Neo-Vampire Gods, Demons, and Faeries
from Strigoi'sTomb Website

recovered trough WayBackMachine Website
 

The photo directly above is an enlarged image of the Babylonian demi-Goddess Lamastu. She is kneeling on the back of a donkey in a boat on the river of the Underworld. She is lion-headed and holds a snake in each hand. A piglet sucks upon her left breast while a whelp or puppy sucks on the right breast. In the space between her legs and the neck of the donkey is a scorpion. The bow of the boat ends in a snake’s head. This enlarged image is a detail from the bronze plaque shown on the lower right.

The bronze plaque on the right shows Lamastu being forced back into the underworld by the demon-God Pazuzu. The figure at the lower left corner of the plaque, to the left of Lamstu, is that of Pazuzu. The head at the very top of the plaque is also that of Pazuzu. In the tier directly above Lamastu, priests are treating a sick person lying on bier. On the tier directly above that are more standing images of Pazuzu.
 

Vampiric Demi-Gods and Demons of Ancient Mesopotamia

In ancient Babylonian and Assyrian mythology, the male lilu and the female lilitu are demons who haunt deserts and are especially a threat to infants and pregnant women. The ardat-lili is a demonic female who causes men to be impotent and women to be sterile.

Babylonians and Assyrians also believed in the demi-Goddess Lamastu who especially preyed upon infants and women in labor. Slithering quietly like as snake into a home, she could snatch a baby out of the womb or out of its cradle. She also could also inflict disease upon both men and women. Her father is the primordial sky-God Anu, the prime-mover at the beginning of creation, who took over Heaven and separated it from Earth.

Pazuzu is the king of the wind-demons. Although his own reputation is rather dark, he was invoked on amulets to protect against Lamatsu. Pregnant women sometimes wore a bronze head of Pazuzu on a necklace for this purpose.

The photo directly below is that of an amulet depicting Lamastu. Her image is closely similar to the image of Lamastu in the plaque shown above. But here she is standing on the donkey, and her feet, resembling the talons of a bird of prey, can be seen.

Directly above is the reduced image of an amulet from a copy of the rare Hebrew Book of Raziel at the British Museum in London. Amulets made in this pattern were worn by pregnant women and the newborn as protection against Lilith. The three images on the right side are the seals of, left to right, the angels Senoi, Sansenoi, and Samangeloph who protect such women and their newborn against Lilith if they wear such an amulet. The three figures on the right symbolize, left to right, Adam, Eve, and Lilith. A fuller sized reproduction can be found in Amulets and Superstitions by E. A. Wallis Budge, originally published in 1930 by Oxford University and currently re-printed by Dover.


Lilith

In Jewish lore, Lilith is a female spirit of the night who, like a succubus seduces men while they are sleeping, causing them to emit semen which she takes to breed children of her own; she also strangles human infants during or after their birth. Her female offspring are called Lilim.

It seems very likely that Lilith was adopted from Mesopotamian beliefs by the Hebrews during their Babylonian Captivity.

In the Talmud, Lilith is only described as being a threat to "men who sleep alone", and it is said here that after Adam left Eve for one hundred thirty years and from the semen he emitted accidentally there was begot "ghosts and male demons and female night demons, or Lilim." (I base this on excerpts from Hebrew-English edition of the The Babylonian Talmud edited by Rabbi I. Epstein (Socino Press, 1978) that are quoted on page ix of The Book of Lilith by Barbara Koltov (Nicholas-Hays, 1986))

In The Alpha Bet of Ben Sirah written at some time between 600 CE and 1100 CE, Lilith is said to be the first wife of Adam, made from dust like him. When she demanded equality with Adam and he refused, she retired to a cave where she consorted with demons and gave birth to demonic children. Adam complained to God about Lilith’s departure. God then sent three angels named Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangolef. to bring her back to Adam.

These angels found her in her cave and threatened that, unless she went back to Adam, she would lose a hundred of her demonic children daily by death. But Lilith preferred this punishment to living with Adam. She takes her revenge by injuring or killing human infants and young children. The three angels only stopped harassing her when she swore that, whenever she saw the names and images of these angels in an amulet worn by or near to a child, she would not harm the child.

Back to Contents