Indras--Celtic Goddess with Seven Periods of Youth--Lovers of
Germanic and Classic Goddesses--The Lovers of Ishtar--Racial
Significance of Goddess Cult--The Great Fathers and their
Worshippers--Process of Racial and Religious Fusion--Ishtar and
Tiamat--Mother Worship in Palestine--Women among Goddess
Worshippers.

Among the gods of Babylonia none achieved wider and more enduring
fame than Tammuz, who was loved by Ishtar, the amorous Queen of
Heaven--the beautiful youth who died and was mourned for and came to
life again. He does not figure by his popular name in any of the city
pantheons, but from the earliest times of which we have knowledge
until the passing of Babylonian civilization, he played a prominent
part in the religious life of the people.

Tammuz, like Osiris of Egypt, was an agricultural deity, and as the
Babylonian harvest was the gift of the rivers, it is probable that one
of his several forms was Dumu-zi-abzu, "Tammuz of the Abyss". He was
also "the child", "the heroic lord", "the sentinel", "the healer", and
the patriarch who reigned over the early Babylonians for a
considerable period. "Tammuz of the Abyss" was one of the members of
the family of Ea, god of the Deep, whose other sons, in addition to
Merodach, were Nira, an obscure deity; Ki-gulla, "world destroyer",
Burnunta-sa, "broad ear", and Bara and Baragulla, probably "revealers"
or "oracles". In addition there was a daughter, Khi-dimme-azaga,
"child of the renowned spirit". She may have been identical with
Belit-sheri, who is referred to in the Sumerian hymns as the sister of
Tammuz. This family group was probably formed by symbolizing the
attributes of Ea and his spouse Damkina. Tammuz, in his character as a
patriarch, may have been regarded as a hostage from the gods: the
human form of Ea, who instructed mankind, like King Osiris, how to
grow corn and cultivate fruit trees. As the youth who perished
annually, he was the corn spirit. He is referred to in the Bible by
his Babylonian name.

When Ezekiel detailed the various idolatrous practices of the
Israelites, which included the worship of the sun and "every form of
creeping things and abominable beasts"--a suggestion of the composite
monsters of Babylonia--he was brought "to the door of the gate of the
Lord's house, which was towards the north; and, behold, there sat
women weeping for Tammuz".[105]

The weeping ceremony was connected with agricultural rites. Corn
deities we