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 the year in the Underworld, but the other half of the year with her, while his sister Geshtinanna stays in the Underworld in his place, thus resulting in the cycle of the seasons. In the Sumerian poem Inanna Prefers the Farmer, Dumuzid competes against the farmer Enkimdu for Inanna's hand in marriage.
Gilgamesh references Tammuz in Tablet VI of the Epic of Gilgamesh as the love of Ishtar's youth, who was turned into an allalu bird with a broken wing. Dumuzid was associated with fertility and vegetation and the hot, dry summers of Mesopotamia were believed to be caused by Dumuzid's yearly death. During the month in midsummer bearing his name, people all across Mesopotamia would engage in public, ritual mourning for him. The cult of Dumuzid later spread to the Levant and to Greece, where he became known under the West Semitic name Adonis.
The cult of Ishtar and Tammuz continued to thrive until the eleventh century AD and survived in parts of Mesopotamia as late as the eighteenth century. Tammuz is mentioned by name in the Book of Ezekiel (e.g., Ezek. 8:14–15) and possibly alluded to in other passages from the Hebrew Bible. In late nineteenth and early twentieth century scholarship of religion, Tammuz was widely seen as a prime example of the archetypal dying-and-rising god, but the discovery of the full Sumerian text of Inanna's Descent in the mid-twentieth century appeared to disprove the previous scholarly assumption that the narrative ended with Dumuzid's resurrection and instead revealed that it ended with Dumuzid's death. However, the rescue of Dumuzid from the underworld was later found in the text Return of Dumuzid, translated in 1963.
Worship
God of milk and shepherds
The Assyriologists Jeremy Black and Anthony Green describe the early history of Dumuzid's cult as "complex and bewildering". According to the Sumerian King List (ETCSL 2.1.1), Dumuzid was the fifth antediluvian king of the city of Bad-tibira. Dumuzid was also listed as an early king of Uruk, where he was said to have come from the nearby village of Kuara and to have been the consort of the goddess Inanna. As Dumuzid sipad ("Dumuzid the Shepherd"), Dumuzid was believed to be the provider of milk, which was a rare, seasonal commodity in ancient Sumer due to the fact that it could not easily be stored without spoiling.
Plant-growing deity
In addition to being the god of shepherds, Dumuzid was also an agricultural deity associated with the growth of plants. Ancient Near Eastern peoples associated Dumuzid with the springtime, when the land was fertile and abundant, but, during the summer months, when the land was dry and barren, it was thought that Dumuzid had "died". During the month of Dumuzid, which fell in the middle of summer, people all across Sumer would mourn over his death. This seems to have been the primary aspect of his cult. In Lagash, the month of Dumuzid was the sixth month of the year. This month and the holiday associated with it was later transmitted from the Sumerians to Babylonians and other East Semitic peoples, with its name transcribed into those languages as Tammuz. A ritual associated with the Ekur temple in Nippur equates Dumuzid with the snake-god Ištaran, who in that ritual, is described as having died.