Scorpion man

Among the earliest representations of scorpion-men are an example from Jiroft in Iran,[5] as well as a depiction on the Bull Lyre[6] from the Early Dynastic Period city of Ur.

In the epic poem Enuma elish, a scorpion-man is listed among the monsters created by Tiamat in order to wage war against the gods for murdering her mate Apsu.

In the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, they stand guard outside the gates of the sun god Shamash at the mountains of Mashu.

The scorpion-man's "woman" responds, in defining lines, that Gilgamesh is two-thirds god but one-third human (Tablet IX 51).

"[8] Karen Sonik has recently challenged this interpretation, observing that the scorpion-woman, like the other women of the epic, "[demonstrate] a striking visual and perceptual acuity"[9] in their recognition of Gilgamesh's true nature.

3A scorpion-man appears in the bottom panel of this Bull Lyre (ca. 2450 BCE), now in the Penn Museum [ 1 ] in Philadelphia, which was excavated from Ur by the archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley.
Drawing of an Assyrian intaglio depicting scorpion men.