Appearance: FFX
Now for something a bit more obscure. How many of you remember this drake from the Thunder Plains in Final FantasyX? Probably not too many, right?
Well this creature comes from the Babylonian creation myth encoded in the Enuma Elish. There will be more on this text later as Kusariqqu is by no means the only creature in Final Fantasy to draw inspiration from this. The first fragments of the clay tablets that comprise the epic were found in Nineveh, modern day Mosul, Iraq, in 1849. The tablets deal with the creation of the world and fight between Tiamat and Marduk who eventually establishes the laws of Man.
The Kusariqqu or Kusarikku, is mentioned as one of Tiamat's eleven monstrous brood. No specific description is given about the creature in the text. The brood itself is described as some sort of Cthulan monstrosity with blood of poison and an appearance so ferocious that men perish. Through other sources Kusariqqu is identified as a 'goat-fish' like creature. In carvings his appearance is similar to the Greek satyr with cow or goat like hindquarters and a human head and torso. He may have had some relation to the zodiac Capricorn.
A somewhat dense explantion of Kusariqqu's etymology
The Enuma Elish in translation (tablet III for the list of Tiamat's brood- note the names have been translated rather than transliterated)
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