No cultic offering is attestedApotropaic incense at the childbedA figurine turned face outward
Invocation Approach
Tone
The named threat at the door
Address
LamashtuDaughter of Anu
Relationship
The harm to be turned away rather than invited
Warning
She is a demoness and the incantations exist to send her away
Resonance
Those protecting a birth a newborn or a sick child
Symbols
Lion headSnakesThe childbedThe amulet plaque
Mythology Summary
Lamashtu, Akkadian Lamashtum and Sumerian Dimme, is a female demon, called daughter of Anu in the incantations, who attacks women in labour and newborn children and is the target of a large first-millennium corpus of incantations and of the amulet plaques that bear her name. The Lamashtu incantations describe her lion head, the snakes in her hands and the piglet and whelp at her breast, and the Lamashtu plaque sets Pazuzu against her. She is not a goddess with a cult: the texts exist to drive her off, not to worship her.
Modern Practice
Lamashtu belongs to the protective side of the work: the named harm, the amulet, the incense at the childbed and the refusal. Any modern devotion to her as a goddess inverts the sources, which are unambiguous that she is to be sent away.