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The
sirrush (or
mushhushshu) is a creature depicted on the reconstructed
Ishtar GateThe Ishtar Gate was the eighth gate to the inner city of Babylon...
of the city of
BabylonBabylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
, originally dating to the 6th century B.C. It resembles a scaly
dragonDragons are legendary creatures, typically with serpentine or otherwise reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of worldwide cultures.The two most familiar interpretations of dragons are European dragons, derived from various European folk traditions, and the unrelated Oriental dragons, such as...
with hind legs like an
eagleEagles are large birds of prey which are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa...
's talons and
felineFelidae is the biological family of the cats; a member of this family is called a felid. Felids are the strictest carnivores of the sixteen mammal families in the order Carnivora...
forelegs. It also has a long neck and tail, a horned head, a snakelike tongue and a crest. While not matching any known creature, some argue the sirrush could have been a genuine animal.{{Fact|date=August 2008}}
The name
The name "sirrush" is derived from an
AkkadianAkkadian 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...
word loosely translated "splendor serpent." Although it is properly
transliterateTransliteration is the practice of converting a text from one writing system into another in a systematic way.-Definitions:From an information-theoretical point of view, transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter...
d
{{unicode|muš-ḫuššu}}, early researchers mistakenly read it as
sir-ruššu, and this is the rendering most common today. The transliteration
muš-ruššu is also found, apparently a variant of
{{unicode|muš-ḫuššu}}.
Theories about the sirrush
German archeologist
Robert KoldeweyRobert Johann Koldewey was a German architect and archaeologist, famous for his discovery of the ancient city of Babylon in modern day Iraq. He was born in Blankenburg am Harz in Germany, the duchy of Brunswick, and died in Berlin at the age of 70...
, who discovered the Ishtar Gate in 1902, seriously considered the notion that the sirrush was a portrayal of a real animal. He argued that its depiction in Babylonian art was consistent over many centuries, while those of mythological creatures changed, sometimes drastically, over the years. He also noted that the sirrush is shown on the Ishtar Gate alongside real animals, the
lionThe Lion is one of four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
and the
rimiThe aurochs or urus was a type of wild cattle, the ancestor of domestic cattle. It inhabited Europe, Asia and North Africa, but is now extinct; it survived in Europe until 1627....
(
aurochsThe aurochs or urus was a type of wild cattle, the ancestor of domestic cattle. It inhabited Europe, Asia and North Africa, but is now extinct; it survived in Europe until 1627....
), leading him to speculate the sirrush was a creature the Babylonians were familiar with.
Bel and the DragonThe tale of Bel and the Dragon incorporated as chapter 14 of the extended Book of Daniel was written in Aramaic around the late second century BC and translated into Greek in the Septuagint. This chapter, along with chapter 13, is referred to as deuterocanonical, in that it is not universally...
, a deuterocanonical
BiblicalThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
text, relates a story that Koldewey thought involved a sirrush. In a
templeA temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...
dedicated to Bel (Nebuchadnezzar's god), priests had a "great
dragonDragons are legendary creatures, typically with serpentine or otherwise reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of worldwide cultures.The two most familiar interpretations of dragons are European dragons, derived from various European folk traditions, and the unrelated Oriental dragons, such as...
or
serpentSerpent is a word of Latin origin that is commonly used in a specifically mythic or religious context, signifying a snake that is to be regarded not as a mundane natural phenomenon nor as an object of scientific zoology, but as the bearer of some potent symbolic value.-Cross-cultural symbolic...
, which they of
BabylonBabylon was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
worship'Worship' is acts, expressions or a state of religious devotion typically directed to one or more deities.Worship is etymologically derived from Old English words meaning "worth-ship". Giving worth to something...
ed."
DanielDaniel is the central protagonist of the Book of Daniel...
, the Biblical prophet, was confronted with this creature by the priests, who challenged him to match his invisible God against their living god. Eventually, Daniel poisoned the creature. The creature's distinctly feline front paws seemed incongruous, and gave Koldewey some doubt. However, In 1918 he proposed that the
iguanodonIguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived roughly halfway between the first of the swift bipedal hypsilophodontids and the ornithopods' culmination in the duck-billed dinosaurs...
, (a dinosaur with birdlike hindfeet) was the closest match to the sirrush (Sjögren, 1980).
Adrienne MayorAdrienne Mayor is a historian of ancient warfare and science and a classical folklorist.Mayor specializes in ancient military history and the study of "folk science:" how pre-scientific cultures interpreted data about the natural world, and how these interpretations form the basis of many ancient...
argues that ancient civilizations often took great care in excavating, transporting and reassembling
fossilFossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record...
s, raising the possibility that it represents a Babylonian reconstruction of sauropod remains. The
griffinThe griffin is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. As the lion was traditionally considered the king of the beasts and the eagle was the king of the birds, the griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature. Griffins are normally...
and other mythical creatures may have been based on similar reconstructions by this reasoning. However, science writer and cryptozoologist
Willy LeyWilly Ley was a German-American science writer and space advocate who helped popularize rocketry and spaceflight in both Germany and the United States. The crater Ley on the far side of the Moon is named in his honor....
wrote that, as of the late 1950s, no fossil beds are known around
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
. Others have noted a resemblance to
monitor lizardMonitor lizards also known as bayawak or goannas, genus Varanus, are members of the family Varanidae. Varanus is a group of carnivorous lizards which includes the heaviest living lizard, the Komodo dragon and the crocodile monitor which is the longest lizard in the world...
s, speculating that Babylonians may have seen or captured monitors and based the sirrush upon them.
Ley suggested that the sirrush could be based on an animal that the Babylonians had heard of but that did not live in Mesopotamia. Ley claimed that bricks of a similar type to those of the Ishtar Gate have been found around Africa, suggesting that the Babylonians could have heard of or seen the animal somewhere else in Africa. The cryptozoologist
Bernard HeuvelmansBernard Heuvelmans was a Belgian-French scientist, explorer, researcher, and a writer probably best known as "the father of cryptozoology"...
contended that the sirrush was similar to a type of
dinosaur{{Otheruses}}{{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}{{Otheruses}}{{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}{{Taxobox|name = Dinosaurs|fossil_range = {{Fossil range|230|65|earliest=230|latest=0|PS=
Descendant taxon Aves survives to present.}}|image = field_dinos_2.jpg...
, the
sauropodsSauropoda , or the sauropods , are an infraorder or clade of saurischian dinosaurs. They are notable for the enormous sizes attained by some species, and the group includes many of the largest animals to have ever lived on land. Well-known genera include Apatosaurus , Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus...
. Heuvelmans then suggested that the sirrush of the Ishtar gate and the persistent rumours of sauropod-like surviving dinosaurs in
Central AfricaCentral Africa is a core region of the African continent often considered to include Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda....
, for example Mokele Mbembe are related, and that the sirrush is based on actual unknown reptiles living in Central Africa at that time and that may still be alive.
See also
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{{Mythology portal}}
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{{Ancient Near East portal}}
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- Mokele Mbembe
- Living dinosaurs
External links