Ardat-lilî
Mesopotamian demon
Ardat-lilî (Sumerian: ki-sikil-líl-lá, ki-sikil-ud-da-kar-ra) is a type of female Ancient Mesopotamian demon. The male equivalent of ardat-lilî is called eṭel-lilî (Sumerian: ĝuruš-líl-lá). Cuneiform sources describe an ardat-lilî as the ghost of a young woman who died without experiencing sexual fulfillment or marriage, and as a result attempts to seduce young men. Evidence for ardat-lilî as a "family" of demons rather than a single individual includes multiple, varying origin stories for different cases of ardat-lilî spirits. Members of the category of líl- demons, they were considered subjects of Pazuzu. A text placing one or more ardat-lilî in the entourage of the god Erra is also known. Incantations against ardat-lilî are attested as early as in the Old Babylonian period.
Name
In addition to the standard form ardat-lilî, the variant wardat-lilîm appears in Old Babylonian sources. The name can be translated as "girl of the wind" or "phantom bride". The second half is derived from the Akkadian word lilû, a loanword from Sumerian LIL2, which in turn depending on context can refer to winds, ghosts or demons.
“Ardat-lilî” enters the record as mesopotamian demon. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ardat-lilî, Mesopotamian and demon can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2860708. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ardat-lilî” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.