Divinity · ◇ Light

Dumuzi

Tammuz · The Shepherd King

majorattestedc. 1900–1600 BCE (tablets)Mesopotamian religion

The shepherd king of Uruk, consort of Inanna — later remembered as Tammuz, mourned in temples for millennia. While his queen hung dead in the underworld he sat on her throne in fine clothes, and the price of her return fell on him: half of every year in the land of the dead, half in the light, the first calendar written in a marriage.

Light83

Wisdom79

Grace77

Influence73

✦Signature powerDivine DomainHolds sovereign power over a sphere of the living world.

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Its universe

The mythic order Dumuzi belongs to, who comes before and after in the story of this world.

An, father of the gods

Voices & connections

Figures bound to Dumuzi, family and rivals within the myth, and the thinkers and writers who shaped how we know them.

Ereshkigalenemy of Inannamarried to

Read the story

Illustrated chapters where Dumuzi appears. Start reading in a click.

Illustrated storyThe Descent of InannaThe oldest descent story ever written, four thousand years old: Inanna, Queen of Heaven, turns her ear to the Great Below and walks through the seven gates of the dead. At each gate a garment of her power is stripped away, until she stands naked before her sister Ereshkigal — and is hung on a hook. Her rescue costs a head for a head, and her eye falls on the consort who did not mourn her.Begin reading →