Descending Babel: Chapter 17

Tammuz is an ancient Sumerian god. His Sumerian name, Dumuzi, means "true son." In the Babylonian king-lists, among the kings who reigned "before the Flood" we find the name of Dumuzi, the Shepherd, while, after the Flood, among the kings of the first dynasty of Erech, immediately preceding Gilgamesh, is Dumuzi, the Fisher. It is difficult to say whether these two figures were originally one. In the numerous Tammuz liturgies, we find preserved the myth of the descent of Tammuz into the underworld, the mourning of Ishtar for her brother-spouse, the descent of Ishtar into the underworld in search of Tammuz, and the triumphant return to earth of the two divinities, bringing back joy and fertility with the spring. It is clear that Tammuz plays the part of a vegetationgod, dying with the dying year and reborn with the spring flowers and the young corn. In the later development of the cult in Babylonia, the myth and ritual of the dying and rising god became stereotyped as the great Babylonian New Year Festival, of which we shall have more to say later. But while the cult of Tammuz ceased to be a state cult in Babylonia and Assyria, it was preserved among the common people, and passed into Syria and Canaan. In Syria he was identified with Adonis, and as late as the beginning of the sixth century B.C. we find in Israel that the ritual weeping for Tammuz was still being practiced by the women. ( Ezekial 8:14.)

Babylonian and Assyrian Religion by S. H. Hook, pp. 22-23

In Mesopotamia 'Mother Earth' was the inexhaustible source of new life. Consequently, the power manifest in fertility in all its forms was personified in the Goddess who was the incarnation of the reproductive forces. It was she who renewed vegetation, prompted the growth of the crops, and the propagation of man and beast. As Inanna, the Sumerian counterpart of the Assyrian Ishtar, her marriage with the shepherd-god Dumuzi (i.e. Tammuz) ( Figs. 27, 28 ), who incarnated the creative powers of spring, was held to symbolize and effect the renewal of life at the turn of the year, delivering the earth from the blight of sterility. Her nuptials were celebrated annually at the spring festival in Isin, to arouse the vital forces in the dormant soil and the processes of fecundity everywhere at this season, because her marriage with Dumuzi gave expression to the vegetation cycle.

As 'the faithful son of the waters that came forth from the earth' he was the youthful suffering god who died annually in the rotation of the seasons and passed into the nether regions from which normally there was no return. Inanna, however, having become queen of heaven as the wife of Anu by one of her many matrimonial alliances, seems to have gone to the underworld to secure his release, if the Sumerian version of her descent was the prototype of the Semitic myth. Arraying herself in all her regalia and equipped with the appropriate divine decrees, she set forth on her perilous quest, instructing her messenger Ninshubur to raise the alarm in the assembly hall of the gods and in their principal cities should she not return within three days. Arriving at the gate of the grim abode, she gained admittance on false pretences, but having been recognized she was led through its seven gates, losing at each of them part of her robes and jewels until on reaching the temple of Ereshkigal, the queen of the underworld, she was stark naked and turned into a corpse. By the fourth day Ninshubur followed his instructions and Enki devised a plan to restore her to life. To this end he fashioned two sexless creatures and sent them to the nether regions with the food and water of life to sprinkle on her body. This accomplished she revived, and accompanied by shades, demons and harpies, she left the land of the dead and ascended to the earth where with her ghostly companions she wandered from city to city in Sumer.

Here the Sumerian version of the myth breaks off, but it follows so closely the Semitic 'Descent of Ishtar to the Nether Regions' inscribed on Akkadian tablets dating from 'the first millennium BC, that it can hardly be other than its prototype. Although Dumuzi is not actually mentioned, the story and its sequel almost certainly represents an earlier account of the same mythological incident. From some recently discovered new material it seems that Inanna on her return did bring Dumuzi with her from the underworld but because he did not show signs of mourning for her descent to rescue him, 'seating himself on a high seat', she handed him over to the demons, presumably to carry him back whence he came. But here, again, the text breaks off at the critical point. Nevertheless, although it is not stated that her mission was to rescue the shepherd-god Dumuzi-Tammuz, there is good reason to think that this was the purpose of her visit to the nether regions, with all that it involved. As the embodiment of the creative spring, she stood in the same relation to Dumuzi as did Ishtar to Tammuz, the Young god who personified the autumnal decline in the seasonal cycle. Therefore, their joint return brought to an end the blight that had fallen upon the land during their absence, enabling the barren ground to blossom as the rose, and mankind to be fruitful and replenish the earth. Indeed, the death and resurrection of the vegetation goddess and the Young god became the archetype of all deaths and resurrections in whatever plane they might occur.

It was, however, the Goddess in Mesopotamia who was the dominant force in this act of renewal, whatever form it took. The Young god died annually in the rotation of the seasons and had to be rescued and restored from the land of the dead by his mother-lover. It was she who resuscitated him, and by so doing brought about the revival of life in nature and in mankind. So in the last analysis Inanna-Ishtar was the ultimate and constant source of regeneration, Dumuzi-Tammuz being only instrumental in the process as her agent. She was the embodiment of creative power in all its fullness; he was the personification of the decline and revival of vegetation and of all generative force.

Ishtar and her Sumerian equivalent Inanna assumed the role assigned to Earth-goddesses in the Ancient Near East, and as the controller of vegetation and fertility as she moved downwards from one stage to another, change and decay took place in the upper world, vegetation languished and died, and all signs of life ceased. With her return there was a corresponding emergence in nature from its deathlike sleep, and a revival of vitality. Thus, Ishtar personified this ceaseless sequence of the seasons -- life emerging from the soil, coming to fruition, and then drooping and perishing in the drought of summer, until it was again restored in the spring. So regarded, she was inevitably identified with Mother-Earth, brought into relation with the seasonal cycle, being the source and embodiment of fecundity symbolized in the fertile soil.

The Ancient Gods: The History and Diffusion of Religion in the Ancient Near East by E. O. James, pp. 78 - 80

In considering the rôle of the king in these ceremonies, it is important to realize the exact duplication of his functions with acts previously or even contemporaneously performed by the group as a whole. For the essence of the matter is that the king is merely an individual representative of his people and, in fact, of the topocosm in which they live. Failure to note this duplication has led to a gross misconstruction of his rôle and, indeed, of his entire position in primitive society. It has been assumed that he is simply the representative of the god and as such conveys the gifts of the god to the community of his worshipers, producing rain and (by his "sacred marriage") ensuring fecundity. If he is hedged with divinity, this is explained as due to the fact that he is but the incarnation of a god who imparts it to him; and if he suffers a passion as well as a triumph, this is accounted for on the assumption that he is merely personifying the dying and reviving god of the year -- Tammuz, Osiris, Adonis, or the like. The truth is, however, that in playing the rôle he does, the king is actually doing no more than his people; they too "die" and are "revived," and they too produce rain and ensure fecundity by means of sexual intercourse. Moreover, it is quite incorrect to say that the king is an incarnation of the god in the sense that he is a human being arbitrarily invested with divinity by some external and superior godhead. On the contrary, as the representative of the immediate topocosm, he is the god in his present, as distinct from his durative, aspect, and such divinity as he possesses is innate rather than conferred.

Thespis: Ritual, Myth, and Drama in the Ancient Near East by Theodor H. Gaster, p. 33

A good deal of Sumerian pastoral poetry and love songs celebrates the marriage of the shepherd Dumuzi to the goddess Inanna while mythological texts and laments mourn his death. The narratives about Dumuzi describe his death—for example, how the galla -demons come and haul him off to the underworld. In Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld, the goddess is furious with Dumuzi's lack of deference when she returns accompanied by the galla, so she allows them to take him to the netherworld. Dumuzi's “resurrection” had been long denied, but a fragment at the end of Inanna's Descent of the Underworld has given new life to this view of Dumuzi. The crucial line reads: “You (Dumuzi), half the year! Your sister (Geshtinanna), half the year!” Despite the line's fragmentary context, S. N. Kramer conceded the point in 1966: “[O]n realizing that as a shepherd-god, his presence is needed on earth in order to insure the fecundity of the flocks, she [Inanna] decreed that he stay in the Netherworld only half the year, and that his doting sister Geshtinanna take his place the other half. ”

Dumuzi seems to conform to Frazer's category of “dying and rising gods. ” Dumuzi's character and his relationship to Inanna are tied to natural fecundity. With Dumuzi dead, nature clearly stops producing. Dumuzi is also regarded as a divinity of some sort. Yet what kind? Dumuzi's quasi-divine status is evident from his complaint that he has the misfortune of “walking among men, ” but his life of shepherding and his prayers to deities also suggest his human status. B. Alster, preceded by Kramer, claimed that Dumuzi was a deified king. This view has been supported by the Sumerian king list, which mentions two rulers named Dumuzi. In a review of the evidence, Alster suggested that “Dumuzi as the husband of Inanna exemplifies the pattern of a mortal who becomes the husband of a goddess, like Enmerkar and Inanna, Lugalbanda and Ninsun. ” Alster also denied the older view that Dumuzi was originally a vegetation god. Instead, Alster attributed the correlation of Dumuzi's disappearance to the hot season (coinciding with the seasonal termination of milk production by flocks) to his secondary association with Damu, “originally an independent deity and a true vegetation deity. ”

Problems also are inherent in the ritual underpinnings supporting Frazer's approach to Dumuzi. Although his death is mourned, no known ritual text celebrates his return to the land of the living. The closest evidence for the figure's manifestation appears embodied in his form as the “astral Dumuzi, ” to use D. A. Foxvog's expression. In the Akkadian myth of Adapa, Tammuz is said to be located with Anu in heaven. For the mortal Adapa, who in heaven chances upon Dumuzi incognito, Dumuzi is absent:

Tammuz and Gizzida were standing at Anu's door. When they saw Adapa, they cried “(Heaven) help (us)! “Fellow, for whom are you like this? “Adapa, why are you dressed in mourning?” “Two gods have disappeared from the land, “So I am dressed in mourning. ” “Who are the two gods who have disappeared from the land?” “Tammuz and Gizzida. ”

Both associated with the underworld, the two gods could be mourned. A number of other texts refer to the “astral Dumuzi, ” including an OB hymn to Inanna. According to Foxvog, these references support the notion that Dumuzi appears in astral form, monthly not annually. Furthermore, this astral form does not represent a return to the world. Indeed, Adapa presents himself as mourning for a disappeared Dumuzi, and it may be telling that Adapa does not recognize Tammuz. However, the astralization of the deceased Dumuzi may reflect an alternative notion of “resurrection, ” of becoming one “like the stars. ” Such a concept perhaps derived from the royal cult.

Finally, it may be assumed that Dumuzi was regarded as returning from the realm of death, but the form that Dumuzi's resurrection from the underworld takes is unknown. At the end of Ishtar's Descent to the Netherworld, Ishtar refers to the day when Dumuzi (Tammuz) “comes up to me” (ellanî). The verb points not to Dumuzi's “resurrection” but to his participation in a ritual in which the dead were invoked and then temporarily manifest. Indeed, the context at the end of Ishtar's Descent to the Underworld explicitly connects the day of Dumuzi's ascent with the ascent of the dead. Akkadian elû also corresponds to the title of necromancers, mušelû e?emmi/?illi, “one who makes the ghost/shade ascend. ” In summary, the nature of Dumuzi's “resurrection” is unknown, and, perhaps equally important, it appears to go uncelebrated in any ritual manner. Even if “resurrection” were the proper term to characterize Dumuzi's half-year on earth every year, it appears to be a concept without ritual context. This seems to be a “theology” designed to make sense out of Dumuzi's annual death: if he “dies” every year, then he must return to life every year as well.

Perhaps to understand better the background of Dumuzi's death, we should return to the correspondence between the use of the verb elû in Ishtar's Descent to the Underworld and the religious necromancy. Behind the picture of Dumuzi's death may lie the influence of royal funerary cult. The evidence from festivals points to the intertwining of funerary practices for human kings and the presentation of Dumuzi as the disappearing god. The composition known as “In the Desert by the Early Grass” explicitly links the death of Dumuzi with the funerary cult of the Ur III dynasty. The link between divine and human kings goes further. In both the Old Babylonian and Ur III periods, Ur attests rituals for the disappearing god, Ninazu, in conjunction with rituals for the deceased kings. M. E. Cohen writes:

A second type of festival involving the netherworld was also observed throughout many cities of Mesopotamia. This festival was based upon the cult of the disappearing god, occasionally becoming intertwined with observances for deceased kings—rulers identified with those disappearing deities. In most cities it was Dumuzi…who had gone to the nether world, while at Urit was Ninazu.

Beyond these festival observances, we may also note the “astral Dumuzi, ” which may be informed by royal mortuary cult as well. Foxvog suggests the possibility that Shulgi may have been the tacit subject lying behind the description of Dumuzi in the OB hymnal already noted. If correct, it would point to the influence of royal mortuary concepts on the presentation of the astral Dumuzi. The literary presentation of Dumuzi may then reflect the imprint of royal mortuary custom.

Finally, it is important to note differences between Dumuzi and Baal. Dumuzi is no great god like Baal, nor is he a storm-god, nor does he engage in mortal combat as part of the description of the struggle between life and death. Even Dumuzi's relations to nature involve the flock and not nature more generally. In discussion of the two figures, Cohen cites M. Astour's view that Mot is identified with the ripe grain that was cut and winnowed. This view is overstated, but if any Ugaritic deity is presented as suffering the sort of death associated (if only on the level of imagery) with grain, it is not Baal but Mot, the god of Death. Both Ugaritologists and Mesopotamian specialists have observed the correspondence here with Mot. Gaster, the most creative proponent of Frazer's approach, recognized this problem. For although he assumes Baal to be a “dying and rising” figure, he notes that Mot, not Baal, is “dismembered and reassembled. ” Similarly, A. Livingstone has discussed the dismemberment of Mot in connection with the death of Dumuzi. Given this comparison, it is difficult then to identify Baal with the grain in any meaningful sense according to Frazer's analysis.

To summarize, Dumuzi/Tammuz “dies” in a manner that correlates in general terms with the seasonal cycle. Moreover, Dumuzi is only one of a number of disappearing “fertility” divinities (for example, Damu and Ninazu). So one may argue that early Mesopotamian religion attests to divinities who disappear in accordance with the seasons. However, major pieces in Frazer's category are missing for Dumuzi/Tammuz. The manner of Dumuzi's return from the underworld is unknown, and he would appear to be a divinized human. Finally, comparison with Baal is highly problematic. In a constructive vein, the Mesopotamian material points to a relationship between rituals devoted to disappearing gods and royal ancestors.

The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and Ugaritic Texts by Mark S. Smith, pp. 111-114

Tammuz: (Assyro-Babylonia) Also known as: Abu, Adonai, Damu-zi-abzu (Tammuz of the Abyss), Dao, Daonus (the instructor of agricultural arts), Dumuzi, Enlil (sometimes), Es-u, Isir, Sibzianna (shepherd and hunter), Tamoza, Thammuz).

Possibly a tree god, originally. Vegetation god. God of the spring sun. God of crops. Tammuz is the son of Ningishzidda and Etuda. He is the brother/lover of Ishtar in their youth. Tammuz became ruler of Uruk. The mythology of Tammuz and Ishtar is closely related to the earlier mythology of the Sumerian Dumuzi and Inanna. A major difference occurs when Dumuzi descends into the underworld: it is because an angry Inanna allowed the demons to take him there as her substitute. In the Tammuz tale, a grieving Ishtar attempted to rescue Tammuz from his descent into the underworld. More aggressive than her earlier counterpart, Inanna, Ishtar threatened to let the dead free to terrorize the living if she was not allowed to enter the underworld. When she was admitted, she did not return immediately. Papsukkal, the vizier of the great gods, earlier made it clear what would happen if Ishtar did not return to the upperworld. He appealed to Ea for her release. Ea created the eunuch Ashusunamir to enter the lower realm to persuade Ereshkigal, ruler of the underworld and sister of Ishtar, to give him the life-water bag. He charmed the goddess, who then ordered her vizier Namtar to give him the bag. During the yearly summer solstice, it was Ishtar who had Tammuz torn to pieces and thrown into the sea. His absence caused a barren earth, and her grief. Finally, Ishtar agreed that Tammuz would spend six months of the year in Arallu (the underworld) with her sister Ereshkigal, who was the queen of the region, and six months with her (Ishtar) in the upperworld. In the end, with his father Ningishzidda, he guarded the gate of Anu, in the city of the gods. His festival is the Ta-Uz. Sometimes, he appears in goat form. The cock is sacred to Tammuz. Compare to: Aa. Abu, Adon, Adonis, Angus, Cybele, Ashushunamir and Gula. Tammuz is known as the counterpart of the Vedic deity Soma. Both deities are associated with the waxing and the waning of the moon. As a harvest god, Tammuz died each winter and was reborn each spring.... Tammuz is associated with Adonis (Greek), Eshmun (Phoenicia), and Osiris (Egypt)....

Dictionary of Ancient Deities by Patricia Turner and Charles Russell Coulter, p. 424

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