3003 – Pazuzu Athame
- Physical description:
- An athame made of silver-coloured metal, with an elaborate hilt incorporating various symbols, including a buffalo's head and a pommel with the winged figure of Pazuzu, a wind-spirit or demon from Mesopotamia.
- Museum classification:
- Modern Witchcraft
- Size:
- 27 cm
- Information:
This object was displayed in the Museum of Witchcraft in the 1970s alongside mostly Wiccan artefacts, as part of a group of three athames catalogued as MWM id. no. 1421 (the other two were lost in the 2004 flood) (see also black and white photographs in MWM Archive, Photograph Box 1).
Pazuzu was a wind spirit, specifically of the west wind, the son of Hanpu, King of the Evil Wind Demons. It has been argued that Pazuzu developed out of Bronze Age texts that denoted a spiritual presence in the Western Mountains, but the iconography used here is probably derived from Neo-Babylonian and Middle-Assyrian cylinder carvings. In some strains of Wicca, the magical agent of the element of Air is symbolized by the tool of the knife or ritual blade, making Pazuzu an apt adornment for an athame.
See Franz Wiggerman, 'The Four Winds and the Origins of Pazazu' in Claus Wicke et al (ed.), Das geistige Erfassen der Welt im Alten Orient, (Wiesbaden, 2007), pp. 125-150.
- Resource:
- Object
- Materials:
- Metal alloy
This object was displayed in the Museum of Witchcraft in the 1970s alongside mostly Wiccan artefacts, as part of a group of three athames catalogued as MWM id. no. 1421 (the other two were lost in the 2004 flood) (see also black and white photographs in MWM Archive, Photograph Box 1).
Pazuzu was a wind spirit, specifically of the west wind, the son of Hanpu, King of the Evil Wind Demons. It has been argued that Pazuzu developed out of Bronze Age texts that denoted a spiritual presence in the Western Mountains, but the iconography used here is probably derived from Neo-Babylonian and Middle-Assyrian cylinder carvings. In some strains of Wicca, the magical agent of the element of Air is symbolized by the tool of the knife or ritual blade, making Pazuzu an apt adornment for an athame.
See Franz Wiggerman, 'The Four Winds and the Origins of Pazazu' in Claus Wicke et al (ed.), Das geistige Erfassen der Welt im Alten Orient, (Wiesbaden, 2007), pp. 125-150.