Lions of Kazalla

The Lions of Kazalla, two magnificent golden statues of a mythological creature known as a Mushussu. Over five feet tall and gilded with expertly hammered gold sheets, these stone statues weigh over 1000 lbs each. Originally located decorating the inner gate at the temple of Kazalla. The Akkadian Temple of Kazalla was built by Sargon I of Akkad and surrounded a circle of pre-Sumerian standing stones. This temple is dedicated to the deity Tishak who defeated a seven headed dragon served by the Mushussu, also known as the Raging Ones, creatures said to have properties of both serpent and labbu (Akkadian for Lion).

The gateway to the central underground chamber containing the standing stones was guarded by two gilded statues of Mushussu. The Inner Gate of Kazalla is depicted on the Gudea Vase in the Louvre. The vase shows two intertwined Mushussu representing immortality as they hold open the gates of heaven. This scene is taken from the epic of "Adapa and the Southern Wind" in which Adapa confronts two dragon gateguards to gain entry into heaven through flattery.

Cuneiform records state that Kazalla is to be found west of Mesopotamia in the land of Martu, a region populated by the semitic Amorite nomads. The most likely location for Martu is modern Syria.

Timeline

Ancient Stygia: Serpent men and human slaves raise a circle of standing stones sacred to Tsathogghua after the decline of Stygia and the flooding of the Mediterranean Basin.

23rd century BCE: Legendary city of Kazalla besieged and razed by the armies of Sargon I of Akkad. Temple built to guard pre-Sumerian standing stones in the ruins of Kazalla.

July 1923: Temple of Kazalla discovered by Professor Darrian Blackbriar, Miskatonic Akkadian Expedition. The expedition does not locate the hidden inner gate. However, many Tsath-yo inscriptions are copied, but left largely untranslated and unpublished in the Miskatonic archives.

2003-Present - The Black Brotherhood supplies US weapons to the PKK in Kurdistan. This is accomplished by Dr. Gerard Jaeger, who works with US Intelligence to hire various private military contractors to make the deliveries. The weapons are bought by Yezidi tribesmen with profits from illegal activities such as smuggling and drug trafficking. The PKK and Yezidis ensure that anti-american terrorism finds it difficult to establish a foothold in Northern Iraq, which keeps the CIA happy.

Mid 2003: Study of mythos-informed star-charts cast by master astrologer Thaqib Hafiz of the Black Brotherhood lead him to believe that a mass destruction "stress cascade" event can be triggered at a site on the Syrian/Iraqi border.

Late 2003: Thaqib, posing as a PKK Colonel named Tajaz, instructs members of a Kurdish/Yezidi cult of Malik Taum to travel from Kurdistan to Sukkariyeh, a small village on the Syrian/Iraqi border. They are isolated from and are forbidden to have contact with PKK operatives already active in Syria's Beqaa Valley, where the hashish and opium trade flourishes.

Late 2003-Early 2004: The Yezidis, guided by Col. Tajaz, discover the Inner Gate at Kazalla (a site twenty miles from Sukkariyeh) and dismantle it, holding the statues of the Mushussu in the village's central compound. Many artifacts, including one of the Mushussu, are taken by German arms dealer and Black Brotherhood member Dr. Gerard Jaeger and stored in Nasiriyah in southern Iraq.

January 2004 : An Italian Carabinieri unit in charge of heritage protection, known as VIPER 5, uses military backup on archeological sites near Nasiriyah. US Army helicopter flyovers (possibly with ties to Delta Green) and Carabinieri foot patrols capture and imprison many looters, much to the chagrin of local artifact diggers struggling against a soul crushing post-invasion poverty. The illegal digging stops for a few months.

February 7, 2004: VIPER 5 raids the Nasiriyah compound of the Black Brotherhood and seizes many artifacts, including the Lion of Kazalla. They plan to transfer the artifacts to the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad via a convoy of armored vehicles. NOTE: It is possible that VIPER 5 is infiltrated by a Serpent Man active in Italy since the Roman era.

February 10, 2004: Dr. Gerard Jaeger bribes local officials to discover the convoy route and schedule, then hires Yezidi soldiers of the PKK to ambush the VIPER 5 convoy transporting the artifacts. They kill all convoy personnel using roadside IED's, RPG's and automatic weapons fire. It is possible that the Lion of Kazalla is "activated" at this time, and thus participated in the ambush. The confiscated artifacts are recovered and taken back to Sukkariyeh.

2004-2006: Dr. Jaeger is called away after the destruction of La Estancia and meets with Reinhard Galt, together they begin tying up Karotechia loose ends and consolidating the messy finances of the now defunct Karotechia. The Sukkariyeh operation is turned over entirely to Thaqib Hafiz, who plans to loose the Lions of Kazalla (Formless Spawn of Tsathogghua) inside Baghdad's Green Zone.

2006-2008: Hafiz, in his guise as Col Tajaz of the PKK, makes contact with and establishes a relationship with senior elements of Al-Qaida and promises them a significant strike against the American leadership secured within the Emerald City of the Green Zone.

October 2008: After gaining intelligence that Al-Qaida is planning attacks inside Iraq from a compound in Sukkariyeh, US forces raid the Syrian village and kill Al-Qaida leader Abu Ghadiya (aka Badran Turki Hishan Al Mazidih). The Lions of Kazalla are captured by US forces and turned over to a joint US military art looting intelligence unit operating with the Iraqi National Museum. Delta Green operatives assigned to the task force promptly classify and otherwise cover-up everything to do with the artifacts. They also take the Lions and transfer them to a Green Box within the continental US. The Lions reside there to this day.

Important personalities

Dr. Gerard Jaeger

Dr. Jaeger's father was sired by Nazi Germany's Lebensborn program, making him a second generation Lebensborn. Gerard is a member of the Black Brotherhood, a Karotechia Ritter, a Middle Eastern arms dealer and a medical doctor. While serving overseas with a German charity called Ärzte für die Dritte Welt (Doctors for Developing Countries) Gerard was approached by an unofficial consortium of arms manufacturers to serve as a middleman for questionably legal arms transactions.

He quickly became very successful at arms dealing due to his cultural sensitivity and multilinguistic capabilities (he could speak over a dozen languages and was always learning more). This allowed him to forge ties throughout the Middle East, including a large community of primarily German mercenaries and expatriates.

His typical modus operandi is to make legal buys for legitimate governments and their militaries. He then bribes corrupt officials and transfers the legal sales to highest bidders (terrorists, militias, warlords, etc). In 1999 he was looking into his lineage and genealogy in Argentina while doing work for Ärzte für die Dritte Welt. He was also arranging for arms sales to the Argentinean military when he met Karotechia Bischofe Dieter Schultz, one of the aforementioned "highest bidders", who promptly recruited Gerard into the Karotechia after assisting him with the Karotechia's vast knowledge of Aryan racial heritage.

In August of 2001, Schultz introduced Dr. Jaeger to Andrew Cook, a founding member of the Black Brotherhood with ties to British counter-terrorism and PISCES. Cook quickly managed to enlighten Gerard with dreams of the almighty Cthulhu and the coming apocalypse of the END TIMES. Gerard was now part of the the Black Brotherhood's plan to infiltrate and corrupt the US Intelligence Community by offering the services of Brotherhood assassins against international terrorist targets.


NOTE: Thaqib Hafiz, The Master Astrologer of the Black Brotherhood, is detailed in the DGML post entitled "The Horologion Clepsydra", which is replicated here.

Inspirational sources

Some of the websites I mashed into this writeup.

The lost city of Kazalla
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazalla

Gudea Vase in Louvre:
http://www.cetec-info.org/jlmichel/Caducee.Hermes/Caducee.Gudea1.jpg

Mushussu Plaque:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/t/terracotta_plaque_of_a_dragon.aspx

Blackwater Arms dealing and the PKK
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297677,00.html

VIPER 5 Carabinieri and their lost convoy of artifacts:
The Massacre of Mesopotamian Archaeology by Joanne Farchakh
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_ID=10&article_ID=8536&categ_id=4

BTW: a character modelled after Joanne Farchakh would be very interesting:
http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/IRAQ/dbfiles/farchakh/farchmain.htm

US Commando raid on SUKKARIYEH, Syria
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27397559/

Blackwater (now Xe) conducting assassinations for the CIA in Germany and abroad:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100125/scahill4
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/20/nation/na-cia20

Credits

By The Man In Black.

The intellectual property known as Delta Green is ™ and © the Delta Green Partnership. The contents of this document are © their respective authors, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.