Before you enter the Assyrian rooms, these stop you completely.
The Assyrians were the dominant power of the ancient Middle East for three centuries — a military empire stretching from Egypt to Persia, feared across the known world.
The lamassu stood guard at the gates of Sargon II's palace at Khorsabad, in what is now northern Iraq, built around 713 BC as his new capital city.
They stand nearly four metres tall and weigh sixteen tonnes.
They were designed to be overwhelming.
Look carefully at the legs: there are five of them.
From the front, the bull stands still — two legs visible, planted and solid.
From the side, it walks — four legs in motion.
The Assyrian sculptor added a fifth leg so the figure reads correctly from both directions.
The human head represents royal intelligence, the wings divine speed, the bull's body physical strength.
In Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, a lamassu was a protective spirit.
These were not decorative — they were believed to actively guard the palace.
Sargon II was a usurper who had seized the throne, and Khorsabad — Dur-Sharrukin, 'Fortress of Sargon' — was built from nothing in under a decade to prove it.
Every foreign ambassador, every tributary king who passed between these figures was walking through a spiritual as well as a physical threshold.
