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Humbaba
The Cedar Forest
Danger Level: 9/10
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Abilities
Seven Auras of TerrorFire BreathEarthquake VoiceDeath Gaze
Lore & Legend
Warden of the Cedar
Huwawa / Humbaba is Enlil's appointed guardian of the Cedar Forest. Gilgamesh and Enkidu cut him down anyway; the Standard Babylonian epic makes the killing a moral problem, not a clean trophy. His face is a coil of entrails in terracotta plaques.
The seven auras (melammu) are stripped one by one. The forest's protection dies with him.
Primary Sources
“Huwawa is appointed by Enlil to be the terror of the forest; Gilgamesh and Enkidu slay him and fell the cedars, and the gods take notice.”