A NEO-ASSYRIAN LAPIS LAZULI HEAD OF PAZUZU CIRCA 8TH-7TH CENTURY B.C.

拍品描述

A NEO-ASSYRIAN LAPIS LAZULI HEAD OF PAZUZU, MESOPOTAMIA, CIRCA 8TH-7TH CENTURY B.C. Carved in the round from a deep blue lapis lazuli of uneven tone shot through with paler veining and pyritic inclusions, the head is worked as a demonic mask with canine and leonine features combined. The brow is drawn into a heavy frontal ridge above deeply hollowed eye sockets, each retaining an inlay of pale bone or shell with a darker pupil at the centre. Below, the muzzle projects forward with flared nostrils and a wrinkled snout, opening onto a bared mouth in which the upper and lower teeth are rendered as a continuous zig-zag register of finely incised points. Small ears sit low and flat to either side of the skull. The head terminates below in a squared tang, pierced vertically through the crown, indicating that the piece was designed to be suspended and worn on the body. The identification as Pazuzu rests on the combination of features assembled here: the scowling brow, the wide staring eyes, the flattened canine snout, and above all the grimacing mouth with its exposed teeth. In Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian belief, Pazuzu was the king of the wind demons, a bringer of pestilential south-westerly winds and fevers. His image, paradoxically, was invoked apotropaically against other malevolent forces, chief among them the female demon Lamashtu, who was held responsible for miscarriage and the death of infants. Small heads of this kind, pierced for suspension, functioned as personal amulets, worn about the neck or attached to a cord, and served to turn the demon's own ferocity outward against those who would harm the wearer. The choice of lapis lazuli is not incidental. The stone was imported into Mesopotamia across enormous distances from the mines of Badakhshan in what is now north-eastern Afghanistan, and its use was reserved for objects of high status, temple dedication, or royal commission. Its deep blue was associated in Mesopotamian thought with the heavens and with divine radiance, and it appears repeatedly in temple treasuries, royal jewellery, and cylinder seals of the first-rank workshops. To carve a Pazuzu head in this material, rather than in the more commonly encountered bronze or dark stones such as chlorite or haematite, indicates a commission of considerable expense, made either for a member of the Assyrian or Babylonian elite or as a votive deposit. The type is well established in the small-scale glyptic and amuletic production of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, when Pazuzu imagery proliferated across the Near East and travelled westward with trade and diplomatic contact. Complete figures of the demon show him with a canine head, human torso, taloned feet, scorpion tail and outstretched wings; the isolated head, pierced as here, is a distilled form of the same protective image, reduced to the essential apotropaic face. This head exemplifies the concentration of demonic iconography into a small, portable, personally worn form that defines the mature Neo-Assyrian Pazuzu amulet. The use of lapis lazuli places it at the upper end of the surviving corpus, in which most examples are of bronze or common stone, and the retention of the original inlaid eyes preserves the confrontational stare on which the amulet's protective function depended. Dimensions: Height: 3.6 cm

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