ed to retain the young god,
and Aphrodite (Ishtar) appealed to Zeus (Anu), who decreed that Adonis
should spend part of the year with one goddess and part of the year
with the other.

It is suggested that the myth of Adonis was derived in post-Homeric
times by the Greeks indirectly from Babylonia through the Western
Semites, the Semitic title "Adon", meaning "lord", having been
mistaken for a proper name. This theory, however, cannot be accepted
without qualifications. It does not explain the existence of either
the Phrygian myth of Attis, which was developed differently from the
Tammuz myth, or the Celtic story of "Diarmid and the boar", which
belongs to the archaeological "Hunting Period". There are traces in
Greek mythology of pre-Hellenic myths about dying harvest deities,
like Hyakinthos and Erigone, for instance, who appear to have been
mourned for. There is every possibility, therefore, that the Tammuz
ritual may have been attached to a harvest god of the pre-Hellenic
Greeks, who received at the same time the new name of Adonis. Osiris
of Egypt resembles Tammuz, but his Mesopotamian origin has not been
proved. It would appear probable that Tammuz, Attis, Osiris, and the
deities represented by Adonis and Diarmid were all developed from an
archaic god of fertility and vegetation, the central figure of a myth
which was not only as ancient as the knowledge and practice of
agriculture, but had existence even in the "Hunting Period". Traces of
the Tammuz-Osiris story in various forms are found all over the area
occupied by the Mediterranean or Brown race from Sumeria to the
British Isles. Apparently the original myth was connected with tree
and water worship and the worship of animals. Adonis sprang from a
tree; the body of Osiris was concealed in a tree which grew round the
sea-drifted chest in which he was concealed. Diarmid concealed himself
in a tree when pursued by Finn. The blood of Tammuz, Osiris, and
Adonis reddened the swollen rivers which fertilized the soil. Various
animals were associated with the harvest god, who appears to have been
manifested from time to time in different forms, for his spirit
pervaded all nature. In Egypt the soul of Osiris entered the Apis bull
or the ram of Mendes.

Tammuz in the hymns is called "the pre-eminent steer of heaven", and a
popular sacrifice was "a white kid of the god Tammuz", which, however,
might be substituted by a sucking pig. Osiris had also associations
with swi