Assyrian Male Apkallu Figure with a Fish-Skin Hood in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2008

Male Apkallu Figure with a Fish-Skin Hood
Ceramic
Northern Mesopotamia, excavated at Nimrud (ancient Kahlu), Burnt Palace, Room 27
Neo-Assyrian period, 9th-7th centuries BC

From the Expedition of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq.

Accession # 54.117.25

The apkallu were primeval sages associated with Ea, the water god. The Ritual for the Purification of a House required the burial of fourteen apkallu figures- seven "dressed in the skin of a fish" and seven with the faces of birds wearing wigs. The figures seen here were found with similar ones in brick boxes set into the palace floor.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.