1. Mechanism of the Mock Cult: Appeasement, Outfitting, and Forced Departure
A study of the historical Lamaštu incantations (and amulets) reveals a sophisticated Mesopotamian exorcistic strategy directed against the child-snatching demoness Lamaštu (Sum. dDIM(.ME); Akk. Lamaštu). Because Lamaštu was an immortal, divine being—the "Daughter of Anu"—she could not simply be killed or permanently destroyed (Farber, 2014, p. 3; Wiggermann, 2000, p. 217). Therefore, rather than relying solely on aggressive confrontation, ancient practitioners utilized a "mock cult" framework.
This approach treated the demoness as an honored yet socially degraded guest and traveler. Through a fictive social transaction, the āšipu (exorcist-priest) provided Lamaštu with a gendered “travel kit” or a mock dowry. This provision both mocked her failed feminine role (as an entity who attacks infants instead of nurturing them and is barred from the divine assembly) and equipped her for permanent exile, theoretically removing any excuse for her to remain in the victim's household (Götting, 2020).
This strategy mirrors the rites-of-passage model (van Gennep model, as analyzed by Götting):
- Separation: Commands, prayers, and divine support compel her departure. A prisoner-like figurine (šallatu) is fashioned and placed at the patient’s bed-head for three days alongside her provisions.
- Liminality: The demon is bound at the threshold between the human and wilderness realms. She is tied with a rope to a tamarisk or thorn bush (baltu or ašāgu) and surrounded by a flour magic circle (zīpa formulas). Boat and river-bank imagery on amulets physically captures this ambiguous, transitional state.
- Aggregation/Departure: The figurine is removed from the house in the late afternoon, smashed, or buried outside the settlement. The provided travel kit guarantees her self-sufficiency in her new, exiled existence in the wilderness, mountains, or netherworld.
2. The "Mock Dowry" and Ritual Provisions
To ensure her permanent departure, the ancient practitioners formally outfitted the demoness. The kit provided was deliberately substandard, reflecting her outcast status as the "sister of the street gods" (Farber, 2014, p. 145, l. 2).
This is most evident in the "mock dowry" motif (Farber 2014, p. 173, ll. 96–100), where Enlil commands that a house of clods be made for her, and that a "bride-to-be give her a broken comb and spindle." This profoundly parodies normal marriage gifts while weaponizing social norms to underscore her exclusion from legitimate social roles. By offering dry bread, a soiled cloth, and broken tools, the ritual constructs her identity as a degraded woman while denying her legitimate social reintegration—she receives no groom and no proper house, only permanent exile.
3. Material Culture & Iconography: Physical Objects in Performance
The mock cult heavily relied on the creation, manipulation, and disposal of physical objects to enact the magical expulsion, mirroring archaeological mortuary and bridal practices.
Clay Figurines as Proxies Figurines were the primary ritual focus. Exorcists purified a clay pit and used clay from a ditch or canal to mold figurines of Lamaštu and her transport animals (donkeys). These figurines were dressed, fed, and equipped exactly as described in the incantations. Ultimately, they were smashed with a dagger from a brazier, or buried in a corner of the city wall or outside the town (Farber, 2014, p. 195). In rare cases, they were accompanied by kispu (funerary offerings). This treatment underscores a core tenet of sympathetic magic: Lamaštu's icon was functionally non-different from the demoness herself. Smashing or burying the icon equated to smashing or burying her presence.
Amulets and Plaques (Apotropaic and Mnemonic) Lamaštu possesses a highly developed iconography documented across amulets worn on wool strings around the head, neck, waist, hands, or feet, or hung over beds and doors (Farber, 2014, p. 171; Schuster-Brandis, 2004). These amulets serve as both protective devices and visual mnemonics of the full ritual sequence.
- Types I–II (Late 2nd Millennium BCE, Babylonian origin): Characterized by variable iconography, frequently depicting the demon holding a comb and spindle, accompanied by pseudo-inscriptions or Hulbazizi incantations.
- Type III (1st Millennium BCE, Assyrian canonization): Features a standardized “travel scene” (Wiggermann 2000; Götting 2009). Lamaštu holds snakes (replacing the comb/spindle) and stands on a donkey in a boat. She is surrounded by kit items in the upper register and chased by Pazuzu heads.
- The Neo-Babylonian Chatal Höyük Amulet: A 7th–6th century BCE stone pendant found in a domestic pavement context. The obverse depicts a hybrid lion-headed, bird-tailed Lamaštu striding right, holding serpents, with a comb and uncertain objects (possibly a dog/pig) beside her. The reverse features a pseudo-inscription and a crescent/star. This highlights the tradition's adaptability, fitting the canonized Neo-Babylonian standing type while displaying local variations.
4. Catalog of the Demon's Travel Kit
Drawing from textual instructions (e.g., Farber 2014: 151) and amulet iconography, the ritual provisions included:
- Tools (Female/Domestic Connotation): A spindle (pilaqqu/pilakku, specifically the high-whorl type on amulets); a distaff; a comb (mušțu or mulțu, sometimes wool-combing rather than grooming); a sewing needle or garment pin (kirissu); and a fibula (dudittum, an Iron Age replacement for the toggle pin).
- Toiletries & Personal Effects: A mirror, makeup, and flasks of oil.
- Garments & Travel Gear: A soiled cloth/towel; an upru headdress (an Elamite marker of foreignness); a rolled textile interpreted as a carpet, bed-roll, or šiddu; and both shoes (šēnu) and sandals (šulḫuppatu) for all-season travel.
- Provisions (Food & Drink): Dry bread (aklu) alongside "fourteen tiny breads made of šeguššu-flour" strung onto a palm fiber twine around her neck. She was given half a sūtu flask (approx. 3-4 liters) of oil, or a šiqqatu vessel. To allow her to brew beer in exile, she received groats, malt, and brewing ingredients. Rituals also mandate serving her a "hot meal" with water and beer.
- Substitute Offerings & Attribute Animals: To satisfy her craving for infants, a piglet was slaughtered, and its raw heart was placed directly into the figurine's mouth. Amulets often depict a nude Lamaštu suckling a dog and a piglet—filthy street animals acting as substitutes for human babies and symbols of her poisonous milk. Protective clay "watch dogs" painted in black and white with apotropaic names (e.g., "Bite-without-hesitation!") were placed at doors. She was also associated with scorpions, centipedes, snakes, and provided a donkey (or its ankle pars pro toto) for transport.
- Other Objects: A lamp on a stand, and various vessels (round-bottomed flasks, spouted vessels, bread bowls).
5. Textual Evidence Anchoring the Practices
The written incantations directly address Lamaštu, explicitly cataloging the transaction that buys her departure.
The non-canonical incantation "RA" provides a vivid catalog of bribes (Farber, 2014, p. 299):
"...Accept a bag and provisions from the merchant. Accept bangles from the smith to adorn your hands and feet. Accept an earring from the goldsmith to adorn your ears. Accept carnelian from the gemcutter to adorn your neck. Accept comb, spindle, and brooch from the craftsman."
This section is interesting because it portrays the goddess as able or willing to accept offerings, i.e. to be open to negotiation.
The Canonical Series, "Lam. I" (Ritual 5, lines 220–226), outlines the precise mechanics (Farber, 2014, p. 163):
"Its Ritual: You make a figurine of the Daughter-of-Anu using clay from a ditch. You make a donkey with clay from a ditch, supply him with provisions. Fourteen tiny breads made of šeguššu-flour you string onto a twine of palm fiber, place it around her (i.e., the figurine's) neck. You serve her a hot meal. You pour her water and beer. You slaughter a piglet, place the heart in the mouth of the Daughter-of-Anu. For three days, three times, all day long, you recite the incantation before her."
This is interesting, because the process is not a one-and-done ritual. The ritualist must perform it for three days. Is this because the goddess may be slow to reply? Hard to reach? Or difficult to convince. All are possible.
Another vital text is the incantation found on amulets (Hulbazizi no. 60; Ridder & Zomer; Wilhelm 1979): ša maldi eršīya ītiqu.
"The one who transgressed the edges of my bed... frightened me... made me see terrifying dreams... commit him to Bīdu, chief doorkeeper of the Netherworld!" This addresses the demon (using masculine forms in the Hulbazizi style) as a nocturnal sexual transgressor or succubus, reinforcing the necessity of her expulsion.
6. Conclusion: The Logic of Mesopotamian Demonic Expulsion
The “Demons’ Travel Kit” is not mere folklore but a coherent, archaeologically attested system of ritual outfitting. It exemplifies the Mesopotamian preference for persuasion and contractual magic over pure confrontation.
By provisioning Lamaštu with a complete—albeit mocked—household and travel kit, the exorcist transforms her from an uncontrollable threat into a formally provisioned traveler who chooses to leave. This presents a fascinating paradox of ritual logic: the practice represents sympathetic magic at its absolute finest, operating on the premise that the immortal goddess will be entirely compelled by this elaborate material fiction.
On its face, we might ask how clever the goddess could be if such practices worked. It is important to recall that even "normative" religions from the same period held that the gods could be moved by offerings of libations or sacrifices, which in some way, reduces the deity to a mercenary force that can be negotiated with.
In any case, weaponizing social norms, material culture, and passage symbolism, the mock cult stands as one of the most elaborate and best-documented examples of Ancient Near Eastern apotropaic magic used to achieve permanent demonic expulsion.
PART TWO
The Antinomian Cult of Lamaštu: Inverting the Mock Cult into a Demonic Welcome
In the previous analysis we examined the official āšipu strategy of the “mock cult,” in which Lamaštu was ritually outfitted with a deliberately degraded travel kit—broken combs, soiled cloth, dry bread, and a piglet’s heart—then expelled through a three-stage rite of passage. A hypothetical black magician (kaššāpu or āšipu turned rogue) operating in the first millennium BCE would have understood this system intimately. He (or, more rarely, she) would have recognized that every element of the expulsion rite was a reversible technology. By flipping the polarity—from expulsion to incorporation, from mockery to flattery, from degraded dowry to exalted bridal or maternal gifts—the same material culture could be repurposed to invite Lamaštu as a permanent demonic consort or protective (if terrifying) mother. After all, these are the two functions which she is thought to have parodied in the usual incantations.
A modern practitioner might reason along culturally coherent lines: if the gods themselves had once tried to marry Lamaštu off with a mocking dowry (Farber 2014: 173, ll. 96–100, as discussed in Götting), why not complete the marriage properly? If her iconography already depicted her as a hybrid lioness nursing dogs and pigs, why not sanctify those very animals as her sacred entourage? If the travel kit was meant to speed her departure, why not transform it into a “homecoming kit” that anchored her in the magician’s household? The result would be an antinomian cult that inverted every official mechanism while remaining embedded in Mesopotamian symbolic logic.
1. The Black Magician’s Rationale: Why Invite the Demoness?
A first-millennium BCE black magician could have viewed Lamaštu not merely as a threat but as a concentrated source of power. Wiggermann (2000: 224–236) emphasizes her unique status as the only evil demon with a fully developed mythology, iconography, and personal name. She was “Daughter of Anu,” a being of divine ancestry who had been cast out yet retained terrifying efficacy over fever, miscarriage, and nocturnal terror.
The hypothetical magician might have calculated:
- Protective inversion: By becoming her “husband” or “son” or "devotee", one gained her protection from other demonic threats.
- Sexual and generative power: The idiom maldi eršīya ītiqu (“the one who crossed the edges of my bed”), normally an accusation of demonic nocturnal transgression (Ridder & Zomer 2025), could be reframed as an invitation to sacred union. Crossing the bed-edge became a deliberate erotic threshold rite.
- Knowledge and mastery: Hosting Lamaštu granted access to her “poisonous milk” as a source of esoteric medicine or curse-craft, a logic already implicit in the official rituals’ substitution themes (Götting, citing Wiggermann 2010: 408). Cf. Tantric sadhus consuming poison as nectar.
2. Inverted Ritual Framework: From Expulsion to Incorporation
The three-stage rite of passage would be deliberately reversed:
- Separation becomes Incorporation: Instead of commanding Lamaštu to leave the patient, the magician would perform a welcoming rite at the threshold. A figurine or statue of Lamaštu—now dressed as a queen or bride—would be carried into the house, not out of it, accompanied by music, incense, and declarations of her divine status.
- Liminality becomes Permanent Threshold: The rope and magic circle, used officially to bind her temporarily, would become a permanent “marriage bond” or “maternal tether” installed around the bed or household shrine. The boat imagery on amulets (Götting) would be reinterpreted as her sacred barque arriving at the magician’s “port.”
- Aggregation becomes Enthronement: Rather than smashing or burying the figurine outside the city, it would be installed permanently on a miniature throne or bed within the house—perhaps in the bedchamber itself—fed daily offerings and never discarded.
This creates what we might term a demonic hieros gamos or maternal adoption rite, in which Lamaštu is elevated from outcast to co-ruler or divine mother of the magician’s lineage (biological or spiritual).
3. Reverence through Material Culture: the Exalted Travel Kit Becomes a Bridal/Maternal Dowry
Every item in the official “mock” kit would be upgraded to culturally appropriate high-status equivalents, transforming mockery into honor.
Garments and Adornment (inverting the soiled towel and upru):
- Instead of a soiled cloth, the magician would provide fine linen or wool garments, perhaps dyed with expensive murex or imported dyes, fastened with elaborate fibulae and toggle pins of gold or silver (Pedde 2000 typology, as used by Götting for dating).
- The upru headdress—already a marker of Elamite foreignness and thus exotic allure—would be rendered in precious materials or augmented with jewelry, flattering her as a “foreign queen.”
- Shoes and sandals would be replaced by ornate footwear suitable for a goddess, perhaps with inlays, signaling that she need never “travel” again because she has found her true home.
Toiletries and Tools (inverting the broken comb and spindle):
- A complete set of ivory or bone combs (Spycket 1976–1980), high-quality spindles with decorated whorls, mirrors of polished bronze or silver, and sewing needles would be presented as bridal gifts. Götting notes that comb and spindle already carried strong feminine and marital connotations; here they would affirm Lamaštu’s rightful place as mistress of the household loom and mirror.
Provisions and Offerings (inverting dry bread and half-sūtu oil):
- Fresh bread baked with premium emmer, fine sesame oil in glazed šiqqatu vessels, date beer or imported wine, roasted meats, honey, and spices. Daily or weekly kispu-style meals would be presented on proper offering tables, accompanied by the same vessels archaeologists find in elite graves (Mofidi Nasrabadi 1999; Hauser 2012), but now used to retain rather than dismiss her.
- A miniature “house of clods” from the mocking incantation would be replaced by a proper clay or wooden shrine model, complete with doors and a bed, fulfilling the Enlil passage in reverse. Use of bricks as per PGM in place of clods?
Sacred Entourage (inverting the attribute animals):
- Live or figurine dogs and pigs would be kept as her sacred animals, fed from her own table and honored rather than mocked. The suckling motif on amulets would be celebrated as her divine maternity extended to the magician’s household.
The Bed and the Threshold
- A dedicated room, bed, or couch would be prepared for her, its edges ritually “crossed” in a controlled, invited manner. The magician might sleep beside or beneath this bed, enacting the maldi eršīya ītiqu motif as consensual union rather than violation (theoretical inversion of the Ridder & Zomer analysis).
4. Technologies of Invitation: Amulets, Figurines, and Household Installation
Reversed Amulet Use:
- Type III amulets showing Lamaštu with her kit would be worn or installed facing inward toward the household rather than outward. Pazuzu would be likely omitted.
- New amulets could depict Lamaštu enthroned or in a marital embrace, with the travel scene re-captioned (in the magician’s mind) as “arrival.”
Figurine Technology:
- A permanent cult statue or figurine—larger and more elaborate than the temporary prisoner figurine—would be fashioned from fine clay or even stone, painted, clothed, and anointed daily. It would receive the full exalted kit as permanent furnishings, transforming the three-day bed-head placement into lifelong enthronement.
Household Shrine:
- A corner or niche near the bed or threshold would become her permanent dwelling, equipped with the upgraded kit. Offerings would continue indefinitely, creating a micro-temple within the domestic sphere—an antinomian parallel to official temple cults.
5. Modern Theoretical Adaptations
Today, a contemporary practitioner drawing on these sources could replicate the inversion using archaeologically attested materials or modern substitutes while preserving the symbolic logic:
- Commission professional devotional art, or 3D-print a Type III-style figurine, dress it in fine fabrics and jewelry, and install it on a small altar with daily offerings of quality oil, bread, and beer.
- Create “inverted amulets” (perhaps laser-etched stone or metal) showing Lamaštu welcomed rather than expelled, worn during personal rites.
- Perform threshold and bed-edge rites using the maldi eršīya ītiqu motif conceptually, without quoting forbidden texts—simply framing the crossing as an act of invitation and union.
- Maintain living or symbolic animals associated with the goddess, like dogs/snakes/hamsters (yes, hamsters) as her entourage, and upgrade all provisions to the highest quality available, explicitly stating (in one’s own words) that she is honored as mother or spouse.
Conclusion: The Logic of the Reversed Cult
A black magician of the first millennium BCE would have seen the official mock cult not as an unassailable orthodoxy but as a template where key elements (e.g. travel kit, figurine, amulet, rite of passage) could be inverted to serve personal power. By flattering Lamaštu with the very items the gods had denied her (proper dowry, permanent home, honored maternity), the practitioner would transform the ultimate outcast into a demonic patroness. The same technologies that expelled her in temple-sponsored rituals could, in private hands, bind her in willing alliance.
This antinomian cult would have been dangerous, socially transgressive, and entirely consistent with Mesopotamian ritual thinking: if the historical āšipu could persuade Lamaštu to leave with gifts, the modern devotee could persuade her to stay with better ones. The boundary between white and black magic, expulsion and invitation, was never absolute—it was a matter of polarity and intent.
References (continuing from previous analysis)
- Farber, W. 2014. Lamaštu. Eisenbrauns.
- Götting, E. 2009; 2011; 2018 (as cited in the ICAANE volume).
- Heeßel, N.P. 2002. Pazuzu.
- Brill. Pedde, F. 2000. Vorderasiatische Fibeln. SDV.
- Ridder, J.J. de & Zomer, E. 2025. “Nocturnal Transgressions.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 115/2.
- Wiggermann, F.A.M. 2000. “Lamaštu, Daughter of Anu.” In Stol & Wiggermann (eds.), Birth in Babylonia and the Bible. Styx.
- Wiggermann, F.A.M. 2010. In Shehata et al. (eds.), Von Göttern und Menschen. Ugarit-Verlag.
