#pazuzu

La Reine de la Nuit: La mystérieuse plaque Burney

La Reine de la nuit (également connue sous le nom de "plaque Burney") est une plaque de terre cuite en haut-relief, mesurant 49,5 cm de haut, 37 cm de large et 4,8 cm d'épaisseur, représentant une femme nue ailée, flanquée de chouettes et se tenant sur le dos de deux lions. Elle provient du sud de la Mésopotamie (Irak actuel), très probablement de Babylonie, sous le règne d'Hammurabi (1792-1750 av. J.-C.), car elle partage des qualités artisanales et techniques avec la célèbre stèle en diorite des lois d'Hammurabi, ainsi qu'avec la pièce connue sous le nom de "dieu d'Ur", datant de la même époque.

Pazuzu: Le démon mésopotamien de la destruction et de la protection

Pazuzu est un dieu démoniaque assyrien et babylonien qui connut sa plus grande popularité au cours du premier millénaire avant notre ère. Il était le fils de Hanbi (alias Hanpa ou Hanbu), roi des démons du monde souterrain, et le frère de Humbaba, le dieu-démon protecteur de la forêt des Cèdres dans L'épopée de Gilgamesh, qui est tué par les héros. Il était réputé pour ses pouvoirs destructeurs et, de ce fait, on faisait souvent appel à lui pour se protéger contre les maladies, les menaces et les terreurs qu’il avait lui-même créées. Il était le démon du monde souterrain (où tous les démons étaient censés résider) et contrôlait les vents d'ouest et de sud-ouest qui apportaient la famine pendant la saison sèche et, pendant la saison des pluies, des tempêtes dévastatrices et des sauterelles. Comme il était la force à l'origine des vents destructeurs et de leur menace, il était également considéré comme la meilleure défense contre eux.

Nøkken. Male sirens that hang out in lakes and play the violin? Perfect folk horror material, especially with the Scandinavian setting.

The Nuckelavee. Not only would it shed a light on Orkney folklore, but this particular fairy is easily the most horrifying thing I've ever seen; it would just make for one hell of a good story.

Pazuzu. No, not the one from the Exorcist movies, I mean the demon king from Mesopotamia who's simultaneously responsible for disease and famine, but also protecting children from the infant-eating demoness Lamashtu.

The manananggal. Considering how superb Nosferatu was at bringing a folklore-accurate European vampire to the big screen, I've no doubt his take on this one would be horrifying in the best way. Also vampires from the Philippines are legit the only folklore creatures that genuinely terrify me.

Banshees. I feel like the entire film could be a metaphor for the five stages of grief and a banshee would be a fantastic tool for telling that story.

The Jersey Devil. Pretty self explanatory. Could include themes of postpartum depression and critiques on how conservative societies view childbirth.

Hastur would once share that his past life involved the torture of human beings, but since Pazuzu is interested in all things gory, his support was met with looks of disgust from Hastur who had just confessed what he considered a grave sin

Who the hell typing…

The Queen of the Night: The Mysterious Burney Relief

The Queen of the Night (also known as the "Burney Relief") is a high-relief terracotta plaque of baked clay, 19.4 inches (49.5 cm) high, 14.5 inches (37 cm) wide, with a thickness of 1.8 inches (4.8 cm), depicting a naked winged woman flanked by owls and standing on the backs of two lions. The piece originated in southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), most probably in Babylonia, during the reign of Hammurabi (1792-1750 BCE), as it shares qualities in craftsmanship and technique with the famous diorite stele of Hammurabi's laws and also with the piece known as The God of Ur from that same period.

The woman depicted in the relief is acknowledged to be a goddess as she wears the horned headdress of a deity and holds the sacred rod-and-ring symbol in her raised hands. Not only is the woman winged, but her legs taper to bird talons (which seem to grip the lion's backs), and she is shown with a dew claw on her calves.

Along the base of the plaque runs a motif which represents mountains, indicating high ground. Who the winged woman is, however, has not been agreed upon, though scholars generally believe her to be either Inanna (Ishtar), Lilith, or Ereshkigal. The piece is presently part of the collection of the British Museum, Room 56, in London.

The Burney Relief's History

In 1936, the Burney Relief was featured in the Illustrated London News, highlighting the collection of one Sydney Burney, who purchased the plaque after the British Museum passed on the offer to buy it. Since the piece was not archaeologically excavated but simply removed from Iraq sometime between the 1920s and 1930s, its origin and context are unknown. How the plaque arrived in London is also unknown, but it was in the possession of a Syrian antiquities dealer before coming to the attention of Sydney Burney.

Not much is known of Sydney Burney other than that he was a captain in the English Army during World War I (1914-18) and was president of the Antique Dealers Association in London. The plaque was broken in three pieces and some fragments when originally purchased, but, once repaired, it was found to be mostly intact.

The Burney Relief was analyzed in 1933 and authenticated in 1935 prior to the offer made to the British Museum. The plaque then changed hands twice before the British Museum finally acquired it in 2003 for the sum of 1,500,000 pounds, a considerably higher price than what was asked in 1935.

It was at this time that the piece known as the Burney Relief came to be called The Queen of the Night due to the dark black pigment of the plaque's original background and the iconography (the downward-pointing wings, the talon feet, etc.) associating the female figure with the underworld. The name is therefore a modern, not an ancient, designation for the plaque. There is no way to know what the piece was originally called or what purpose it was created for.

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i am a poet and a scholar. it is demeaning that she only loves me for being hot garbage.