The Serpent @the-great-ouroboros - Tumblr Blog

Aw yeah it’s Mušḫuššu. The most popular Mesopotamian creature, perhaps only rivaled by lamassu*. Back in the 1930’s, when the Ishtar gate was rediscovered, it was one of the first ancient monsters brought to the light of the modern day. It’s been around so long that when it was initially described archaeologists mistranslated its name as Sirrush. The real name, mushussu, has been variously translated as “Reddish Serpent” or “Fierce Serpent”. It is the second snake dragon along with mushmahhu, this time without the multiple heads. Probably made up for the fact that it was given a higher degree of honor than its siblings, being a prominent symbol of the god Marduk and kings in general. Aside from the Ishtar Gate, depictions of mushussu are sometimes depicted in the serpopard pose, with necks intertwined. Others give mushussu a pair of wings in a much more lion dragon-like pose. Quite possibly the oldest representation of a dragon with four legs and two wings! But not the most popular, as the wingless are by and far the most common. Suck it dragon taxonomy gatekeepers.

*the original draft of this falsely stated that Mushu from Mulan was named after mushussu, which is what I always thought, but apparently that’s not true. Mushu is named after moo shu pork. Weird coincidence I guess. – Haha! You thought I was going to do it without wings didn’t you? You should know they call me Zig-zag-Gav!

Ahem. My first draft was pretty much just a recreation of the mushussu from the Gate of Ishtar. But I wanted to do something different. There are dozens of pictures with a flat profile of him, I don’t need to add another to the pile. The second thing that gave me trouble was the color. Some translate its name as “reddish serpent”, so how do you parse that? Reconstructions of Ishtar’s gate give mushussu a gold hide with a red spot on his neck, so is that what they’re referring to? There are many iterations of the colors in my folders. In the end, this tropical one was the best of them all, in my opinion. On a flat background it looks like a lot, but I imagine in the hanging gardens of Babylon it would look like a resplendant, dangerous bird. A bird with the head of a snake and the forelimbs of a lion. The most unexpected bird of them all. I’m not entirely happy with it, in retrospect. The original design is already so good, how do I translate it into my style? At least I can say I didn’t do the unexpected.

Next time, a snake dragon that is not a snake dragon.

dwollsadventures

Nope, you read that correctly. This is Mušmaḫḫū, not his more popular older brother Mušḫuššu. Both of them are what authors call “snake dragons”, which is a bit misleading as there are also “horned snakes” that are dragons as well. “Snake Dragon” in this case refers to the fact that they’re both quadrupeds with a snake-like head and tail. His name literally translates to “exalted serpent”, implying his type were above the common class of serpents. Both Angim and the Enuma Eliš give several key features to it, namely its seven mouths and the venom coursing through its veins in the place of blood. Which nicely correlates it to the seven-headed serpent, a dragon slain by Ninurta. Unrelated (probably) to the seven-headed nāga of India. In the most famous depiction of the serpent, it has its characteristic seven heads, the body of a leopard, and many waving lines on its back.

Like all of its relatives, once it was slain mušmaḫḫū was turned into a symbol of power, a monster who attacked evildoers at its master’s behest. In Mesopotamian religion, all beings, even the monsters and demons, are objects of the gods’ will. As a dragon, musmahhu is very typical. A lone god going out to slay a dragon is found across the world, a recurring theme called “chaoskampf”. Unlike many of those other serpents musmahhu has no connection to the waters, Ninurta encounters him on land. This may suggest he predates the Indo-European chaoskampf, as Sumerian existed long before the Hittites made their way into Mesopotamia.

His presence does show another theme however, this time unique to the Near East. Musmahhu, when he pops up, is always marked as having something of seven. Seven heads or seven tongues or seven screaming mouths. In the Near East seven occurs many times in relation to dragons. The Canaanite Lotan was referred to as “the mighty one with seven heads”, just the same as musmahhu. Both may draw on some common source. But there is another many-headed dragon in that area, one which is unique in its homeland: the hydra. Could the Greeks have been influenced by Lotan and Musmahhu?

– As we get into the dragons, the information sections will be a lot less meaty than they’ve been. Demons like this, without any human aspect to them, don’t have any function within the religion except as monsters to be slain. I had a bit of trouble coming up with the color for him, I don’t want that yellow-y orange to be too present in this series. It just happened to be the best to go with this orange-y gold color. Initially his seven heads did show up, but with the quills (which is what I interpret the things on his back to be) they cluttered the image too much. The first time I drew him he was less impressive than the exalted serpent deserved. Features like the quills, the keratinous tail, and the odd scales on the head should keep it looking more monstrous. Though all the demons are chimeras, I’d hate for them to just look like various animals stapled to each other.

Next time, wouldn’t Musmahhu look a bit better with some bits on his head?