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Tammuz (god)
Dumuzid or Dumuzi or Tammuz (; ; ), known to the Sumerians as Dumuzid the Shepherd () and to the Canaanites as Adon (; Proto-Hebrew: 𐤀𐤃𐤍), is an ancient Mesopotamian and Levantine deity associated with agriculture and shepherds, who was also the first and primary consort of the goddess Inanna (later known as Ishtar). In Sumerian mythology, Dumuzid's sister was Geshtinanna, the goddess of agriculture, fertility, and dream interpretation. In the ''Sumerian King List'', Dumuzid is listed as an antediluvian king of the city of Bad-tibira and also an early king of the city of Uruk. In ''Inanna's Descent into the Underworld'', Inanna perceives that Dumuzid has failed to properly mourn her death and, when she returns from the Underworld, allows the '' galla'' demons to drag him down to the Underworld as her replacement. Inanna later regrets this decision and decrees that Dumuzid will spend half of the year in the Underworld, but the other half of the year with her, while ...
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Dumuzid The Fisherman
Dumuzid, titled the Fisherman, was a legendary Sumerian king of Uruk listed originating from Kuara. According to legend, in the 100th year of his reign, he was captured by Enmebaragesi. Sumerian King List The primary source of information comes from the Sumerian King List: Dumuzid, the fisherman, whose city was Kuara, ruled for 100 years.He (Dumuzid) was taken captive by the (single hand of Enmebaragesi). According to scholars, the sequence of the first Uruk dynasty was fabricated during the Ur III period, which didn't include comments about some rulers. The fabrication of king Dumuzid could have been derived from an ideological representation of the positional relationship, thought to have been practiced by the Ur III kings and their predecessors to Dumuzid in the myth of the holy wedding, and was added as a symbol of this act. To be able to distinguish him from the god Dumuzid, the profession of fisherman and the origin from Kuara were assigned to him, probably from a c ...
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:Category:Levantine Mythology
{{Cat main Articles relating to the ancient Canaanite religion and the mythology of the Levant. mythology Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ... Ancient Semitic religions Semitic mythology ...
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West Semitic Languages
The West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of Semitic languages. The term was first coined in 1883 by Fritz Hommel.The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, Chapter V
page 425
The grouping supported by Semiticists like Robert Hetzron and John Huehnergard divides the Semitic language family into two branches: Eastern and Western. The West Semitic languages consist of the clearly defined sub-groups:

Coraciidae
Coraciidae () is a family of Old World birds, which are known as rollers because of the aerial acrobatics some of these birds perform during courtship or territorial flights. The family contains 13 species and is divided into two genera. Rollers resemble crows in size and build, and share the colourful appearance of kingfishers and bee-eaters, blues and pinkish or cinnamon browns predominating. The two inner front toes are connected, but not the outer one. They are mainly insect eaters, with ''Eurystomus'' species taking their prey on the wing, and those of the genus ''Coracias'' diving from a perch to catch food items from on the ground, like giant shrikes. Although living rollers are birds of warm climates in the Old World, fossil records show that rollers were present in North America during the Eocene. They are monogamous and nest in an unlined hole in a tree or in masonry, and lay 2–4 eggs in the tropics, 3–6 at higher latitudes. The eggs, which are white, hatch after 17 ...
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Epic Of Gilgamesh
The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian language, Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh (formerly read as Sumerian "Bilgames"), king of Uruk, some of which may date back to the Third Dynasty of Ur (). These independent stories were later used as source material for a combined epic in Akkadian language, Akkadian. The first surviving version of this combined epic, known as the "Old Babylonian" version, dates back to the 18th century BCE and is titled after its incipit, ''Shūtur eli sharrī'' ("Surpassing All Other Kings"). Only a few clay tablet, tablets of it have survived. The later Standard Babylonian version compiled by Sîn-lēqi-unninni dates to somewhere between the 13th to the 10th centuries BCE and bears the incipit ''Sha naqba īmuru'' ("He who Saw the Deep(s)", ). Approximately two-thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have been recovered. Some of the best copies were d ...
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Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh (, ; ; originally ) was a hero in ancient Mesopotamian mythology and the protagonist of the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', an epic poem written in Akkadian during the late 2nd millennium BC. He was possibly a historical king of the Sumerian city-state of Uruk, who was posthumously deified. His rule probably would have taken place sometime in the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period, 2900–2350 BC, though he became a major figure in Sumerian legend during the Third Dynasty of Ur (). Tales of Gilgamesh's legendary exploits are narrated in five surviving Sumerian poems. The earliest of these is likely "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld", in which Gilgamesh comes to the aid of the goddess Inanna and drives away the creatures infesting her ''huluppu'' tree. She gives him two unknown objects, a ''mikku'' and a ''pikku'', which he loses. After Enkidu's death, his shade tells Gilgamesh about the bleak conditions in the Underworld. The poem '' Gilgamesh and Aga'' de ...
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Enkimdu
Enkimdu (𒀭𒂗𒆠𒅎𒁺) was a Mesopotamian god associated with agriculture and irrigation. He is best known from the poem '' Dumuzi and Enkimdu'', but in laments he was instead connected with the god Martu, who like Dumuzi could be described and depicted as a shepherd. Character Enkimdu was an agricultural god. He was called the "lord of embankments and ditches". The theonym Lugal-epara, "lord of ditch and dyke", attested in the god list '' An = Anum'' without an explanation provided, might be another name of Enkimdu due to analogous meaning to said epithet. An Akkadian form of the title is also attested, ''bēl iki u palgi''. In the same god list, Enkimdu appears as one of the "cultivators" (''ab-ším'') of Nabu. However, in the Old Babylonian forerunner of this text he is instead placed among deities representing various professions in a section focused on Enki and his entourage. His character has been compared to Enbilulu's. It has been proposed that he was worship ...
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Gallu
In Sumerian and ancient Mesopotamian religion, gallûs (also called gallas; Akkadian ''gallû'' < Sumerian ) were s or s of the .


Role in mythology

Gallu demons hauled unfortunate victims off to the . They were one of seven devils (or "the offspring of hell") of Babylonian theology that could be appeased by the sacrifi ...
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Ancient Mesopotamian Underworld
The ancient Mesopotamian underworld (known in Sumerian as ''Kur'', ''Irkalla'', ''Kukku'', ''Arali'', or ''Kigal'', and in Akkadian as ''Erṣetu''), was the lowermost part of the ancient near eastern cosmos, roughly parallel to the region known as Tartarus from early Greek cosmology. It was described as a dark, dreary cavern located deep below the ground, where inhabitants were believed to continue "a transpositional version of life on earth". The only food or drink was dry dust, but family members of the deceased would pour sacred mineral libations from the earth for them to drink. In the Sumerian underworld, it was initially believed that there was no final judgement of the deceased and the dead were neither punished nor rewarded for their deeds in life. The ruler of the underworld was the goddess Ereshkigal, who lived in the palace Ganzir, sometimes used as a name for the underworld itself. Her husband was either Gugalanna, the "canal-inspector of Anu", or, especially ...
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Uruk
Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilometers (58 miles) northwest of ancient Ur, 108 kilometers (67 miles) southeast of ancient Nippur, and 24 kilometers (15 miles) northwest of ancient Larsa. It is east of modern Samawah. Uruk is the type site for the Uruk period. Uruk played a leading role in the early urbanization of Sumer in the mid-4th millennium BC. By the final phase of the Uruk period around 3100 BC, the city may have had 40,000 residents, with 80,000–90,000 people living in its environs, making it the largest urban area in the world at the time. Gilgamesh, according to the chronology presented in the '' Sumerian King List'' (''SKL''), ruled Uruk in the 27th century BC. After the end of the Early Dynastic period, with the rise of the Akkadian Empire, the ci ...
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Bad-tibira
Bad-tibira (also Patibira) ( Sumerian: , bad3-tibiraki) was an ancient Sumerian city on the Iturungal canal dating back to the Early Dynastic period, which appears among antediluvian cities in the Sumerian King List. In the earliest days of Akkadian language studies its name was mistakenly read as Dûr-gurgurri. A location is proposed as modern Tell al-Madineh (also Tell Madineh and Tell al-Mada’in), between Ash Shatrah and Tell as-Senkereh (ancient Larsa) and 33 kilometers northeast of ancient Girsu in southern Iraq. The proposal is based on unprovenanced illegally excavated inscriptions which were said to have come from there. Earlier excavations at a mound called Medain near the site of Lagash, following a report of a vendor of one of the inscriptions, had proved fruitlessVaughn E. Crawford, "The Location of Bad-Tibira", Iraq 22, "Ur in Retrospect. In Memory of Sir C. Leonard Woolley", pp. 197-199, (Spring - Autumn 1960 There is known to be a temple of the deity Kittum at B ...
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Eridu Genesis
Eridu Genesis, also called the Sumerian Creation Myth or Sumerian Flood Myth, offers a description of the story surrounding how humanity was created by the gods, the circumstances leading to the origins of the first cities in Mesopotamia, how the office of kingship entered this probably neolithical civilisation, and the global flood. Other Sumerian creation myths include the Barton Cylinder, the Debate between sheep and grain, and that between Winter and Summer, also found at Nippur. Similar flood myths are described in the Atrahasis and Gilgamesh epics, where the former deals with the internal conflict of an organisation of Sumerian gods, which they try to pacify by creating the first couples of humans as labour slaves – followed by a mass reproduction of these creatures and a great flood triggered by Enlil (master of the universe). The narrative of biblical Genesis shows some striking parallels (however, excluding all references to a civilisation before Adam and Eve's cre ...
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