The Anunnaki are a very mysterious group, many of which appear to be the same entity. The Tammuz and Ishtar of the Anunnaki reveals more than just a story… The myth of Tammuz is one of high antiquity,dating possibly from 4000 b.c. or even earlier. Both Tammuz and Ishtar were originally non-Semitic, the name of Tammuz being derived from the Akkadian Dumu-zi, ‘son of life,’ or ‘the only son,’ perhaps a contraction of Dumu-zi-apsu, ‘offspring of the spirit of the deep,’ as Professor Sayce indicates.

The ‘spirit of the deep’ is, of course, the water-god Ea, and Tammuz apparently typifies the sun, though he is not, as will presently be seen, a simple solar deity, but a god who unites in himself the attributes of various departmental divinities. An ancient Akkadian hymn addresses Tammuz as “Shepherd and lord, husband of Ishtar the lady of heaven, lord of the underworld, lord of the shepherd’s seat; ” as grain which lies unwatered in the meadow, which beareth no green blade, as a sapling planted in a water-less place, as a sapling torn out by the root.

Professor Sayce identifies him with that Daonus, or Daos, whom Berossus states to have been the sixth king of Babylonia during the mythical period. Tammuz is the shepherd of the sky, and his flocks and herds, are the cloud-cattle and the fleecy vapors of the heavens. Ishtar has from an early period been associated with Tammuz as his consort, as she has, indeed, with Merodach and Assur and other deities. Yet she is by no means a mere reflection of the male divinity, but has a distinct individuality of her own, differing in this from all other Babylonian goddesses and betraying her origin.

The widespread character of the worship of Ishtar is remarkable. None of the Babylonian or Assyrian deities were adopted into the pantheons of so many alien races. She has been identified with Dawkina, wife of Ea/Enki, and is therefore mother of Tammuz as well as his consort. Ishtar was regarded sometimes as the daughter of the sky-god Anu, and sometimes as the child of Sin, the lunar deity. Her worship in Babylonia was universal, and in time displaced that of Tammuz himself. The love of Ishtar for Tammuz represents the wooing of the sun-god of spring-time by the goddess of fertility, the god is slain by the relentless heat of summer, and there is little doubt that Ishtar enters Aralu in search of her youthful husband. The poem we are about to consider briefly deals with a part only of the myth — the story of Ishtar’s descent into Aralu. It opens thus: PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO

Narrated and Created by A.Christie (Ancient Mystery)

Information: Professor A.H.Sayce Lewis Spence

and A.Christie creator of Ancient Mystery