Mesopotamian PantheonCreature
Ugallu
- Storm Roar
- Threshold Guard
- Demon Strength
Lion-demon storm spirits of Mesopotamian ritual art, fierce guardians who also threaten the unprotected.
About Ugallu
Storm-Demons at the Threshold
Ugallu ('big weather-beast') appear in Neo-Assyrian palace and ritual art as lion-headed, donkey-eared figures with daggers, paired with other apkallu and genii who guard doorways. Incantation series name them among the storm-helpers of Adad and as house protectors who can also threaten.
They are a type, not a named novel villain. The clay and the doorway are the primary sources.
Protective figures
Neo-Assyrian ritual texts describe burying clay figures of ugallu and other protective beings in boxes under the floors and at the doorways of houses and palaces, and many such figurines have been excavated. Wall reliefs from Ashurbanipal's palace at Nineveh show ugallu with raised daggers. Frans Wiggermann's study Mesopotamian Protective Spirits (1992) remains the standard account.
Quick answers about Ugallu
- What is Ugallu?
- Lion-demon storm spirits of Mesopotamian ritual art, fierce guardians who also threaten the unprotected.
- Where does Ugallu live?
- The atlas lists Ugallu's habitat as Storm fronts / temple thresholds.
- What abilities does Ugallu have?
- The atlas lists these abilities for Ugallu: Storm Roar, Threshold Guard, and Demon Strength.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Neo-Assyrian palatial reliefs; house-blessing incantations
About this entry
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.
The danger rating is an editorial shorthand for how the myths portray the creature, not a claim made by the sources.
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