Tammuz Thammuz

(Ezek. 8:14)—a Mesopotamian dying-and-returning vegetation deity, the Dumuzi of Sumerian tradition, later compared with the Syrian and Greek Adonis. Ezekiel saw women at the north gate of the Temple weeping for Tammuz, one of the idolatrous abominations shown to the prophet. The fourth month of the later Hebrew calendar bears the name Tammuz. Older accounts described Syrian mourning rites for Adonis and their transition from lamentation to celebration; these parallels illuminate the cultic setting but do not make every regional practice identical.