There is an ancient Akkadian account describing an army of beings that apparently looked so different from humans that a king had to determine what the hell they actually were. The account is called The Cuthean Legend of Naram Sin, preserved in cuneiform manuscripts dating back roughly 4,000 years. Naram Sin was a real king of Akkad who ruled around 2250 BCE. But this particular story, written long after his reign, describes something right out there. An army emerges from the mountains. The beings are described as having bodies resembling partridges and faces resembling ravens. The text says the great gods created them. Tiamat nursed them and Belet-ili shaped their looks. Seven brothers commanded them, leading an army said to number 360,000. They began destroying entire kingdoms. It then gets fucking strange. Naram-Sin apparently couldn't determine whether these things were even human. He sent a soldier to capture or wound one and examine its blood. His instructions were straightforward. "If blood comes out, they are human like us." If it didn't bleed, he believed they could be spirits, demons, or something from the underworld. The soldier returned and confirmed that they bled. Think about that for a minute. An ancient Akkadian account describes a king physically testing an unfamiliar population to determine whether they belonged to humanity. And whatever these beings were supposed to represent, they were extraordinarily dangerous. Naram Sin sent 120,000 soldiers against them. None returned. He sent another 90,000. Gone. Then another 60,700. Again, nobody returned. Eventually, he captured twelve of these beings and prepared to punish them. But Ishtar intervened. She ordered him to spare them, warning that Enlil would raise them up again for evil in the future. These beings were supposedly created by the gods, capable of destroying entire armies, and deliberately preserved for some future purpose. The conventional interpretation is that this was legendary literature, possibly influenced by memories of foreign invasions. There is no archaeological evidence confirming an actual army of nonhuman creatures. But I'm interested in what the ancient writers chose to describe. Birdlike bodies and ravenlike faces. An unfamiliar population emerging from the mountains with a king questioning whether they were human. A actual physical examination to find out. Then there is a warning from the gods that these beings would be needed again. What exactly were the Akkadians imagining when they wrote this? This is a hell of a strange way to describe an invading force.

People constantly blab away about the ancient buckets and cone shaped objects. Here is what they are. The bucket was called the banduddû; literally meaning bucket. The object in the other hand was called the mullilu, which basically means “purifier.” The Assyrians understood them as equipment used in a specific ritual act. The bucket appears to have held sacred water, while the mullilu was used to sprinkle or apply it. You repeatedly see the action directed toward the king or sacred trees and doorways as well as important spaces. And who keeps carrying this stuff? The Apkallu. We have actual Mesopotamian images of fish cloaked Apkallu carrying the bucket and cone. We also have the famous winged and bird headed protective figures doing the same thing. They were associated with purification and protection, as well as sacred knowledge and maintaining order. The Apkallu weren't usually shown sitting around being worshipped. They are constantly doing shit. They are guarding entrances and are performing rituals. They are also protecting the king. They are interacting with this strange sacred tree imagery. The cone itself still isn't completely understood. It may have represented a pine cone or the flowering part of a date palm. The exact object is debated. The Assyrians literally called it a purifier. So when you see these images, try not to see some winged mythological creature carrying a purse and a pine cone. The people who made these carvings understood exactly what was happening. An Apkallu was performing a job.