Dumuzid or Dumuzi or Tammuz (; ; ), known to the

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. ...

ians as Dumuzid the Shepherd () and to the

Canaanites {{Cat main, Canaan See also: * :Ancient Israel and Judah Ancient Levant Hebrew Bible nations Ancient Lebanon 0050 Ancient Syria Wikipedia categories named after regions 0050 0050 Phoenicia Amarna Age civilizations ...

as Adon (; Proto-Hebrew: 𐤀𐤃𐤍), is an ancient Mesopotamian and Levantine deity associated with

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

and

shepherd A shepherd is a person who tends, herds, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. Shepherding is one of the world's oldest occupations; it exists in many parts of the globe, and it is an important part of Pastoralism, pastoralist animal husbandry. ...

s, who was also the first and primary consort of the goddess

Inanna Inanna is the List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian goddess of war, love, and fertility. She is also associated with political power, divine law, sensuality, and procreation. Originally worshipped in Sumer, she was known by the Akk ...

(later known as

Ishtar Inanna is the List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian goddess of war, love, and fertility. She is also associated with political power, divine law, sensuality, and procreation. Originally worshipped in Sumer, she was known by the Akk ...

). In Sumerian mythology, Dumuzid's sister was Geshtinanna, the goddess of agriculture, fertility, and dream interpretation. In the ''

Sumerian King List The ''Sumerian King List'' (abbreviated ''SKL'') or ''Chronicle of the One Monarchy'' is an ancient Composition (language), literary composition written in Sumerian language, Sumerian that was likely created and redacted to legitimize the claims ...

'', Dumuzid is listed as an

antediluvian The antediluvian (alternatively pre-diluvian or pre-flood) period is the time period chronicled in the Bible between the fall of man and the Genesis flood narrative in biblical cosmology. The term was coined by Thomas Browne (1605–1682). The n ...

king of the city of

Bad-tibira Bad-tibira (also Patibira) ( Sumerian: , bad3-tibiraki) was an ancient Sumerian city on the Iturungal canal dating back to the Early Dynastic period, which appears among antediluvian cities in the Sumerian King List. In the earliest days of Akkadi ...

and also an early king of the city of

Uruk Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilo ...

. In ''

Inanna's Descent into the Underworld Inanna is the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of war, love, and fertility. She is also associated with political power, divine law, sensuality, and procreation. Originally worshipped in Sumer, she was known by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assy ...

'', Inanna perceives that Dumuzid has failed to properly mourn her death and, when she returns from the

Underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld. ...

, allows the '' galla'' demons to drag him down to the Underworld as her replacement. Inanna later regrets this decision and decrees that Dumuzid will spend half of the year in the Underworld, but the other half of the year with her, while his sister Geshtinanna stays in the Underworld in his place, thus resulting in the cycle of the seasons. In the Sumerian poem ''Inanna Prefers the Farmer'', Dumuzid competes against the farmer

Enkimdu Enkimdu (𒀭𒂗𒆠𒅎𒁺) was a Mesopotamian god associated with agriculture and irrigation. He is best known from the poem '' Dumuzi and Enkimdu'', but in laments he was instead connected with the god Martu, who like Dumuzi could be descr ...

for Inanna's hand in marriage.

Gilgamesh Gilgamesh (, ; ; originally ) was a hero in ancient Mesopotamian mythology and the protagonist of the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', an epic poem written in Akkadian during the late 2nd millennium BC. He was possibly a historical king of the Sumer ...

references Tammuz in Tablet VI of the ''

Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian language, Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh (formerly read as Sumerian "Bilgames"), king of Uruk, some of ...

'' as the love of Ishtar's youth, who was turned into an ''allalu'' bird with a broken wing. Dumuzid was associated with fertility and vegetation and the hot, dry summers of Mesopotamia were believed to be caused by Dumuzid's yearly death. During the month in midsummer bearing his name, people all across Mesopotamia would engage in public, ritual mourning for him. The cult of Dumuzid later spread to the Levant and to Greece, where he became known under the West Semitic name

Adonis In Greek mythology, Adonis (; ) was the mortal lover of the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone. He was considered to be the ideal of male beauty in classical antiquity. The myth goes that Adonis was gored by a wild boar during a hunting trip ...

. The cult of Ishtar and Tammuz continued to thrive until the eleventh century AD and survived in parts of Mesopotamia as late as the eighteenth century. Tammuz is mentioned by name in the

Book of Ezekiel The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Nevi'im#Latter Prophets, Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and one of the Major Prophets, major prophetic books in the Christian Bible, where it follows Book of Isaiah, Isaiah and ...

(e.g., ''Ezek. 8:14–15'') and possibly alluded to in other passages from the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' scholarship of religion, Tammuz was widely seen as a prime example of the

archetypal The concept of an archetype ( ) appears in areas relating to behavior, History of psychology#Emergence of German experimental psychology, historical psychology, philosophy and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a stat ...

dying-and-rising god, but the discovery of the full Sumerian text of ''Inanna's Descent'' in the mid-twentieth century appeared to disprove the previous scholarly assumption that the narrative ended with Dumuzid's resurrection and instead revealed that it ended with Dumuzid's death. However, the rescue of Dumuzid from the underworld was later found in the text ''Return of Dumuzid'', translated in 1963.

Worship

God of milk and shepherds

The Assyriologists Jeremy Black and Anthony Green describe the early history of Dumuzid's cult as "complex and bewildering". According to the ''

'' ( ETCSLbr>2.1.1
, Dumuzid was the fifth

king of the city of

. Dumuzid was also listed as an early king of

, where he was said to have come from the nearby village of Kuara and to have been the consort of the goddess Inanna. As ''Dumuzid sipad'' ("Dumuzid the Shepherd"), Dumuzid was believed to be the provider of

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of lactating mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfeeding, breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. ...

, which was a rare, seasonal commodity in ancient Sumer due to the fact that it could not easily be stored without spoiling.

Plant-growing deity

In addition to being the god of shepherds, Dumuzid was also an agricultural deity associated with the growth of plants. Ancient Near Eastern peoples associated Dumuzid with the springtime, when the land was fertile and abundant, but, during the summer months, when the land was dry and barren, it was thought that Dumuzid had "died". During the month of Dumuzid, which fell in the middle of summer, people all across Sumer would mourn over his death. This seems to have been the primary aspect of his cult. In Lagash, the month of Dumuzid was the sixth month of the year. This month and the holiday associated with it was later transmitted from the Sumerians to Babylonians and other

East Semitic The East Semitic languages are one of three divisions of the Semitic languages. The East Semitic group is attested by three distinct languages, Akkadian, Eblaite and possibly Kishite, all of which have been long extinct. They were influenced ...

peoples, with its name transcribed into those languages as ''Tammuz''. A ritual associated with the

Ekur Ekur ( ), also known as Duranki, is a Sumerian term meaning "mountain house". It is the assembly of the gods in the Garden of the gods, parallel in Greek mythology to Mount Olympus and was the most revered and sacred building of ancient Sumer ...

temple in

Nippur Nippur (Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logogram, logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, ''The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory'': Vol. 1, Part 1, Ca ...

equates Dumuzid with the snake-god

Ištaran Ištaran (Ishtaran; ) was a Mesopotamian god who was the tutelary deity of the city of Der, a city-state located east of the Tigris, in the proximity of the borders of Elam. It is known that he was a divine judge, and his position in the Mesopo ...

, who in that ritual, is described as having died.

Association with date palms

Dumuzid was also identified with the god Ama-ušumgal-ana ( ''^dama-ušumgal-an-na''), who was originally a local god worshipped in the city of

Lagash Lagash (; cuneiform: LAGAŠKI; Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''Lagaš'') was an ancient city-state located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk, about east of the modern town of Al-Shatrah, Iraq. Lagash ( ...

. In some texts, Ama-ušumgal-ana is described as a heroic warrior. As Ama-ušumgal-ana, Dumuzid is associated with the

date palm ''Phoenix dactylifera'', commonly known as the date palm, is a flowering-plant species in the palm family Arecaceae, cultivated for its edible sweet #Fruits, fruit called dates. The species is widely cultivated across North Africa, northern A ...

and its fruits. This aspect of Dumuzid's cult was always joyful in character and had no associations with the darker stories involving his death. To ancient Mesopotamian peoples, the date palm represented stability, because it was one of the few crops that could be harvested all year, even during the dry season. In some Sumerian poems, Dumuzid is referred to as "my Damu", which means "my son". This name is usually applied to him in his role as the personification of the power that causes the sap to rise in trees and plants. Damu is the name most closely associated with Dumuzid's return in autumn after the dry season has ended. This aspect of his cult emphasized the fear and exhaustion of the community after surviving the devastating summer.

Exchange with other near east religions

Dumuzid had virtually no power outside of his distinct realm of responsibilities. Very few prayers addressed to him are extant and, of those that are, almost all of them are simply requests for him to provide more milk, more grain, more cattle, etc. The sole exception to this rule is a single Assyrian inscription in which a man requests Tammuz that, when he descends to the Underworld, he should take with him a troublesome ghost who has been haunting him. The cult of Tammuz was particularly associated with women, who were the ones responsible for mourning his death. The custom of planting miniature gardens with fast-growing plants such as

lettuce Lettuce (''Lactuca sativa'') is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae mostly grown as a leaf vegetable. The leaves are most often used raw in Green salad, green salads, although lettuce is also seen in other kinds of food, such as sandwiche ...

and

fennel Fennel (''Foeniculum vulgare'') is a flowering plant species in the carrot family. It is a hardy, perennial herb with yellow flowers and feathery leaves. It is indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean but has become widely naturalized ...

, which would then be placed out in the hot sun to sprout before withering in the heat, was a well-attested custom in ancient Greece associated with the festival of

Adonia The Adonia (Greek: ) was a festival celebrated annually by women in ancient Greece to mourn the death of Adonis, the consort of Aphrodite. It is best attested in classical Athens, though other sources provide evidence for the ritual mourning of ...

in honor of

, the Greek version of Tammuz; some scholars have argued based on references in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Mari, Syria Mari (Cuneiform: , ''ma-riki'', modern Tell Hariri; ) was an ancient Semitic people, Semitic city-state in modern-day Syria. Its remains form a Tell (archaeology), tell 11 kilometers north-west of Abu Kamal on the Euphrates, Euphrates River ...

reveal that they were also at least sometimes shaped like naked women.

Role in sacred marriage

According to the scholar

Samuel Noah Kramer Samuel Noah Kramer (September 28, 1897 – November 26, 1990) was one of the world's leading Assyriologists, an expert in Sumerian history and Sumerian language. After high school, he attended Temple University, before Dropsie University and t ...

, towards the end of the third millennium BC, kings of Uruk may have established their legitimacy by taking on the role of Dumuzid as part of a " sacred marriage" ceremony. This ritual lasted for one night on the tenth day of the

Akitu Akitu or Akitum () () is a spring festival and New Year's celebration, held on the first day of the Assyrian and Babylonian Nisan in ancient Mesopotamia and in Assyrian communities around the world, to celebrate the sowing of barley. Akit ...

, the Sumerian new year festival, which was celebrated annually at the spring equinox. As part of the ritual, it was thought that the king would engage in ritualized sexual intercourse with the high priestess of Inanna, who took on the role of the goddess. In the late twentieth century, the historicity of the sacred marriage ritual was treated by scholars as more-or-less an established fact, but in recent years, largely due to the writings of Pirjo Lapinkivi, some scholars have rejected the notion of an actual sex ritual, instead seeing "sacred marriage" as a symbolic rather than a physical union.

Mythology

Sumerian

Marriage to Inanna

The poem "Inanna Prefers the Farmer" (ETCS
4.0.8.3.3
begins with a rather playful conversation between Inanna and her brother

Utu Shamash ( Akkadian: ''šamaš''), also known as Utu ( Sumerian: dutu " Sun") was the ancient Mesopotamian sun god. He was believed to see everything that happened in the world every day, and was therefore responsible for justice and protection ...

, who incrementally reveals to her that it is time for her to marry. Dumuzid comes to court her, along with a farmer named

. At first, Inanna prefers the farmer, but Utu and Dumuzid gradually persuade her that Dumuzid is the better choice for a husband, arguing that, for every gift the farmer can give to her, the shepherd can give her something even better. In the end, Inanna marries Dumuzid. The shepherd and the farmer reconcile their differences, offering each other gifts. Samuel Noah Kramer compares the myth to the Biblical story of

Cain and Abel In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices, each from his own fields, to God. God had regard for Ab ...

because both accounts center around a farmer and a shepherd competing for divine favor and, in both stories, the deity in question ultimately chooses the shepherd. A vast number of erotic love poems celebrating the consummation of Inanna and Dumuzid have survived. Two excerpts from a representative example are translated below: - Clay plaque 2000 BCE

Death

=Main narrative

= Towards the end of the epic poem ''

'' (ETCS
1.4.1
, Dumuzid's wife Inanna escapes from the Underworld, but is pursued by a horde of '' galla'' demons, who insist that someone else must take her place in the Underworld. They first come upon Inanna's ''sukkal'' Ninshubur and attempt to take her, but Inanna stops them, insisting that Ninshubur is her loyal servant and that she had rightfully mourned for her while she was in the Underworld. They next come upon Shara, Inanna's beautician, who is still in mourning. The demons attempt to take him, but Inanna insists that they may not, because he had also mourned for her. The third person they come upon is Lulal, who is also in mourning. The demons try to take him, but Inanna stops them once again. Finally, they come upon Dumuzid, who is lavishly clothed and resting beneath a tree, or sitting on Inanna's throne, entertained by slave-girls. Inanna, displeased, decrees that the demons shall take him, using language which echoes the speech Ereshkigal gave while condemning her. The demons then drag Dumuzid down to the Underworld. The Sumerian poem ''The Dream of Dumuzid'' (ETCS
1.4.3
begins with Dumuzid telling Geshtinanna about a frightening dream he has experienced. Then the ''galla'' demons arrive to drag Dumuzid down into the Underworld as Inanna's replacement. Dumuzid flees and hides. The ''galla'' demons brutally torture Geshtinanna in an attempt to force her to tell them where Dumuzid is hiding. Geshtinanna, however, refuses to tell them where her brother has gone. The ''galla'' go to Dumuzid's unnamed "friend", who betrays Dumuzid, telling the ''galla'' exactly where Dumuzid is hiding. The ''galla'' capture Dumuzid, but

, the god of the Sun, who is also Inanna's brother, rescues Dumuzid by transforming him into a

gazelle A gazelle is one of many antelope species in the genus ''Gazella'' . There are also seven species included in two further genera; '' Eudorcas'' and '' Nanger'', which were formerly considered subgenera of ''Gazella''. A third former subgenus, ' ...

. Eventually, the ''galla'' recapture Dumuzid and drag him down into the Underworld. Dieu mort

In the Sumerian poem ''The Return of Dumuzid'', which begins where ''The Dream of Dumuzid'' ends, Geshtinanna laments continually for days and nights over Dumuzid's death, joined by Inanna, who has apparently experienced a change of heart, and Sirtur, Dumuzid's mother. The three goddesses mourn continually until a fly reveals to Inanna the location of her husband. Together, Inanna and Geshtinanna go to the place where the fly has told them they will find Dumuzid. They find him there and Inanna decrees that, from that point onwards, Dumuzid will spend half of the year with her sister

Ereshkigal In Mesopotamian mythology, Ereshkigal (Sumerian language, Sumerian: 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒆠𒃲 REŠ.KI.GAL, lit. "Queen of the Great Earth") was the goddess of Kur, the land of the dead or underworld in Sumerian religion, Sumerian mythology. In la ...

in the Underworld and the other half of the year in Heaven with her, while Geshtinanna takes his place in the Underworld.

Other versions

Other texts describe different and contradictory accounts of Dumuzid's death. The text of the poem ''Inanna and Bilulu'' (ETCS
1.4.4
, discovered at Nippur, is badly mutilated and scholars have interpreted it in a number of different ways. The beginning of the poem is mostly destroyed, but seems to be a lament. The intelligible part of the poem describes Inanna pining after her husband Dumuzid, who is in the steppe watching his flocks. Inanna sets out to find him. After this, a large portion of the text is missing. When the story resumes, Inanna is told that Dumuzid has been murdered. Inanna discovers that the old bandit woman Bilulu and her son Girgire are responsible. She travels along the road to Edenlila and stops at an inn, where she finds the two murderers. Inanna stands on top of a stool and transforms Bilulu into "the waterskin that men carry in the desert", forcing her to pour the funerary

libation A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an Sacrifice, offering to a deity or spirit, or in Veneration of the dead, memory of the dead. It was common in many religions of Ancient history, antiquity and continues to be offered in cultures t ...

s for Dumuzid. ''Dumuzid and Geshtinanna'' begins with demons encouraging Inanna to conquer the Underworld. Instead, she hands Dumuzid over to them. They put Dumuzid's feet, hands, and neck in the

stocks Stocks are feet and hand restraining devices that were used as a form of corporal punishment and public humiliation. The use of stocks is seen as early as Ancient Greece, where they are described as being in use in Solon's law code. The law de ...

and torture him using hot pokers. They strip him naked, do "evil" to him, and cover his face with his own garment. Finally, Dumuzid prays to Utu for help. Utu transforms Dumuzid into a creature that is part eagle and part snake, allowing him to escape back to Geshtinanna. In the text known as ''The Most Bitter Cry'', Dumuzid is chased by the "seven evil deputies of the netherworld" and, as he is running, he falls into a river. Near an apple tree on the other bank, he is dragged into the Underworld, where everything simultaneously "exists" and "does not exist", perhaps indicating that they exist in insubstantial or immaterial forms. Le dieu de l ete et dumuzi

A collection of lamentations for Dumuzid entitled ''In the Desert by the Early Grass'' describes Damu, the "dead anointed one", being dragged down to the Underworld by demons, who blindfold him, tie him up, and forbid him from sleeping. Damu's mother tries to follow him into the Underworld, but Damu is now a disembodied spirit, "lying in" the winds, "in the lightnings and in tornadoes". Damu's mother is also unable to eat the food or drink the water in the Underworld, because it is "bad". Damu travels along the road of the Underworld and encounters various spirits. He meets the ghost of a small child, who tells him that it is lost; the ghost of a singer agrees to accompany the child. Damu asks the spirits to send a message to his mother, but they cannot because they are dead and the living cannot hear the dead's voices. Damu, however, manages to tell his mother to dig up his blood and chop it into pieces. Damu's mother gives the congealed blood to Damu's sister Amashilama, who is a leech. Amashilama mixes the congealed blood into a brew of beer, which Damu must drink in order to be restored to life. Damu, however, realizes that he is dead and declares that he is not in the "grass which shall grow for his mother again", nor in the "waters which will rise". Damu's mother blesses him and Amashilama dies to join him in the Underworld. She tells him that "the day that dawns for you will also dawn for me; the day you see, I shall also see", referring to the fact that day in the world above is night in the Underworld.

Akkadian

In the myth of Adapa, Dumuzid and

Ningishzida Ningishzida ( Sumerian: DNIN.G̃IŠ.ZID.DA, possible meaning "Lord f theGood Tree") was a Mesopotamian deity of vegetation, the underworld and sometimes war. He was commonly associated with snakes. Like Dumuzi, he was believed to spend a part ...

are the two doorkeepers of Anu, the god of the heavens, who speak out in favor of

Adapa Adapa was a Mesopotamian mythical figure who unknowingly refused the gift of immortality. The story, commonly known as "Adapa and the South Wind", is known from fragmentary tablets from Tell el-Amarna in Egypt (around 14th century BC) and from ...

, the priest of Ea, as he stands trial before Anu. In Tablet VI of the standard Akkadian ''

'', Ishtar (Inanna) attempts to seduce the hero

, but he rebuffs her, reminding her that she had struck Tammuz (Dumuzid), "the lover of eryouth", decreeing that he should "keep weeping year after year". Gilgamesh describes Tammuz as a colorful ''allalu'' bird (possibly a European or

Indian roller The Indian roller (''Coracias benghalensis'') is a bird of the family Coraciidae. It is long with a wingspan of and weighs . The face and throat are pinkish, the head and back are brown, with blue on the rump and contrasting light and dark bl ...

), whose wing has been broken and now spends all his time "in the woods crying 'My wing!'" (Tablet VI, section ii, lines 11–15). Gilgamesh may be referring to an alternative account of Dumuzid's death, different from the ones recorded in extant texts. Anton Moortgat has interpreted Dumuzid as the antithesis of Gilgamesh: Gilgamesh refuses Ishtar's demand for him to become her lover, seeks immortality, and fails to find it; Dumuzid, by contrast, accepts Ishtar's offer and, as a result of her love, is able to spend half the year in Heaven, even though he is condemned to the Underworld for the other half. Mehmet-Ali Ataç further argues that the "Tammuz model" of immortality was far more prevalent in the ancient Near East than the "Gilgamesh model". In a chart of antediluvian generations in Babylonian and Biblical traditions, William Hallo associates Dumuzid with the composite half-man, half-fish counselor or culture hero (

Apkallu Apkallu or and Abgal (; Akkadian and Sumerian, respectively) are terms found in cuneiform inscriptions that in general mean either "wise" or "sage". In several contexts the ''Apkallu'' are seven demigods, sometimes described as part man an ...

) An-Enlilda, and suggests an equivalence between Dumuzid and

Enoch Enoch ( ; ''Henṓkh'') is a biblical figure and Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch prior to Noah's flood, and the son of Jared (biblical figure), Jared and father of Methuselah. He was of the Antediluvian period in the Hebrew Bible. The text of t ...

in the

Seth Seth, in the Abrahamic religions, was the third son of Adam and Eve. The Hebrew Bible names two of his siblings (although it also states that he had others): his brothers Cain and Abel. According to , Seth was born after Abel's murder by Cain, ...

ite Genealogy given in

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Religion * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...

chapter 5.

Later worship

In the Bible

The cult of Ishtar and Tammuz may have been introduced to the

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelites, Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem. It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries ...

during the reign of King Manasseh and the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

contains numerous allusions to them. Ezekiel 8:14 mentions Tammuz by name: "Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then said he unto to me, 'Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater

abominations ''Abominations'' is a three-issue Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is a New York City–based comic book publishing, publisher, a property of the Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide sinc ...

than these." Ezekiel's testimony is the only direct mention of Tammuz in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Antiochus IV Epiphanes Antiochus IV Epiphanes ( 215 BC–November/December 164 BC) was king of the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC. Notable events during Antiochus' reign include his near-conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt, his persecution of the Jews of ...

and some scholars have interpreted the reference to the "one desired by women" in this passage as an indication that Antiochus may have persecuted the cult of Tammuz. There is no external evidence to support this reading, however, and it is much more probable that this epithet is merely a jibe at Antiochus's notorious cruelty towards all the women who fell in love with him. The Hebrew Bible also contains references to Tammuz's consort Inanna-Ishtar. and mention "the Queen of Heaven", who is probably a syncretism of Inanna-Ishtar and the West Semitic goddess

Astarte Astarte (; , ) is the Greek language, Hellenized form of the Religions of the ancient Near East, Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic language ...

. The

Song of Songs The Song of Songs (), also called the Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon, is a Biblical poetry, biblical poem, one of the five ("scrolls") in the ('writings'), the last section of the Tanakh. Unlike other books in the Hebrew Bible, i ...

bears strong similarities to the Sumerian love poems involving Inanna and Dumuzid, particularly in its usage of natural symbolism to represent the lovers' physicality. ("Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?") is almost certainly a reference to Inanna-Ishtar.

Classical antiquity

The myth of

and Dumuzid later became the basis for the Greek myth of

Aphrodite Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and ...

and

. The

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

name (''Adōnis'', ) is derived from the Canaanite word ''ʼadōn'', meaning "lord". The earliest known Greek reference to Adonis comes from a fragment of a poem by the

Lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

poet

Sappho Sappho (; ''Sapphṓ'' ; Aeolic Greek ''Psápphō''; ) was an Ancient Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by music. In ancient times, Sapph ...

, dating to the seventh century BC, in which a chorus of young girls asks Aphrodite what they can do to mourn Adonis's death. Aphrodite replies that they must beat their breasts and tear their tunics. Later recensions of the Adonis legend reveal that he was believed to have been slain by a wild boar during a hunting trip. According to

Lucian Lucian of Samosata (Λουκιανὸς ὁ Σαμοσατεύς, 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridi ...

's '' De Dea Syria'', each year during the festival of Adonis, the Adonis River located in what is now

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

(renamed the Abraham River) ran red with blood. In Greece, the myth of Adonis was associated with the festival of the

, which was celebrated by Greek women every year in midsummer. The festival, which was evidently already celebrated in Lesbos by Sappho's time, seems to have first become popular in Athens in the mid-fifth century BC. At the start of the festival, the women would plant a "garden of Adonis", a small garden planted inside a small basket or a shallow piece of broken pottery containing a variety of quick-growing plants, such as

and

, or even quick-sprouting grains such as

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

and

barley Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...

. The women would then climb ladders to the roofs of their houses, where they would place the gardens out under the heat of the summer sun. The plants would sprout in the sunlight, but wither quickly in the heat. Then the women would mourn and lament loudly over the death of Adonis, tearing their clothes and beating their breasts in a public display of grief. The third century BC poet

Euphorion of Chalcis Euphorion of Chalcis () was a Greek people, Greek poet and Grammarian (Greco-Roman), grammarian, born at Chalcis in Euboea in the 126th olympiad (276–272 BC). Euphorion spent much of his life in Athens, where he amassed great wealth. After ...

remarked in his ''

Hyacinth ''Hyacinthus'' is a genus of bulbous herbs, and spring-blooming Perennial plant, perennials. They are fragrant flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae and are commonly called hyacinths (). The genus is native predomin ...

'' that "Only

Cocytus Cocytus or Kokytos (, literally "lamentation") is the river of wailing in the underworld in Greek mythology. Cocytus flows into the river Acheron, on the other side of which lies Hades, the underworld, the mythological abode of the dead. There ...

washed the wounds of Adonis".

Survival into the Christian Era

The

Church Father The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were ancient and influential Christian theologians and writers who established the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Christianity. The historical per ...

Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known ...

records in a letter dated to the year 395 AD that "Bethlehem... belonging now to us... was overshadowed by a grove of Tammuz, that is to say, Adonis, and in the cave where once the infant Christ cried, the lover of Venus was lamented." This same cave later became the site of the

Church of the Nativity The Church of the Nativity, or Basilica of the Nativity, is a basilica located in Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine. The grotto holds a prominent religious significance to Christianity, Christians of various denominations as the Nativity of Jesus, ...

. The church historian

Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...

, however, does not mention pagans having ever worshipped in the cave, nor do any other early Christian writers. Peter Welten has argued that the cave was never dedicated to Tammuz and that Jerome misinterpreted Christian mourning over the

Massacre of the Innocents The Massacre (or Slaughter) of the Innocents is a story recounted in the Nativity narrative of the Gospel of Matthew ( 2:16– 18) in which Herod the Great, king of Judea, orders the execution of all male children who are two years old and u ...

as a pagan ritual over Tammuz's death. Joan E. Taylor has countered this contention by arguing that Jerome, as an educated man, could not have been so naïve as to mistake Christian mourning over the Massacre of the Innocents as a pagan ritual for Tammuz. During the sixth century AD, some

early Christians Early Christianity, otherwise called the Early Church or Paleo-Christianity, describes the historical era of the Christian religion up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Christianity spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and bey ...

in the Middle East borrowed elements from poems of Ishtar mourning over the death of Tammuz into their own retellings of the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

mourning over the death of her son

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

. The Syrian writers

Jacob of Serugh Jacob of Serugh (, ; ; 452–521), also called Jacob of Sarug or Mar Jacob (), was one of the foremost poets and theologians of the Syriac Christian tradition, second only to Ephrem the Syrian and equal to Narsai. He lived most of his life as ...

and

Romanos the Melodist Romanos the Melodist (; late 5th-century – after 555) was a Byzantine hymnographer and composer, who is a central early figure in the history of Byzantine music. Called "the Pindar of rhythmic poetry", he flourished during the sixth centur ...

both wrote laments in which the Virgin Mary describes her compassion for her son at the foot of the cross in deeply personal terms closely resembling Ishtar's laments over the death of Tammuz. Tammuz is the month of July in

Iraqi Arabic Mesopotamian Arabic (), also known as Iraqi Arabic or the Iraqi dialect (), or just as Iraqi (), is a group of varieties of Arabic spoken in the Mesopotamian basin of Iraq, as well as in Syria, southeastern Turkey, Iran, Kuwait and Iraqi diaspor ...

and

Levantine Arabic Levantine Arabic, also called Shami (Endonym and exonym, autonym: or ), is an Varieties of Arabic, Arabic variety spoken in the Levant, namely in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and southern Turkey (historically only in Adana Prov ...

(see

Arabic names of calendar months The Arabic names of the months of the Gregorian calendar are usually phonetic Arabic pronunciations of the corresponding month names used in European languages. An exception is the Assyrian calendar used in Iraq and the Levant, whose month na ...

), as well as in the

Assyrian calendar The Assyrian calendar ( ) is a solar calendar used by modern Assyrian people. History Historically and also in some sources in the modern day, Assyrians dated their calendar according to the Seleucid era ( , literally "of the Greeks"), beginnin ...

and

Jewish calendar The Hebrew calendar (), also called the Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today for Jewish religious observance and as an official calendar of Israel. It determines the dates of Jewish holidays and other rituals, such as ''yahrzeits ...

, and references to Tammuz appear in

Arabic literature Arabic literature ( / ALA-LC: ''al-Adab al-‘Arabī'') is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is ''Adab (Islam), Adab'', which comes from a meaning of etiquett ...

from the 9th to 11th centuries AD.Fuller, 1864, pp. 200-201. In what purports to be a translation of an ancient Nabataean text by Qūthāmā the Babylonian,

Ibn Wahshiyya (), died , was a Nabataean (Aramaic-speaking, rural Iraqi) agriculturalist, toxicologist, and alchemist born in Qussīn, near Kufa in Iraq. He is the author of the '' Nabataean Agriculture'' (), an influential Arabic work on agriculture, ast ...

(c. 9th-10th century AD), adds information on his own efforts to ascertain the identity of Tammuz, and his discovery of the full details of the legend of Tammuz in another Nabataean book: "How he summoned the king to worship the seven (planets) and the twelve (signs) and how the king put him to death several times in a cruel manner Tammuz coming to life again after each time, until at last he died; and behold! it was identical to the legend of

St. George Saint George (;Geʽez: ጊዮርጊስ, , ka, გიორგი, , , died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was an early Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to holy tradition, he was a soldier in the ...

." Ibn Wahshiyya also adds that Tammuz lived in

Babylonia Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...

before the coming of the

Chaldea Chaldea () refers to a region probably located in the marshy land of southern Mesopotamia. It is mentioned, with varying meaning, in Neo-Assyrian cuneiform, the Hebrew Bible, and in classical Greek texts. The Hebrew Bible uses the term (''Ka� ...

ns and belonged to an ancient

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

n tribe called Ganbân. On rituals related to Tammuz in his time, he adds that the

Sabaeans Sheba, or Saba, was an ancient South Arabian kingdom that existed in Yemen from to . Its inhabitants were the Sabaeans, who, as a people, were indissociable from the kingdom itself for much of the 1st millennium BCE. Modern historians agree th ...

Harran Harran is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey. Its area is 904 km2, and its population is 96,072 (2022). It is approximately southeast of Urfa and from the Syrian border crossing at Akçakale. ...

and Babylonia still lamented the loss of Tammuz every July, but that the origin of the worship had been lost. Ibn Wahshiyya's version of the Tammuz myth is also cited by

Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...

in his ''

Guide for the Perplexed ''The Guide for the Perplexed'' (; ; ) is a work of Jewish theology by Maimonides. It seeks to reconcile Aristotelianism with Rabbinical Jewish theology by finding rational explanations for many events in the text. It was written in Judeo-Arabi ...

''. In the tenth century AD, the Arab traveler Al-Nadim wrote in his '' Kitab al-Fehrest'' that "All the

of our time, those of Babylonia as well as those of

, lament and weep to this day over Tammuz at a festival which they, more particularly the women, hold in the month of the same name." Drawing from a work on Syriac calendar feast days, Al-Nadim describes a Tâ'ûz festival that took place in the middle of the month of Tammuz. Women bewailed the death of Tammuz at the hands of his master who was said to have "ground his bones in a mill and scattered them to the wind." Consequently, women would forgo the eating of ground foods during the festival time. The same festival is mentioned in the eleventh century by Ibn Athir, who recounts that it still took place every year at the appointed time along the banks of the

Tigris The Tigris ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the eastern of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian Desert, Syrian and Arabia ...

river. ''Tammuz'' is still the name for the month of July in

As a dying-and-rising god

The late nineteenth-century Scottish

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

Sir James George Frazer wrote extensively about Tammuz in his monumental study of comparative religion ''

The Golden Bough ''The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion'' (retitled ''The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion'' in its second edition) is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir ...

'' (the first edition of which was published in 1890) as well as in later works. Frazer claimed that Tammuz was just one example of the archetype of a " dying-and-rising god" found throughout all cultures. Frazer and others also saw Tammuz's Greek equivalent Adonis as a "dying-and-rising god".

Origen Origen of Alexandria (), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, Asceticism#Christianity, ascetic, and Christian theology, theologian who was born and spent the first half of his career in Early cent ...

discusses Adonis, whom he associates with Tammuz, in his ''Selecta in Ezechielem'' ( “Comments on Ezekiel”), noting that "they say that for a long time certain rites of initiation are conducted: first, that they weep for him, since he has died; second, that they rejoice for him because he has risen from the dead (''apo nekrôn anastanti'')." Tammuz's categorization as a "dying-and-rising god" was based on the abbreviated Akkadian redaction of ''Inanna's Descent into the Underworld'', which was missing the ending. Since numerous lamentations over the death of Dumuzid had already been translated, scholars filled in the missing ending by assuming that the reason for Ishtar's descent was because she was going to resurrect Dumuzid and that the text could therefore be assumed to end with Tammuz's resurrection. Then, in the middle of the twentieth century, the complete, unabridged, original Sumerian text of ''Inanna's Descent'' was finally translated, revealing that, instead of ending with Dumuzid's resurrection as had long been assumed, the text actually ended with Dumuzid's ''death''. The rescue of Dumuzid from the underworld was later found in the text ''Return of Dumuzid'', translated in 1963. Biblical scholars Paul Eddy and Greg Boyd argued in 2007 that this text does not describe a triumph over death because Dumuzid must be replaced in the underworld by his sister, thus reinforcing the "inalterable power of the realm of the dead". However, other scholars have cited this as an example of a god who was previously dead and risen again.

Literary references

The references to the cult of Tammuz preserved in the Bible and in Greco-Roman literature brought the story to the attention of western European writers. The story was popular in

Early Modern England Early modern Britain is the history of the island of Great Britain roughly corresponding to the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Major historical events in early modern British history include numerous wars, especially with France, along with the ...

and appeared in a variety of works, including

Sir Walter Raleigh Sir Walter Raleigh (; – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellio ...

's ''History of the World'' (1614),

George Sandys George Sandys ( "sands"; 2 March 1578''Sandys, George''
in: ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' online ...

's ''Dictionarium Relation of a Journey'' (1615), and Charles Stephanus's ''Dictionarium Historicam'' (1553). These have all been suggested as sources for Tammuz's most famous appearance in English literature as a demon in Book I of

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...

's ''

Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an Epic poetry, epic poem in blank verse by the English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The poem concerns the Bible, biblical story of the fall of man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their ex ...

'', lines 446–457:

THAMMUZ came next behind,
Whose annual wound in LEBANON allur'd
The SYRIAN Damsels to lament his fate
In amorous dittyes all a Summers day,
While smooth ADONIS from his native Rock
Ran purple to the Sea, suppos'd with blood
Of THAMMUZ yearly wounded: the Love-tale
Infected SION'S daughters with like heat,
Whose wanton passions in the sacred Porch
EZEKIEL saw, when by the Vision led
His eye survey'd the dark Idolatries
Of alienated JUDAH.

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...

, "

Charmides Charmides (; ), son of Glaucon (who was the grandfather of Plato, and not to be confused with his brother of the same name), born circa 446 BC, was an Athenian statesman. Debra Nails''The People of Plato''(Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002), 90– ...

And then each pigeon spread its milky van,
The bright car soared into the dawning sky
And like a cloud the aerial caravan
Passed over the Ægean silently,
Till the faint air was troubled with the song
From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all night long

Family tree

Notes

References

Bibliography

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External links

ETCSL: Texts and translations of Dumuzid myths
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dumuzid Antediluvian Sumerian kings Characters in the Epic of Gilgamesh Deities in the Hebrew Bible Fertility gods Inanna Levantine mythology Life-death-rebirth gods Mesopotamian gods Pastoral gods Phoenician mythology Underworld gods Killed deities Adonis