Tammuz (Hastings' Dictionary)

In the 6th year of Jehoiacliin's captivity, and the 5th day of the 6th month, Ezekiel saw women in the north gate of the temple 'weeping for Tammuz' (Ezk 8'*). Tammuz was a Bab. deity wliose worship had been imported into the west at an early perioa. The name was originally the Siunerian Dumu-zi, 'the son of life,' which became in Semitic Baby- lonian Duwu-zu and DHzu, tliough in Babylonian con tract- tablets of the age of Abraham we al.so find Tamuzu (see Bee. de trav. rclat. a, la phil.

et arch. (gyp. et assyr. t. xvii. p. 39 note). The form Ta'flz given by en-Nedim, an Arab writer of the 10th century, contains a reminisAnce of the abbreviated form, like the Thoas and Theias of Greek mythology. Tammuz was originally the Sun-god, the son of Ea and tlie goddess Sirdu, and the bridegroom of the goddess Istar. He seems to have been primarily a god of Eridu, the culture-city of Baby- lonia on the Persian Giilf. His home was under tlie shade of the tree of life or world-tree, .

vhicli grew in the midst of the garden of Eridu, and on either side of which flowed the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The legendary poems of Babylonia described him as a shepherd, cut off in the beauty of youth, or slain by the boar's tusk of winter (see Maerob. Saturn, i. 21), for whom the goddess Istar mourned long and vainly. She even de- scended into Hades (see Babylonia, vol. i. p.

221") in the ho]ie of restoring him to life, and the hjTnn which described her descent through the seven gates of the infernal world was recited at th« TAMiJrUZ TAPPUAH 677 annual commemoration of tlie (li.itli of the god by 'the walling' men and wailiii;,' wnmen.' Tliis took place in Babylonia on tliu 2iid day of tlie 4th month, wliicli l)ore, accordingly, the name of Tammuz (our June), the day being called a day of 'weeping.'

Istar was believed to have mourned her lover with the words, ' O my brother, the only (son) !' and to these the mourners furtlier added, ' Ah me, ah me ! ' This mourning for the ' only son ' is referred to in Am 8'" (cf. Zee 12"), and the words of the refrain are given in Jer '22'". Under the form of arXii-ov (ni-lcnil, 'woe to us') they were carried from Phoenicia to tireece, and gave rise to the belief in the mythical Linos.

In Canaan Tammuz was ad<lressed as Adonai, 'my lord,' the Greek Adonis, and the story of Adonis and AphroditS, the Aslitoreth or Istiir of the Semites, made its way to Cyprus, ami from thence to Greece. But Tammuz liad long since changed his character. He had ceased to be the young and beautiful Sun-god, and had become the representative of the vegetation of spring, growing by the side of the canals of Babylonia, but parched and destroyed by the lierce heats of the summer.

Hence in Babylonia his funeral festival came to be observed in the month of June, and in Palestine two months later. Gebal was the chief seat of the Phoen. observance of the festival. In the red marl brouglit down in the spring-time by the river Adonis (now Nn/ir Ihrahim), the women of Gebal saw the blood of the slaughtered god. 'Gardens of Adonis' were planted, pots tilled with earth and cut herbs, which soon withered away, and in which a wooden figure of the god had been placed.

The wailing women tore their hair and lacerated their breasts during the seven days that the period of lamen- tation lasted. In the time of the 2()th Egyp. dynasty, Adonis of (iebal was identilied with C'liris, and the festival of his resurrection was accordingly commemorated as well as that of his death. The announcement of it was made by a head of papyrus wliieli came over the waves from Egj'pt, while the Alu.

xandrians declared that it wa-s at Gebal that Isis had found the dismembered limbs of Osiris (see Lucian, de Dca Si/r. 7). How the funeral festival was celebrated in the temple of Aphroditfi (Aslitoreth) on the Lebanon is de- scribed by Lucian (de Dca Stir. 6). In an ancient Bab. hvmn Tammuz is called ' the lord of Hades.' In the Nabativan Anricultiire of Kutliflmt, a Mendaite writer of Chaldu'a in the 5tli cent. A.D.

, we are told of tlie temjile of the Sun at Babylon, in which the images of the gods from all the countries of the world gathered themselves together to weep for Tammuz, and Ibn Wah- sliiyj'ali, the tnmsl.itor of the work into Arabic, adds that he had 'lit upon another Nabatu'an book, in which the legend of Tammuz was nar- rated in full ; liow he summoned a king to worship the 7 (|)lanets) and the 12 (signs of the Zodiac), and how the king put liim to de.

itli, and how he still lived after being killed, so that he had to put him to death several times in a cruel manner, Tammuz coming to life again each time, until at lost he died.' Abfl Sayyid Wahb ibn Ibrahim (quoted by en-Nedim) states that the festival of weeping women in honour of ' Ta'uz ' was on the 16th of Tammuz, ami that Ta'uz had been [lut to death by having his bones ground in a mill. The GriEco-Ph(jenician version of the legend is given by Melito in his Apology (Cureton's Spirileg.

Sijririrum, p. 25 of Syr. text): 'The sons of Pha-nicia worsliipped Balthi (IJeltis), the queen of Cyprus. Kor she loved Tamuzo, the son of Kutliar, the king of the Phoenicians, and she for- sook her kingdoTii and carao to dwell in Gebal, a fortress of the Phcenicians. And at that time she made all the villages subject to Kuthar the king. For before Tamuzo she had loved Ares, and com- mitted adultery with him, and llephmstos her husband caught her, and was jealous of her.

And Ares came and slew Tamuzo on Lebanon while he was hunting the wild boars. And from that time Baltlii remained in liebal, and died in the city of Aphaka where Tamuzo was buried.' Literature. — Sayce, RH. of the A ncieiu Babyloniang^ ch. iv. ; Frazer, Uolden JJutujh, i. 278 |2 u. 115ff., 263 f.J ; W. K. SmiUi, JVS (Index g. 'Adonis'); Jensen, Eosmot. der Bab., passim; Movers, PA#n. i. liH, 202(1. ; Jastrow, AW. of Bab. andAssur., IS'JS, pp. 482, 564, 674, etc.

; Toy in PB, ' Ezi^kiel,' ad loc. ; and tJie Comra. on EzeliUl, esp. those of A. it. D;iv idson, BerUloIet, and Krattzsi^hniar ; also (Jheyne on Is i/io and Driver on l)n 11^*7 (where Tammuz is very prob. alluded to). A. H. Sayck.