Lilith? In the 1930s, scholars identified the voluptuous woman on this

terracotta plaque (called the Burney Relief) as the Babylonian demoness

Lilith. Today, the figure is generally identified as the goddess of love and

war, known as Inanna to the Sumerians and Ishtar to the later Akkadians.

(Both characters are featured in the poem Gilgamesh and the Huluppu-Tree,

quoted on this page.) The woman wears a horned crown and has the wings

and feet of a bird. She is flanked by owls (associated with Lilith) and stands

on the backs of two lions (symbols of Inanna). According to Mesopotamian

myths, the demoness Lilith (lilītu or ardat lilǐ) flew at night, seducing men and

killing pregnant women and babies. This night creature makes one

appearance in the Bible, in Isaiah 34, which enumerates the fierce denizens

of the desert wilderness: hyenas, goat-demons and “the lilith” (Isaiah 34:14).

(In the King James Version, “lilith” is translated “screech owl”—apparently

alluding to the demon’s night flights in search of prey.) Image: From The Great Mother.

The evil Lilith is depicted on this ceramic bowl from

Mesopotamia. The Aramaic incantation inscribed on the bowl

was intended to protect a man named Quqai and his family

from assorted demons. The spell begins: “Removed and

chased are the curses and incantations from Quqai son of

Gushnai, and Abi daughter of Nanai and from their children.”

Although Lilith’s name does not appear, she may be identified

by comparison with images of her on other bowls, where she is

shown with her arms raised aggressively and her skin spotted

like a leopard’s. Dating to about 600 C.E., this bowl from

Harvard University’s Semitic Museum attests to the longevity of

Lilith’s reputation in Mesopotamia as a seducer of men and murderer of children. Image: Courtesy of the Semitic

Musuem, Harvard University.

Eve, meet Lilith. Lilith—depicted with a woman’s face and a serpentine body—

assaults Adam and Eve beneath the Tree of Knowledge in Hugo van der

Goes’s “Fall of Adam and Eve” (c. 1470), from the Kunsthistorisches Museum,

in Vienna. According to medieval Jewish apocryphal tradition, which attempts

to reconcile the two Creation stories presented in Genesis, Lilith was Adam’s

first wife. In Genesis 1:27, God creates man and woman simultaneously from

the earth. In Genesis 2:7, however, Adam is created by himself from the earth;

Eve is produced later, from Adam’s rib (Genesis 2:21–22). In Jewish legend,

the name Lilith was attached to the woman who was created at the same time

as Adam. Image: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

“Bind Lilith in chains!” reads a warning in Hebrew

on this 18th- or 19th-century C.E. amulet from the

Israel Museum intended to protect an infant from

the demoness. The image of Lilith appears at

center. The small circles that outline her body

represent a chain. The divine name is written in

code (calledatbash) down her chest. (The

letters yhwh appear instead asmzpz.) Beneath this

is a prayer: “Protect this boy who is a newborn

from all harm and evil. Amen.” Surrounding the

central image are abbreviated quotations from Numbers 6:22–27 (“The Lord bless you and keep you. . .”) and

Psalm 121 (“I lift up my eyes to the hills. . .”). According to the apocryphalAlphabet of Ben Sira, Lilith herself

promised she would harm no child who wore an amulet bearing her name. Image: Israel Museum, Jerusalem.