Tammuz (tä`məz), ancient nature deity worshiped in Babylonia. A god of agriculture and flocks, he personified the creative powers of spring. He was loved by the fertility goddess Ishtar Ishtar , ancient fertility deity, the most widely worshiped goddess in Babylonian and Assyrian religion. She was worshiped under various names and forms. Most important as a mother goddess and as a goddess of love, Ishtar was the source of all the generative powers
..... Click the link for more information. , who, according to one legend, was so grief-stricken at his death that she contrived to enter the underworld to get him back. According to another legend, she killed him and later restored him to life. These legends and his festival, commemorating the yearly death and rebirth of vegetation, corresponded to the festivals of the Phoenician and Greek Adonis Adonis , in Greek mythology, beautiful youth beloved by Aphrodite and Persephone. He was born of the incestuous union of Myrrha (or Smyrna) and Cinyras, king of Cyprus. Aphrodite left Adonis in the care of Persephone, who raised him and made him her lover.
..... Click the link for more information. and of the Phrygian Attis Attis or Atys , in Phrygian religion, vegetation god. When Nana ate the fruit of the almond tree, which had been generated by the blood of either Agdistis or of Cybele, she conceived Attis.
..... Click the link for more information. . The Sumerian name of Tammuz was Dumuzi. In the Bible his disappearance is mourned by the women of Jerusalem (Ezek. 8.14).
Mesopotamian god of fertility. He was the son of Enki, god of water, and Duttur, a personification of the ewe. Worship of Tammuz was centered around two yearly festivals, one in the early spring in which his marriage to the goddess Inanna symbolized the fertilization of nature for the coming year, and one in summer when his death at the hands of demons was lamented. He is thought to be the precursor of several later deities associated with agriculture and fertility, including Ninsun, Damu, and Dumuzi-Abzu.
Tammuz
..... Click the link for more information. , who, according to one legend, was so grief-stricken at his death that she contrived to enter the underworld to get him back. According to another legend, she killed him and later restored him to life. These legends and his festival, commemorating the yearly death and rebirth of vegetation, corresponded to the festivals of the Phoenician and Greek Adonis Adonis , in Greek mythology, beautiful youth beloved by Aphrodite and Persephone. He was born of the incestuous union of Myrrha (or Smyrna) and Cinyras, king of Cyprus. Aphrodite left Adonis in the care of Persephone, who raised him and made him her lover.
..... Click the link for more information. and of the Phrygian Attis Attis or Atys , in Phrygian religion, vegetation god. When Nana ate the fruit of the almond tree, which had been generated by the blood of either Agdistis or of Cybele, she conceived Attis.
..... Click the link for more information. . The Sumerian name of Tammuz was Dumuzi. In the Bible his disappearance is mourned by the women of Jerusalem (Ezek. 8.14).
Tammuz
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Tammuz, alabaster relief from Ashur, c. 1500 BC; in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, …
(credit: Foto Marburg—Art Resource/EB Inc.)
Tammuz
in the mythology and religion of the Semitic peoples, the god of fertility, who dies and rises from the dead. Tammuz is the biblical name, derived from the Sumerian Dumuzi. According to the earliest version of the Sumerian myth, Dumuzi, a shepherd god, was sent by his spouse, Inanna, to the netherworld as her substitute. He was saved, however, by his sister, Geshtinanna, who consented to take his place six months of the year. Tammuz corresponds to the Phoenician god Adoni.
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