8 Pinches, Hymns to Tammuz in the Manchester Museum. 



14. To the place of pasture, fair one, come, husband. 



15. Midnight dark (as) an enclosure surroundeth thee. 



16. Pure one, who hath the pure invocation,* 



enter the abode of rest. 



17. [The pure one, who hath the pu]re [invocation],* maketh 



to increase. 



\Sixteen defective lines interrupt the sense here,} 



34. Lost art thou, darkness-afflicted, as in old age. 

 35 the bolt, life announcing. 



The name of Eres-e-gala is naturally one of the most 

 important key-words of this column. It has the deter- 

 minative prefix of divinity in the first line only, but 

 whether this has any significance — such as, that the 

 goddess was not held in any great respect by the votaries 

 of Istar — is uncertain. The barrier which was set 

 between this world and that below seems to be referred 

 to by the legend of the hero Gilgames purchased by Dr. 

 Meissner for the Museum of Berlin, and published by him 

 in the Mittheilungen der V order asiatischen Gesellschaft.^ 

 The word required is zara, and it would seem exceed- 

 ingly probable that the zarum of this text is the same, 

 slightly modified by Semitic influence, whereby a has 

 been changed to «, and the mimmation (probably unpro- 

 nounced) added. The true rendering of the words namzu^ 

 ulnamuzu, nazu, munzu, namuzu, and nanezu, presents 

 considerable difficulty, but I have thought it best to 

 regard all those with in after na as negative forms, as in 

 the standard dialects, and the sense seems to come out 

 fairly well. The gap after line 18 is a very unfortunate 

 one, as the lost portion might have rendered considerable 

 help in translating that which has been preserved. 



*Lit. "Man of the pure invocation." 



t Translated also by the present writer in the Proceedings of the Society 

 of Biblical Archaeology, March and April, 1903. 



