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Excerpt from Tammuz and Ishtar: A Monograph Upon Babylonian Religion and Theology, Containing Extensive Extracts From the Tammuz Liturgies and All of the Arbela Oracles This is also true of the liturgies of the Tammuz cycle which were chanted at the midsummer wailings, although ceremonies accompanied these liturgies which originated in magic. The mysteries of the death and resurrection of the youthful god, the weeping mother and her descent to the shades of Aralu, were probably represented in some material way, but the chants themselves have little reference to such things. They are both spiritual and thoroughly human, poetical and skilfully liturgical. In order to place these in the hands of general readers I have translated in appropriate places a large number of extracts from the chants which were sung at the Tammuz wailings. Some of these extracts are revised translations of my previous edition, and some are given here for the first time. It is of course somewhat unusual to offer the first translation of important texts in a volume of this kind, but the critical editions of such texts are either in press or are withheld for special reasons. On the whole the reader will find here sufficient extracts from all the known texts of this cycle to form a fairly complete idea of this cult. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.