Ušumgallu


Ušumgallu or Ushumgallu was one of the three horned snakes in Akkadian mythology, along with the Bašmu and Mušmaḫḫū. Usually described as a lion-dragon demon, it has been somewhat speculatively identified with the four-legged, winged dragon of the late 3rd millennium BCE.

Mythology

is said to have "clothed the raging lion-dragons with fearsomeness" in the Epic of Creation, Enuma Elish. The god Nabû was described as "he who tramples the lion-dragon" in the hymn to Nabû. The late neo-Assyrian text "Myth of the Seven Sages" recalls: "The fourth Lu-Nanna, two-thirds Apkallu, who drove the ušumgallu-dragon from É-ninkarnunna, the temple of Ištar of Šulgi."
Aššur-nāṣir-apli II placed golden icons of ušumgallu at the pedestal of Ninurta. Its name became a royal and divine epithet, for example: ušumgal kališ parakkī, "unrivaled ruler of all the sanctuaries". Marduk is called "the ušumgallu-dragon of the great heavens".