122 



1-2. ^T <TT ET<y ^T :s^ c^ 



YUM XII. DA - BA - TAN SARRI 



The 12th day fortrmate for the king 



13. ^y <yyy ..y .yy<y *^ 4^ ^^ 



YUM XIII. ISTARITUV MAGAR libbit MAGAR 



The 13^/i day the goddess is favourable a divination is good 



14. '^y <m _y ^ y 



YUM XIV. AN - NU SE 

 The 14:th day one is not fortunate 



15. ^y <\v --T <^^ H <« 



YUM XV. ANTALU D.P. SIN 



The 15th day an ecUjyse of the moon. 



Tliis tablet, written partly in Akkadian and partly in 

 Semitic Babylonian, reveals to us very clearly the superstitious 

 cbaracter of the Babylonians, their blind trusting in omens 

 and divinations, and is an interesting commentary on the 

 book of Daniel. It will be noticed that the month opens 

 with a festival of the Sun - god, that is Tammuz, as 

 the summer sun, restored in all his beauty to his 

 bride Istar, the Moon. This festival is, as I have shown, the 

 same as that of Atys, the Phrygian Adonis, celebrated at the 

 same time. The festival began with the cutting of the sacred 

 fir-tree in which Atys had hidden himself, a symbol of the 

 dark winter which had killed the ruddy summer sun. This 

 worship of Atys and the mother goddess Amna was probably 

 introduced into Phrygia from Babylonia, and the account of 

 the festivals agrees with the records in this inscription. The fir- 

 tree in which the god Tammuz had hidden himself is referred 

 to in a hymn in the British Museum, which states that the 

 sacred dark fir-tree which grew in the city of Eridhu was the 

 couch of the great mother goddess, and in it dwelt the spirit 

 of Tammuz (W. A. I., vol. iv., p. 32). The sacred tree having 

 been cut and carried into the sanctuary of the temple, there 

 came the search for Tammuz, when the devotees ran wildly 

 about, weeping and wailing for the lost one, and cutting them- 

 selves with knives. The remarkable tablet in the British 

 Museum, which contains the legend of the descent of Istar 

 into the under-world in search of Tammuz, has a rubric 



