2000-1600 BC , containing a lamentation over the death of Dumuzid, currently held in the in Paris The Assyriologists and Anthony Green describe the early history of Dumuzid's cult as "complex and bewildering" | According to , the site had temporarily been "overshadowed by a grove of Tammuz" |
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Representations of this type were once interpreted as evidence for a "sacred marriage" ritual in which the king would take on the role of Dumuzid and engage in sexual intercourse with the priestess of Inanna | 158k ", Altorientalische Forschungen, Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter, 44 1 : 82—100, :, ,• ] My vulva, the horn, The Boat of Heaven, Is full of eagerness like the young moon |
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.
On rituals related to Tammuz in his time, he adds that the in and Babylonia still lamented the loss of Tammuz every July, but that the origin of the worship had been lost | 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" |
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In Tablet VI of the standard , Ishtar Inanna attempts to seduce the hero , but he rebuffs her, reminding her that she had struck Tammuz Dumuzid , "the lover of [her] youth", decreeing that he should "keep weeping year after year" |
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.
9Another possible allusion to Tammuz occurs in : "Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all | The same women who mourned the death of Tammuz also prepared cakes for his consort Ishtar, the Queen of Heaven |
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Ackerman, Susan 2006 [1989], Day, Peggy Lynne ed | 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 |
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.