Devil drawing depicting epilepsy

The clay drawing was accidentally found during the study of the cuneiform of ancient Assyrians.

The clay plate contains wedge-shaped letters and drawings of demons.(Photo: Ancient Origins).

The demon is portrayed with horns, a tail and a snake's tongue. It may be the earliest illustration of epilepsy in history, according to Dr. Troels Pank Arbøll, head of research from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

On the 2,700-year-old clay plate, where the drawing was discovered, contained wedge-shaped letters depicting symptoms of seizures and coma."They provide insight into how an Assyrian-era doctor was trained to diagnose and treat epilepsy in ancient medicine," Arbøll said.

Assyrians and some other civilizations call epilepsy as Bennua . They believe that this terrifying disease is caused by demons or supernatural forces. Therefore, the treatment is thought to involve exorcism in order to remove evil spirits such as Pazuzu and Lamashtu from the body.

The Assyrian civilization existed from about 2500 BC to 608 BC, with the center located upstream of the Tigris River in northern Iraq. Their cuneiform is a variant of Akkadian, the ancient language of the Semitic people, which was widely used in Mesopotamia. It is notoriously difficult to decipher and only a few experts can read it correctly.

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