Uridimmu
{{short description|Mesopotamian mythical creature}}
{{Mesopotamian myth|expanded=5}}
Ur(i)dimmu, meaning "Mad/howling Dog" or Langdon's "Gruesome Hound",{{ cite book | title = The Babylonian Epic of Creation | url = https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.107171 | author = S. Langdon | publisher = Clarendon | year = 1923 | page = [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.107171/page/n95 89] }} (Sumerian: 𒌨𒅂UR.IDIM and giš.pirig.gal = ur-gu-lu-ú = ur-idim-[mu] in the lexical series ḪAR.gud = imrû = ballu), was an ancient Mesopotamian mythical creature in the form of a human headed dog-man whose first appearance might be during the Kassite period, if the Agum-Kakrime Inscription proves to be a copy of a genuine period piece. He is pictured standing upright, wearing a horned tiara and holding a staff with an uskaru, or lunar crescent, at the tip. The lexical series ḪAR-ra=ḫubullu describes him as a kalbu šegû,{{ cite book | author = Benno Landsberger, Anne Draffkorn Kilmer | title = The Fauna of Ancient Mesopotamia. Second Part: HAR-ra = hubullu. Tablets XIV and XVIII (MSL VIII/2) | publisher = Pontificium Institutum Biblicum | year = 1962 | page = 14 }} line 95. "rabid dog".
Mythology
His appearance was essentially the opposite, or complement of that of Ugallu, with a human head replacing that of an animal and an animal's body replacing that of a human. He appears in later iconography paired with Kusarikku, "Bull-Man", a similar anthropomorphic character, as attendants to the god Šamaš. He is carved as a guardian figure on a doorway in Aššur-bāni-apli's north palace at Nineveh.{{ cite book | title = Sennacherib's Palace Without Rival at Nineveh | author = John Malcolm Russell | publisher = University of Chicago Press | year = 1992 | page = 183 }} He appears as an intercessor with Marduk and Zarpanītu for the sick in rituals. He was especially revered in the Eanna in Uruk during the neo-Babylonian period where he seems to have taken on a cultic role, where the latest attestation was in the 29th year of Darius I.{{ cite book | title = The Pantheon of Uruk During the Neo-Babylonian Period | author = Paul-Alain Beaulieu | publisher = Brill Academic Pub | year = 2003 | pages = 355–358 }}
As one of the eleven spawn of Tiamat in the Enûma Eliš vanquished by Marduk, he was displayed as a trophy on doorways to ward off evil and later became an apotropaic figurine buried in buildings for a similar purpose.{{ cite book | title = Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts | author = Frans A.M.Wiggermann | publisher = Styx | year = 1992 | pages = 172–174 }} He became identified as MUL- or dUR.IDIM with the constellation known by the Greeks as Wolf (Lupus).Urdimmu, CAD U/W pp. 214–216.