shedu
angelic intermediate Babylonian single tradition · 2
A Babylonian protective spirit with a sphinx-like form, possessing the wings of an eagle, the body of a lion or bull, and the head of a king. This form was adopted largely in Phoenicia and served as a potential equivalent to the Israelite cherubim.
↻ synthesized from 2 sources
When
- First attested
- 3000 BCE
- Attested period
- -3000 – 0
- Historical notes
- Babylonian protective spirit documented in Ancient Near East art and adopted in Phoenician culture.
Relationships
Mentioned by
Sources
Source passages
“The Babylonian lamassu or shedu, a protective spirit with a sphinx-like form, possessing the wings of an eagle, the body of a lion or bull, and the head of a king.”
#2150 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5
“Lammasu [sic] and shedu are two distinct types of good-aligned creatures in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, with lammasu having the bodies of winged lions and shedu depicted as human-headed winged bulls.”
#11104 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001