Tammuz (Babylonian calendar)
Encyclopedia
Tammuz was a month in the Babylonian calendar
, named for one of the main Babylonia
n gods, Tammuz (Sumerian: Dumuzid, "son of life"). Many different calendar systems have since adopted Tammuz to refer to a month in the summer season.
In the Hebrew calendar
, Tammuz is the tenth month of the civil year and the fourth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar
. It is a summer month of 29 days. Tammuz is also the name for the month of July in the Gregorian calendar
in Arabic
(تموز), Syriac
(ܬܡܘܙ) and Turkish
("Temmuz").
of the summer solstice
. On the second day of the month, there was lamentation over the death of Tammuz, on the 9th, 16th and 17th days torchlit processions, and on the last three days, an image of Tammuz was buried.
, and references to the month of Tammuz, its history, and celebratory rites with which it is associated are discussed in Arabic literature
from the 9th to 11th centuries AD. In his translation of an earlier work, Ibn Wahshiyya
(c. 9th-10th century AD), enumerates the months of the Babylonian year adding a remark that Tammuz lived in Babylonia
before the coming of the Chaldea
ns and belonged to an ancient Mesopotamia
n tribe called Ganbân. He further adds that the Sabians
in Harran
and Babylonia still lamented the loss of Tammuz every July, but that the origin of the worship had been lost. Al-Nadim
in his 10th century work Kitab al-Fehrest drawing from a work on Syriac calendar feast days, describes a Tâ'ûz festival that took place in the middle of the month of Tammuz. Women bewailed the death of Tammuz at the hands of his master who was said to have "ground his bones in a mill and scattered them to the wind." Consequently, women would forgo the eating of ground foods during the festival time. The same festival is mentioned in the 11th century by Ibn Athir
as still taking place in the month of Tammuz on the banks of the Tigris
river.
Ma'ruf al-Rusafi (1875–1945), a leading Iraq
i poet, wrote a poem entitled Tammuz al-Hurriyya ("July, the month of freedom") to celebrate the Young Turk Revolution
of 1908 and the deposition of 'Abd al-Hamid
, the last Ottoman
sultan
. The 1958 revolution in Iraq took place on the 14th of July. The 1968 Ba'ath revolution in Iraq took place in the month of Tammuz, and the Osirak nuclear reactor built by Saddam Hussein
in 1977 and destroyed by Israel
in 1981 was known domestically as Tammuz, a reference to the month of July when temperatures in Iraq reach their highest levels and it is unbearably hot.
The 2006 Lebanon War is known in Lebanon
and much of the Arab world
as حرب تموز Ḥarb Tammūz (the July War), following the Arab custom of naming the Arab-Israeli wars
by months or years.
Babylonian calendar
The Babylonian calendar was a lunisolar calendar with years consisting of 12 lunar months, each beginning when a new crescent moon was first sighted low on the western horizon at sunset, plus an intercalary month inserted as needed by decree. The calendar is based on a Sumerian precedecessor...
, named for one of the main Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
n gods, Tammuz (Sumerian: Dumuzid, "son of life"). Many different calendar systems have since adopted Tammuz to refer to a month in the summer season.
In the Hebrew calendar
Hebrew calendar
The Hebrew calendar , or Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. It determines the dates for Jewish holidays and the appropriate public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits , and daily Psalm reading, among many ceremonial uses...
, Tammuz is the tenth month of the civil year and the fourth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar
Hebrew calendar
The Hebrew calendar , or Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today predominantly for Jewish religious observances. It determines the dates for Jewish holidays and the appropriate public reading of Torah portions, yahrzeits , and daily Psalm reading, among many ceremonial uses...
. It is a summer month of 29 days. Tammuz is also the name for the month of July in the Gregorian calendar
Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar, also known as the Western calendar, or Christian calendar, is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by a decree signed on 24 February 1582, a papal bull known by its opening words Inter...
in Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
(تموز), Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
(ܬܡܘܙ) and Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
("Temmuz").
History
The festival for the deity Tammuz was held throughout the month of Tammuz in midsummer, and celebrated his death and resurrection. The first day of the month of Tammuz was the day of the new moonNew moon
In astronomical terminology, the new moon is the lunar phase that occurs when the Moon, in its monthly orbital motion around Earth, lies between Earth and the Sun, and is therefore in conjunction with the Sun as seen from Earth...
of the summer solstice
Summer solstice
The summer solstice occurs exactly when the axial tilt of a planet's semi-axis in a given hemisphere is most inclined towards the star that it orbits. Earth's maximum axial tilt to our star, the Sun, during a solstice is 23° 26'. Though the summer solstice is an instant in time, the term is also...
. On the second day of the month, there was lamentation over the death of Tammuz, on the 9th, 16th and 17th days torchlit processions, and on the last three days, an image of Tammuz was buried.
In Arabic sources
Tammuz is the month of July in ArabicArabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, and references to the month of Tammuz, its history, and celebratory rites with which it is associated are discussed in Arabic literature
Arabic literature
Arabic literature is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is adab which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and implies politeness, culture and enrichment....
from the 9th to 11th centuries AD. In his translation of an earlier work, Ibn Wahshiyya
Ibn Wahshiyya
Ibn Wahshiyya was an Iraqi alchemist, agriculturalist, farm toxicologist, egyptologist and historian born at Qusayn near Kufa in Iraq.Ibn Wahshiyya was one of the first historians to be able to at least partly decipher what was written in the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, by relating them to the...
(c. 9th-10th century AD), enumerates the months of the Babylonian year adding a remark that Tammuz lived in Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
before the coming of the Chaldea
Chaldea
Chaldea or Chaldaea , from Greek , Chaldaia; Akkadian ; Hebrew כשדים, Kaśdim; Aramaic: ܟܐܠܕܘ, Kaldo) was a marshy land located in modern-day southern Iraq which came to briefly rule Babylon...
ns and belonged to an ancient Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
n tribe called Ganbân. He further adds that the Sabians
Sabians
The Sabians of Middle Eastern tradition were a monotheistic Abrahamic religious group mentioned three times in the Quran: "the Jews, the Sabians, and the Christians." In the Hadith they are nothing but converts to Islam, while their identity in later Islamic literature became a matter of...
in Harran
Harran
Harran was a major ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia whose site is near the modern village of Altınbaşak, Turkey, 24 miles southeast of Şanlıurfa...
and Babylonia still lamented the loss of Tammuz every July, but that the origin of the worship had been lost. Al-Nadim
Ibn al-Nadim
Abu'l-Faraj Muhammad bin Is'hāq al-Nadim , whose father was known as al-Warrāq was a Shia Muslim scholar and bibliographer. Some scholars regard him as a Persian, but this is not certain. He is famous as the author of the Kitāb al-Fihrist...
in his 10th century work Kitab al-Fehrest drawing from a work on Syriac calendar feast days, describes a Tâ'ûz festival that took place in the middle of the month of Tammuz. Women bewailed the death of Tammuz at the hands of his master who was said to have "ground his bones in a mill and scattered them to the wind." Consequently, women would forgo the eating of ground foods during the festival time. The same festival is mentioned in the 11th century by Ibn Athir
Ibn Athir
Ibn Athīr is the family name of three brothers, all famous in Arabian literature, born at Jazīrat ibn Umar in Cizre nowadays in south-eastern Turkey.-Majd ad-Dīn:...
as still taking place in the month of Tammuz on the banks of the Tigris
Tigris
The Tigris River is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.-Geography:...
river.
Ma'ruf al-Rusafi (1875–1945), a leading Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
i poet, wrote a poem entitled Tammuz al-Hurriyya ("July, the month of freedom") to celebrate the Young Turk Revolution
Young Turk Revolution
The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 reversed the suspension of the Ottoman parliament by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, marking the onset of the Second Constitutional Era...
of 1908 and the deposition of 'Abd al-Hamid
Abdul Hamid II
His Imperial Majesty, The Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of the Faithful was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire...
, the last Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
sultan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
. The 1958 revolution in Iraq took place on the 14th of July. The 1968 Ba'ath revolution in Iraq took place in the month of Tammuz, and the Osirak nuclear reactor built by Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
in 1977 and destroyed by Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
in 1981 was known domestically as Tammuz, a reference to the month of July when temperatures in Iraq reach their highest levels and it is unbearably hot.
The 2006 Lebanon War is known in Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
and much of the Arab world
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...
as حرب تموز Ḥarb Tammūz (the July War), following the Arab custom of naming the Arab-Israeli wars
Arab–Israeli conflict
The Arab–Israeli conflict refers to political tensions and open hostilities between the Arab peoples and the Jewish community of the Middle East. The modern Arab-Israeli conflict began with the rise of Zionism and Arab Nationalism towards the end of the nineteenth century, and intensified with the...
by months or years.