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A Tammuz Ritual in Kurdistan (?)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

H. Frankfort
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Extract

While excavating the Palace of Sargon at Khorsabad, for the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, we were called from our house one night (March 20th, 1930) by the sound of singing and the clapping of hands which accompanies the dances of that country-side. In front of our gate we found the villagers squatting and standing round an open space in which two figures performed. One was dressed as a woman, in a black garment, with anklets, bracelets, and veil. In her we recognized later one of our workmen. The other personage was wearing a high pointed basket as headgear, a goatskin round his shoulders, and a bell tied to his girdle; he carried a heavy stick, and both had their faces blackened.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , November 1934 , pp. 137 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1934

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References

page 141 note 1 The understanding of these songs is, of course, impossible without some knowledge of the local agricultural uses. The corn is thrown on a heap in an open space, such as the village square, and animals are then driven in a circle along the outer edge of the heap, dragging a simple kind of wooden threshing sledge, while men standing in the middle on the top of the heap keep up the supply of fresh bundles to the outer ring where the animals pass. The winnowing is next done, first by throwing the stalks up with forks, then by throwing the remaining mixture of chaff, dust, and corn in a sieve which serves for winnowing fan. After that the corn is piled up in a dry clean place and plastered over with mud which soon becomes hard and thus keeps out mice and vermin.

page 143 note 1 See footnote to song (I).

page 144 note 1 An epithet of God.

page 144 note 2 Jaussen, , Coûtumes des Arabes au Pays de Moab (Études Bibliques). Paris, 1908, 326–30Google Scholar.

page 137 note 1 Furlani, Giuseppe, Testi Religiosi dei Yezidi, Bologna, 1930, 22–4Google Scholar.

page 137 note 2 Studies presented to F. Ll. Griffith, 450-3.

page 137 note 3 On cylinder seals and on an alabaster vase discovered this winter at Warka the god and the symbol of the Mother-goddess can be traced as far back as the Jamdat Nasr period, and it seems even probable to the present writer that the vase and therefore such seals as are published in Nöldeke, Fünfter Vorl. Bericht (Preuss. Akademie, Abh. 1933, Nr. 5), pl. 29 a, b, will prove to belong to the Uruk period. Compare also Mr. Gadd's surmise that the worship of the Mother-goddess can be traced, at al-‘Ubaid, to the al-‘Ubaid periods: History and Monuments of Ur, 65. An intermediate stage of the survival of the name Ta(mm)uz is presented by the Syrians of Harran in the Middle Ages. See Baudissin, , Adonis und Ešmun, 111–14Google Scholar.