphallic, probably with a serpent's head at the end of the phallus. The thighs and legs, terminating in three talons, are rendered like those of a bird of prey. The demon has a scorpion's tail curled up to meet a short bar, which emerges from the lower part of its back, to form a second suspension loop.
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Dec 1, 1982
W E Harris 
Open Access