The reliefs of the Assyrian palaces are full of mysterious figures: bearded men wearing a fish-shaped cloak, winged genies with the head of a bird of prey, characters holding a small bucket in one hand and a cone-like object in the other. These are the apkallu, the primordial sages of Mesopotamian tradition, whom magic turned into guardians of palaces and houses.
The sages before the Flood
According to Babylonian tradition, before the Flood the god Ea, lord of fresh water and wisdom, sent seven sages, the apkallu, to humankind. They came up from the Apsû, the underground ocean, and taught humanity the arts of civilisation: writing, laws, agriculture, the building of cities, the rites.
The most famous is Uanna, whom the Babylonian historian Berossus, writing in Greek in the third century BCE, calls Oannes: a being half man and half fish who rose from the sea by day to instruct people and returned to it at night. Tradition also associates the figure of Adapa, the sage of Eridu, with some of the apkallu.
After the Flood, according to some lists, the semi-divine sages were succeeded by human sages, the ummânū, regarded as their heirs: hence the prestige of the court scholars, who presented themselves as keepers of a most ancient knowledge.
Three iconographic forms
In Assyrian art the apkallu take three main forms:
| Form | Description |
|---|---|
| Fish-apkallu | a man with a fish-shaped cloak over his head and back |
| Bird-apkallu | a human body with wings and the head of a bird of prey |
| Human apkallu | a bearded human figure, often winged, with a horned tiara |
In all three forms the sage often holds two objects: a bucket (banduddû) and a conical object that scholars conventionally call a «cone», identified in the texts with the mullilu, the «purifier». The gesture is one of sprinkling: the apkallu purifies what he protects.
The figurines under the floor
Assyrian protective magic was not limited to the great reliefs. Excavations at Nimrud, Assur and Nineveh have yielded clay figurines of apkallu and other protective beings, placed in small brick boxes beneath the floors, along the walls or near the doors. They were often arranged in groups of seven, like the sages of the myth.
A ritual text known as bīt mēseri, «house of confinement», describes how to prepare these figures, which materials to use, which formulas to recite and where to place them to seal the house against demons. The instructions call for figures of wood and clay, with precise inscriptions and colours, buried at set points.
Ashurbanipal's dogs
The same protective system includes the dog figurines found in Ashurbanipal's palace at Nineveh. Some bear inscribed names declaring their function, such as «Don't think, bite!» or «Loud is his bark». The dog, faithful guardian of the home, thus became a magical sentinel, ready to drive off evil spirits.
The logic of protection
These objects rest on a precise idea: an inhabited space is vulnerable at its points of passage. Doors, corners and foundations are the routes by which evil can enter. Placing protective beings there meant:
- marking the boundary between inside and outside;
- purifying the space with the presence of the sages;
- repelling demons with figures stronger than they are;
- renewing the protection through the rite of deposition.
The echo in Greek sources
Berossus's work, the Babyloniaka, has not come down to us whole: we know fragments of it thanks to later authors, such as Alexander Polyhistor, Eusebius of Caesarea and George Syncellus, who quoted it. It was above all through this chain of quotations that the image of Oannes, the sage who came out of the sea, entered European culture, long before archaeologists brought to light the Assyrian reliefs and cuneiform tablets that confirm its antiquity.
A symbolic reading
The apkallu is a figure of extraordinary richness: he is the wise one who emerges from the deep waters bringing civilisation, and at the same time the guardian keeping watch beneath the floor. In the reading of the Hermetic Workshop he unites two functions that tradition has never separated: knowing and protecting. Knowledge that comes from the abyss, if well kept, becomes the foundation of the house.
In short
- The apkallu are the seven sages sent by Ea before the Flood to teach the arts of civilisation.
- The best known is Uanna, Berossus's Oannes, half man and half fish.
- In Assyrian art they appear as fish-men, bird-men or winged human figures.
- Their figurines, often in groups of seven, were buried beneath the floors of houses.
- The bīt mēseri ritual describes how to prepare and place these protective figures.
