What can Lamassu/Apsasu do?

[Dark Squiggle]

Lamassu or Lamassi, the plural form, are Assyrian protective monsters/demons/spirits/deities with the head of a man, body of either a bull or lion, and wings mounted on their shoulders. Apsasu/Apsasi are the female version.

(picture from Wikipedia)
Anyway, since I saw them at the Met in New York, they have somewhat fascinated me. I want to include them in a story I am writing as accidental guardians of a museum where they are on display, but the problem is what can they do? A human has hands, and is therefore dangerous. A bull has a thick neck and horns, and if you've seen one up close you can understand they are dangerous . What can a Lamassu do? It has no hands and no horns.

 

[CupofJoe]

Get near a large cow or horse [or better still a Bull or Stallion] and see how dangerous you think they are.
I nearly got my leg broken when a bullock "bumped" in to me and sent me flying. It weighed 400kg+ and I don't...
A full grown Bull could easily weight twice that and more.
Aren't the Lamassu/Apsasu supposed to be huge [i.e. the carvings are "life size"] and they have the power of speech [if I remember rightly]?
So you have something that weighs a tonne or more, can fly and is calling you out... call me intimidated...

 

[pmmg]

I dont know that i have ever read that they do anything in particular, which to me means i am free to make something up. They are guardian spirits/demons/dieties, so perhaps they dont really need claws and horns to be menacing. Maybe they can use powes of the spirit and diety like magic to work their will.

My initial thought is, as they serve as guardians, perhaps they deem the worthiness of people and those that are not are led to wander away, forgetting their purpose in approaching in the first place.

 

[Dark Squiggle]

I was thinking of them more as physical guardians then things rather than things that rely completely on magic.
I know a bull or a cow can do a lot of damage just by leaning on you, they can push strong fences over just by walking through them, but they are very clumsy things, and even something that big trying to bump into you doesn't seem like an efficient way to attack something.

 

[CupofJoe]

Carrying on down the Horse/Cow line, both animals kick and buck. If they were intelligent enough [by my crude Human-centric biased PoV] to form a plan or have malice-afore-thought...
I'm guessing that the Lamassu/Apsasu have human-like attributes too so being sneaky, violent and generally nasty if they want to be would come easily. As they don't look "scary" then there must have been another factor at work making them gate guardians. Didn't they have three/four faces so they could never be surprised?
When it comes down to it, as they are mythical you can sort of write the rules, the way you want.

 

[pmmg]

Seems they have wings. I imagine it would also quite ruin your day of one of these was to land on you, or hit you in the head with one of the giant hooves while in flight.