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Updated: September 6, 2025
Tammuz, of whose position in this pantheon we have already had occasion to speak, is the god of spring vegetation. Another solar deity, Nin-gishzida, who is associated in the Adapa legend with Tammuz, is the deity who presides over the growth of trees. En-meshara, who also belongs to the court of Nergal and Allatu, appears to represent vegetation in general.
Why art thou thus attired? For whom hast thou put on mourning? Adapa replies: 'Two gods have disappeared from the earth, therefore do I wear a mourning garment. 'Who are the two gods who have disappeared from the earth? Tammuz and Gishzida looked at one another, broke out in lament. 'O Adapa!
In its present form, it is an object lesson dealing with the same problem that we came across in the Gilgamesh epic and that we will meet again in another form, the problem of immortality. The beginning of the story, as in the case of the Zu myth, is missing, but we are in a position to restore at least the general context. A fisherman, Adapa, is engaged in plying his trade when a storm arises.
Of the various legends that we have been considering, the story of Adapa is perhaps the most significant, and none the less so for the manner in which a philosophical problem has been grafted on to a nature-myth.
Food and water were offered him, but he refused them for fear that they might be the food and water of death. Oil only for anointing and clothing did he accept. "Then Anu looked upon him and raised his voice in lamentation: 'O Adapa, wherefore atest thou not, wherefore didst thou not drink?
She cannot raise them even for the minor enterprises at Konia and Adapa , and evidently the Sawâd must draw its future cultivators from somewhere beyond the bounds of Western Asia. From Germany, many Germans have suggested; but German experts curtly dismiss the idea.
It is more interesting to know that in Babylonian cosmology Adapa the Wise, the son of Ea, is represented as a Fisher.
The word that I speak to thee take to heart. The messenger of Anu approached. 'Adapa has broken the wings of the south wind. Deliver him into my hands.... Ea obeys the order, delivers up Adapa, and everything happens as was foretold. Upon mounting to heaven and on his approach to the gate of Anu, Tammuz and Gishzida were stationed at the gate of Anu. They saw Adapa and cried 'Help, Lord!
Leaving the comparison aside and coming back for a moment to the Adapa story, it is interesting to observe that as we have two tales, both intended to explain the position of Marduk at the head of the pantheon, the one by making him the conqueror of Tiâmat and forcing from Kingu the tablets of fate, the other by representing him as recovering from Zu the tablets which En-lil, who originally held them, could not protect against the storm-bird, so we have two solutions offered for the problem of immortality.
In the legend of Adapa, for example, wisdom and immortality are the prerogative of the gods, and the winning of immortality by man is bound up with eating the Food of Life and drinking the Water of Life; here too man is left with the gift of wisdom, but immortality is withheld.
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