anzu

Anzu, often rendered Anzû in older transliterations, is a figure that appears in Mesopotamian mythology as a colossal bird. In several Sumerian and Akkadian stories, Anzu steals the Tablet of Destinies from the god Enlil, gaining authority over the cosmos. The theft creates a crisis among the gods, and in most versions Ninurta or other deities pursue and eventually defeat Anzu to recover the tablet and restore divine order. The tale is interpreted as a mythic account of chaos challenging order and the restoration of authority, and it appears in various forms across Mesopotamian literary and religious texts.

Anzu is also the name given to a genus of dinosaur, Anzu wyliei, which belongs to the oviraptoridae family. Described in 2014 from fossils found in the western United States, Anzu wyliei is a large, feathered theropod with a beaked skull and bird-like features. It lived during the Late Cretaceous period and is noted for its combination of decidedly avian and non-avian dinosaur traits, illustrating the diversity of feathered dinosaurs in North America during that time. The name is a deliberate nod to the mythological bird, reflecting a common practice of linking paleontological taxa to cultural or mythic references.

Beyond mythology and paleontology, Anzu is used as a personal given name in some cultures, and appears in various fictional and artistic works. The term thus encompasses both ancient myth and modern science, with separate but interrelated meanings.