TAMMUZ, Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian god, who died and rose annually with dying and reviving vegetation, originally Dumu-zi, "the son who rises, goes forth (from the nether world)," but generally interpreted "faithful son." Philo logically both interpretations are correct, and no Accadian com mentary exists to explain which meaning was accepted by them. The interpretation as "the son who rises," "the resurrected child," accepted in this article, is new and differs from all views held in the standard works on this cult. It is clear, however, that the main principle of this cult is the resurrection of the dying god, and the verb zi stands for the root zig to rise up, not zid, to be faithful. (See S. Langdon, Sumerian Liturgies and Psalms, p. 287, 17, ugubba-za uziga-za, "In thy fall and in thy resurrection.") There are many titles of the youthful god, loved by his sister, the earth and heaven goddess, Innini (Ishtar), who descends yearly into Aralil (under-world) at the time of his death to bring him back to earth in her bosom. Since he represents the mystery of life and death, as seen in the withering vegetation of the hot Mesopotamian summer, and the rapid renewal of its life at the season of the spring rains, Tammuz is the patron of flocks and irrigation as well as of vegetation. Titles such as god Sipa, the shepherd, umun mirsi, lord of the flood, god Ab-u, father of vegeta tion, god Zulumma, god of the date palm, are not so old as those which reveal theological speculation concerning the brother, lover and husband of the earth mother. Theology gave rise to this, the most widely spread and profoundly religious aspect of West Asiatic and Egyptian religion (where it appears as the cult of Osiris and Isis). Dumu-zi appears in the oldest texts without a divine title, c. 3200 B.C., and in Sumerian texts of Eannatum of Lagash (c. 285o B.c.), as god Dumuzi-apsu, "risen child of the deep," describing him as the son of the god of the nether sea of fresh waters, Ea, Enki, a title confined apparently to early Lagash, where he appears more often under the title Ningigzida, "Lord of the faithful tree," a title which developed into an inde pendent deity. In the legend of Eridu, in which Adapa is sent to the gates of heaven for judgment because he had broken the wings of the south-wind, he found Tammuz and Ningigzida at the gate of heaven ; they offered him bread and water of life, which he, on the advice of the water god of Eridu, refused and thus lost immortality. Tammuz and Ningigzida appear to have been identified with the stars Castor and Pollux or, perhaps, Procyon and Sirius.
The liturgical wailings for Tammuz during the period of his sojourn in Aralu are numerous and describe every aspect of the theological doctrines concerning him. They are invariably com
posed in Sumerian, rarely with Accadian interlinear translation. These wailings occurred at midsummer, and the sixth month of the calendar at Lagash from the 28th to the 24th centuries is named the "month of the festival of Tammuz," corresponding to September if the year began near the spring equinox. There is a variant name for this month at Nippur called, "month of the mission of Innini," referring to her descent to Ara15 in search of her departed lover. The Babylonians retained the old name of the fourth month and for some reason described it as the "month Tammuz," corresponding to July, retaining the name "month of the mission of Innini" for the sixth month (Elul). In this month (fourth) Tammuz is said to have been bound, and the liturgies speak of his having been drowned among flowers which were thrown upon him as he sank beneath the waves of the Euphrates. He is described as the shepherd who left his flocks, as the shepherds sat in the fields wailing for Tammuz.
There is a strange inconsistency in the hymns of these wailings concerning the relation of the mother goddess to her lover, Tammuz. In the early Sumerian texts she is his sister, but soon the Semitic view that she is his mother prevails. The two theories appear inconsistently together throughout the entire history of the cult. He is, however, invariably the husband and lover of the otherwise consistently described virgin goddess of love, Innini, Gestinanna, Belit-seri (queen of the field of the lower world), and the cult is particularly associated with the great city Erech, home of the cult of Anu, the heaven god, and Innini. In all ceremonies connected with his cult his mother or sister is invariably associated with him, and it is the one aspect of Sumerian and Babylonian religion which may be described as universal and not largely confined to any local tradition. Bad tibira, Pantibiblas of the Greek, near Erech, seems to have been the original seat of the cult, and in the Sumerian tradition of the ten pre-diluvian kings, the name of one at Badtibira is Dumuzi sipa, "Tammuz the shepherd"; one of the names of Tammuz is Tibira. No great temple was built to him, and a few casual references to a temple of Tammuz at Umma, Ur, Lagash, Agade, clearly refer to shrines in the temple of the local deity reserved for the wailings and mystic ceremonies of the cult. Worship of Tammuz spread far beyond the lands to which the Sumerian religion was principally confined. Ezekiel speaks of it as firmly installed at Jerusalem in his time; it is mentioned in the Christian era in Mandean and Syriac literature, and survived among the Ssabeans at Harran as late as the middle ages. At Byblus, in Syria, he was identified with the West Semitic Adonis.