Image: Shonagon · Fred Romero from Paris, France · Russell Yarwood from Costa Mesa, United States · Poulpy
Winged bull with human head
🎧 This work has audio narration — listen in the appPicture a creature with the body of a bull, the wings of a great bird, and the calm, bearded face of a man, carved in stone around 800 BCE. This is a lamassu, a guardian figure, and the material tells us it was made in stone.
Look at what the sculptor gave it. Together these features were combined into a single being that was meant to be read all at once, the strength of an animal joined to the intelligence of a human. The combination is the whole point of the image: a protector that could guard both the physical world and the mind of those who passed it.
The record we have for this work is limited, so we cannot say which specific building or ruler it was made for, or how the people of its own time spoke about it. What the material does establish is its identity as a lamassu and its making in stone around the year 800 BCE, a period in the ancient Near East when such hybrid guardians were carved in great numbers to stand at gates and entrances.
