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

拍品描述

A NEO-ASSYRIAN BRONZE HEAD OF PAZUZU, MESOPOTAMIA, CIRCA 8TH-7TH CENTURY B.C. Cast in the round on a diminutive scale, the head of characteristic canine-leonine physiognomy, with deep-set brow, prominent bulging eyes, and a broad snarling muzzle bared to reveal a schematic dentition. The forehead and cheeks are worked with tightly coiled volute-like ridges rendering the creature's wrinkled skin and mane, arranged in registers of parallel grooves that descend across the temples. The lower face terminates in a beard of horizontal striations set above a stepped collar or tenon. Beneath the head, a rectangular projecting shank tapers downward, indicating that the piece was originally intended for insertion into a separate mount, fitting, or amuletic body. The surface bears extensive cuprite and malachite corrosion products in mottled red and turquoise, consistent with prolonged burial. The physiognomy conforms to the standard iconography of Pazuzu, the wind-demon of Assyrian and Babylonian belief, identifiable by the fusion of canine or leonine muzzle with the bulging eyes and furrowed brow that mark him in the fuller freestanding figures and plaques. Pazuzu was understood as king of the wind demons, bringer of famine-carrying south-westerly winds and drought, yet paradoxically invoked as a protective force, his terrifying countenance deployed apotropaically to repel other malign spirits, above all the child-killing Lamashtu. Heads and small figures of this kind were carried on the person as amulets, suspended from cords, or fixed to larger composite objects and household fittings, functioning as protective devices in domestic, medical, and obstetric contexts. Bronze was the standard medium for the Pazuzu amulet across the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, its durability and dark polished surface understood as fitting for an object worn in continual apotropaic use, and the loop or tang cast integrally with the piece indicates that the object was made from the outset for attachment rather than for display. The reduction of the full demonic figure to the head alone is a recognised sub-category within the Pazuzu corpus, produced in parallel with the complete standing figures, and reflects the belief that the head, with its arresting features, carried the whole protective force of the demon in condensed form. This head exemplifies the miniature apotropaic bronzes of the Neo-Assyrian world, in which iconographic legibility is compressed into a few centimetres of cast metal without loss of expressive power. The survival of the tenon confirms the object's original function as a working amulet rather than a votive deposit, placing it within the practical devotional life of the period rather than its ceremonial one. Dimensions: Height: 2.5cm

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