Ušumgallu or Ushumgallu (Sumerian: ušum.gal, "Great Dragon") was one of the three horned snakes in Akkadian mythology, along with the Bašmu and Mušmaḫḫū. Usually described as a lion-dragon demon,[ it has been somewhat speculatively identified with the four-legged, winged dragon of the late 3rd millennium BCE.
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Mythology
Tiamat is said to have "clothed the raging lion-dragon with fearsomeness" in the Epic of Creation, Enuma Elish. The god Nabu was described as "he who tramples the lion-dragon" in the hymn to Nabû.[KAR 104, 29.] The late neo-Assyrian text "Myth of the Seven Sages" recalls: "The fourth (of the seven apkallu's, "sages", is) Lu-Nanna, (only) two-thirds Apkallu, who drove the ušumgallu-dragon from É-ninkarnunna, the temple of Ishtar of Shulgi."
Ashurnasirpal II placed golden icons of ušumgallu at the pedestal of Ninurta.
In the god list An = Anum Ušumgal is listed as the sukkal (vizier) of Ninkilim.[R. L. Litke, A Reconstruction of the Assyro-Babylonian God-lists, AN:dA-nu-um and AN:Anu Ŝá Amēli, 1998, p. 172]
See also
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Anzû, a massive bird whose death was sometimes credited to Ninurta
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Dragon, killed by Ninurta
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Seven-headed serpent, killed by Ninurta
