Ancient Babylonia - Tammuz
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, 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 and of the Phrygian Attis.
The Sumerian name of Tammuz was Dumuzi. In the Bible his disappearance is
mourned by the women of Jerusalem (Ezek. 8.14).
Ancient Babylonia
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