1 2 Pinches, Hymns to Tammuz in the Manchester Museum. 



This column contains a number of unusual words, 

 and is, on that account, exceedingly difficult to render 

 with the material which we possess at present. How far 

 my rendering represents the true sense of the original is 

 doubtful, but thus much may be claimed for it, namely, 

 that abzu is the usual Sumerian expression for the Abyss, 

 the abode of the god Ea or Ae, where, according to the 

 lists of gods, Tammuz dwelt, and though this does not 

 seem to have been the infernal regions in the true sense 

 of the word, it possibly bordered on them, and may have 

 communicated with them. In this Abyss, which was 

 rather one of the abodes of the blessed than the other 

 place, was the a-nunna, or * great water,' apparently the 

 depths of the ocean, whence came, according to Berosus, 

 the beings — including Ea (Cannes) — who taught the 

 Babylonians all they knew. As the Sumerian word for 

 ' water,' a, is sometimes weakened to e, I have regarded 

 this v/ord as existing in the expression e-nun, which has 

 all the more appropriateness, as this is a dialectic text. 

 The repetition of certain words will show the reader how 

 the sense is arrived at, and it is only necessary to say, 

 that the roots gu, si, for se, si-sa, and z, which I have 

 rendered, following the bilingual lists, by the words 

 ' uttering,' ' hearing,' ' directing,' and ' honouring,' respec- 

 tively, are repeated in the part referring to the growing 

 of seed, where they occur, however, with the last two 

 elements interchanged, the order being gu, se, i, and si-sa. 

 As god of the summer sun, Tammuz was naturally the 

 divinity who caused things to grow, hence the lines 

 inserted here, which show how the Babylonians regarded 

 themselves as being indebted to him for the necessaries 

 of life which they enjoyed. Seemingly the lamentations 

 which released Tammuz from the Underworld caused, by 

 that act, the seeds which had been sowed to germinate. 



