Around Lamashtu: animals and household appliances

On either side of her we often find a dog (left) and a pig (right), sometimes suckling her breasts, replacing the children that she wants to kill with her milk. In her hands she can hold snakes, used for the poison with which she kills, and sometimes she moves on a donkey standing in a boat (as strange as that may sound).

Additional objects are commonly depicted on Lamashtu amulets: in this case a comb on the left, to stress that she is feminine, and the lower leg of a donkey on the right (this was considered repulsive). Faced with such horror, we have to ask how we can combat Lamashtu.