Scorpion men are featured in several Akkadian language

Akkadian language

Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...

 myths

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

, including the Enûma Elish

Enûma Elish

The is the Babylonian creation myth . It was recovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh , and published by George Smith in 1876.The Enûma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on seven clay tablets, each holding...

and the Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh was the fifth king of Uruk, modern day Iraq , placing his reign ca. 2500 BC. According to the Sumerian king list he reigned for 126 years. In the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh, and his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil, in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of...

. They were also known as aqrabuamelu or girtablilu. They were first created by the Tiamat

Tiamat

In Babylonian mythology, Tiamat is a chaos monster, a primordial goddess of the ocean, mating with Abzû to produce younger gods. It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first in which Tiamat is 'creatrix', through a "Sacred marriage" between salt and fresh water,...

 in order to wage war against the younger gods for the betrayal of her mate Apsu. In the Epic of Gilgamesh

Epic of Gilgamesh

Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk, which were fashioned into a longer Akkadian epic much...

, they stand guard outside the gates of the sun god Shamash

Shamash

Shamash was a native Mesopotamian deity and the sun god in the Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian pantheons. Shamash was the god of justice in Babylonia and Assyria, corresponding to Sumerian Utu...

 at the mountains of Mashu

Mashu

Mashu, as described in the Epic of Gilgamesh of Mesopotamian mythology, is a great cedar mountain through which the hero-king Gilgamesh passes via a tunnel on his journey to Dilmun after leaving the Cedar Forest, a forest of ten thousand leagues span. The corresponding location in reality has been...

. These give entrance to Kurnugi, the land of darkness. The scorpion men open the doors for Shamash as he travels out each day, and close the doors after him when he returns to the underworld at night. They also warn travellers of the danger that lies beyond their post. Their heads touch the sky, their "terror is awesome" and their "glance is death". This meeting of Gilgameš, on his way to Ūta-napišti, with the Scorpion-folk guarding the entrance to the tunnel is described in Iškār Gilgāmeš, tablet IX, lines 47-81.

One famous image found on a relief

Relief

Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...

 carving pictures a scorpion man aiming with a bow and arrow. This relief was the basis for the Scorpion Man figurine that is #55 in the Monster in My Pocket

Monster in My Pocket

Monster in my Pocket is a media franchise developed by Morrison Entertainment Group, headed by Joe Morrison and John Weems ....

 series.

Comparative religion

The scorpion is likewise a magical guard to an entrance among, e.g., the Mekeo of Papua -- "a scorpion charm is used to protect ... your house."

Games

Scorpion men feature as powerful myth units for the Egyptians in the game Age of Mythology

Age of Mythology

Age of Mythology , is a mythology-based, real-time strategy computer game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios...

. It can sting human soldier units for extra damage in a short interval. The stinging action will repeat once in about 15 seconds making them devastators for human armies.

The role-playing game

Role-playing game

A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...

 Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

 features centauric scorpion-men called Stingers, normally found in desert locales and devoted to gods of the waste, often those reflecting the Pharaonic or Babylonian pantheon

Pantheon (gods)

A pantheon is a set of all the gods of a particular polytheistic religion or mythology.Max Weber's 1922 opus, Economy and Society discusses the link between a...

s.

In Warlords Battlecry III

Warlords Battlecry III

Warlords Battlecry III is a real-time strategy game developed by Infinite Interactive and published in 2004. It is the third installment in the Warlords Battlecry series and the sequel to Warlords Battlecry II.-Gameplay:...

, scorpion-people are the primary servants of Melkor, the Lord of Famine.

Movies

In The Mummy Returns

The Mummy Returns

The Mummy Returns is a 2001 American adventure film written and directed by Stephen Sommers, starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Oded Fehr, Patricia Velásquez and Freddie Boath. The film is a sequel to the 1999 film The Mummy...

, the Scorpion King

King Scorpion

Scorpion, or Selk, also King Scorpion or Scorpion II refers to the second of two kings so-named of Upper Egypt during the Protodynastic Period. Their names may refer to the scorpion goddess Serket...

 is shown as a scorpion-man.

Fiction

Scorpion men are found in the world of Glorantha

Glorantha

Glorantha is the Fantasy world created by Greg Stafford and since used as the background for several role-playing games, including RuneQuest , Hero Wars and HeroQuest , as well as several works of fiction and the computer strategy game King of Dragon Pass...

 by Greg Stafford

Greg Stafford

Francis Gregory Stafford , usually known as Greg Stafford, is an American game designer, publisher and shaman.-Glorantha and gaming:...

. A scorpion man features in one of the Beast Quest

Beast Quest

Beast Quest is a fantasy novel series authored by Adam Blade. There are currently 60 books. The series is published by Orchard Books. There are two types of books the ones with collected cards and the ones that don't...

 books.
In The Secret Saturdays

The Secret Saturdays

The Secret Saturdays is an American animated television series created by Canadian cartoonist Jay Stephens for Cartoon Network. It debuted on October 3, 2008, in the United States...

, the character Baron Finster has a robotic scorpion for a lower body. Other concepts in the show also reference Mesopotamian myth.

External links

• Graphic of Scorpion man (From boundary stone: Kudurru
  Kudurru
  Kudurru was a type of stone document used as boundary stones and as records of land grants to vassals by the Kassites in ancient Babylonia between the 16th and 12th centuries BCE. The word is Akkadian for "frontier" or "boundary"...
  
  ). Pictured in register IV
  Register (sculpture)
  In art and archaeology, a register is a vertical level in a work that consists of several levels, especially where the levels are clearly separated by lines; modern comic books typically use similar conventions...
  
  -(row IV). (Article with Detail-graphic)