Sumerian Lahmu Cylinder Seal, Early Dynastic, 2600-2400 BC
Carved of marble, with a contest scene of six figures, a nude hero with spiky hair holding a sword in one hand and an inverted lion in the other, Lahmu (hairy hero god) with head turned frontally, holding the same lion in one hand and grasping the hindquarters of an inverted ram in the other, the ram being mauled by a lion on the other side, its body crossed with a human-headed bull, a scorpion and recumbent quadruped in the field, the terminal with two crossed bulls with double line above.
In Sumerian mythology, Lahmu was a protective and beneficent deity, the first-born son of Apsu and Tiamat. He guarded the gates of the Abzu temple of Enki at Eridu. He and his sister Lahamu are the parents of Anshar and Kishar, the sky father and earth mother, who birthed the gods of the Mesopotamian Pantheon. Lahmu is depicted as a bearded man with a three-strand sashed waist and four to six curls on his head.