(Please read from the start)
Continuing where I left off about the Lamassu:
“The motif of the Assyrian-winged-man-bull called Aladlammu and Lamassu interchangeably is not the lamassu or alad of Sumerian origin, which were depicted with different iconography. These monumental statues were called aladlammû or lamassu which meant "protective spirit".In Hittite, the Sumerian form dlamma is used both as a name for the so-called "tutelary deity", identified in certain later texts with Inara, and a title given to similar protective gods.
Mythology
The lamassu is a celestial being from ancient Mesopotamian religion bearing a human head, bull's body, sometimes with the horns and the ears of a bull, and wings. It appears frequently in Mesopotamian art. The lamassu and shedu were household protective spirits of the common Babylonian people, becoming associated later as royal protectors, and were placed as sentinels at entrances.The Akkadians associated the god Papsukkal with a lamassu and the god Išum with shedu.
To protect houses, the lamassu were engraved in clay tablets, which were then buried under the door's threshold. They were often placed as a pair at the entrance of palaces. 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.”
>> It’s linked to the cardinal points as I was saying about the Tetramorph.
“The ancient Jewish people were influenced by the iconography of Assyrian culture. The prophet Ezekiel wrote about a fantastic being made up of aspects of a human being, a lion, an eagle and a bull. Later, in the early Christian period, the four Gospels were ascribed to each of these components. When it was depicted in art, this image was called the Tetramorph.
In modern culture
[…]
A man with a bull's body is found among the creatures that make up Aslan's army in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. He appears at the Stone Table, challenging the White Witch "with a great bellowing voice". In the film Alexander (2004), lamassu are seen at the Ishtar Gate in Babylon. In the Disney movie Aladdin (1992), a gold lamassu can be found in the scene where Aladdin and Abu enter the cave in the desert to find the lamp. And, in the "Star Wars" prequel: Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones, Lama Su is the name of the Kaminoan cloner who tells Obi-wan Kenobi about Jango Fett being the clone army's template.
[…]”
>> And now let’s return to where we left of about the Tetramorph on page 909.
-
Page 913 –