Derek
Art History Paper 2
Dr. Rosenbergggg.
The Sumerian word lama, which is rendered in Akkadian as lamassu, refers to a beneficient protective female deity. The corresponding male deity was called alad, in Akkadian, sedul In art they were depicted as hybrids, as winged bulls or lions with the head of a human male (Centauroid). There are still surviving figures of šêdu in bas-relief and some statues in museums. They are generally attributed to the ancient Assyrians. To protect houses the shedu were engraved in clay tablets, which were buried under the door's threshold. At the entrance of palaces often placed as a pair. At the entrance of cities they were sculpted in colossal size, and placed as a pair, one at each side of the door of the city, that generally had doors in the surrounding wall, each one looking towards one of the cardinal points The Shedu is a celestial being from Mesopotamian mythology. He is a human above the waist and a bull below the waist. He also has the horns and the ears of a bull.The bull man helps people fight evil and chaos. He holds the gates of dawn open for the sun god Shamash and supports the sun disc. He is often shown on Cylinder Seals. It appears frequently in Mesopotamian art, sometimes with wings. Statues of the bull-man were often used as gatekeepers. These giant monsters were made of limestone and the task of moving and installing these stone sculptures was no easy one. There is other art showing scores of men dragging the lamassu figures with the aid of ropes and sledges. Since the lamassu monsters were ment for garding gates and entries into cities the sculptor designed it for a corner. Most of them actually have five legs, two from the front and for legs in motion from the side veiw. This provided a conceptual picture of the animal making it more realistic and therefor better to do its job of frighten people, which is one key difference from the calm egyptian art. The mesopotamian art seems to strive for fear and the importance of the high ranking officials. For example Sargon, a king of mesopotamia, once wrote in an inscription “i built a city with the labours of the peoples subdued by my hand…” A lot of their art depicts war and the hunting of animals.
