TAMMUZ AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. "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 Tam muz" (Ezek. viii :14).
This "weeping for Tammuz" which the prophet declares to be a greater abomination than the burning of incense to idols (verse 13) pertained to the worship of the Babylonian sun god. Baal was "the King of Constellations" (see BAAL), but both Chemosh (who is mentioned eight times in the Old Testament) and Tammuz were sun gods.
'(1) The Sacred Tree. A tablet in the British Museum states that the sacred dark fir tree, which grew in the city of Eridu, was the couch of the mother goddess. (Western Asia Inscrip tions, vol. iv, p. 32).
The sacred tree having been cut at the annual festival and carried into the idol temple, there came the search for Tammuz, when the devotees ran wildly about weeping and wailing for the lost one, and cutting themselves with knives. His wife was Ishtar (see ASHTORETH) who is often represented as the wife of Baal, and indeed ac cording to Dr. Oppert all the Phoenician god desses were included under this general name.
(2) Descent of Ishtar. Ishtar descended to the lower world to search for Tammuz the sun god of Babylonia and Assyria, who had been slain by the boar's tusk of winter, even as Adonis the sun god of the Greeks was afterward killed by the tusk of a wild boar. Among the Greeks, Venus the queen of love and beauty obtained permission from Proserpina, the Queen of Hades, for Adonis to spend every alternate six months with her upon the earth. This appears to be merely a later form of the legend concerning Ishtar and Tammuz which has been found upon the old Babylonian tablets.
(3) Another Poem. The tablets also furnish another poem which seems to celebrate a temple similar to that recorded by Maimonides in which the Babylonian gods gathered around the image of the sun god to lament his death. The statue of Tammuz was placed on a bier, and carried through the streets. followed by bands of mourn ers, crying and singing a funeral dirge. He is also called Duzi, 'the sun.' Tammuz is the proper Syriac word for Adonis of the Greeks.
(4) Festivals of the Month. Among the in scriptions taken from Babylon is a large tablet, containing when complete, the calendar of the year, with notes appended to each day, specifying whether it was lucky or unlucky, whether it was a feast or a fast day. The calendar of the month Duza or Tammuz is fortunately complete, and contains a record of the festivals which were celebrated therein.
The month opens with the festival of Tammuz as the summer sun, restored in all his beauty (after his death in winter) to his bride, who is Ishtar, the moon.
The festival of Tammuz and Ishtar extended over all the first half of the month, the second day being the period of lamentation, and the sixth, the day of the procession.
On the fifteenth of the month they celebrated the great marriage feast of Tammuz and his bride, and it consisted of wild orgies, such as can only be found in the lascivious East.
(5) Fall of Babylon. It was this festival which Belshazzar (see BELSHAZZAR) was cele brating on the night in which Babylon was taken, and it was probably the only one in which not only the king and his lords, but also his "wives and concubines" would be present. There may have been an air of desperation imparted to the conduct of Belshazzar by the knowledge that by the flight of his father and the defeat of his army, the kingdom was virtually lost, and this was probably his last festival as a Babylonian ruler, and he the last of the line of Nimrod.
It is evident from the tablets and other authori ties that the army of Cyrus commanded by Goby ras entered the city "without fighting" on the night of the fifteenth of the month Tammuz, and the outposts were captured while the revelers were unconscious of the near approach of the foe.
Another tablet by a contemporary scribe gives a brief account of the fall of Babylon, which throws a most important light upon this great event, enabling historians to fix upon the year, the month, and day of the capture of the city, and proving its agreement with the statements of classical writers and the author of the Book of Daniel. (See IVestern Asia Inscriptions, vol. i, pl. 68, col. lines t9.) Herodotus says: "The outer part of the city had already been taken, while those in the center (who as the Babylonians say, knew nothing of the matter. owing to the extent of the city) were dancing and making merry. for it so happened that a festival was being celebrated." Xenophon claims that the attack was made "when Cyrus perceived that the Babylonians cele brated a festival at a fixed time, at which they feasted for a whole night." The Hebrew proph ets, also, were not unaware of this surprise upon the "Lady of Kingdoms." (See Jer. :39-57; also Dan. v:t.)