Mr Stephen Langdon inclines to believe that the original Tammuz typified the vivifying waters; he writes: “Since, in Babylonia as in Egypt, the fertility of the soil depended upon irrigation, it is but natural to expect that the youthful god who represents the birth and death of nature, would represent the beneficent waters which flooded the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates in the late winter, and which ebbed away, and nearly disappeared, in the canals and rivers in the period of Summer drought. We find therefore that the theologians regarded this youthful divinity as belonging to the cult of Eridu, centre of the worship of Ea, lord of the nether sea.”[5] In a note to this passage Mr Langdon adds: “He appears in the great theological list as _Dami-zi, ab-zu_, ‘Tammuz of the nether sea,’ _i.e._, ‘the faithful son of the fresh waters which come from the earth.’”[6] This presents us with an interesting analogy to the citations given in the previous chapter from the _Rig-Veda;_ the Tammuz cult is specially valuable as providing us with evidence of the gradual evolution of the Life Cult from the early conception of the vivifying power of the waters, to the wider recognition of a common principle underlying all manifestations of Life. This is very clearly brought out in the beautiful Lament for Tammuz, published by Mr Langdon in _Tammuz and Ishtar_, and also in _Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms_.[7] “In Eanna, high and low, there is weeping, Wailing for the house of the lord they raise. The wailing is for the plants; the first lament is ‘they grow not.’ The wailing is for the barley; the ears grow not. For the habitations and flocks it is; they produce not. For the perishing wedded ones, for perishing children it is; the dark-headed people create not. The wailing is for the great river; it brings the flood no more. The wailing is for the fields of men; the gunu grows no more. The wailing is for the fish-ponds; the dasuhur fish spawn not. The wailing is for the cane-brake; the fallen stalks grow not. The wailing is for the forests; the tamarisks grow not. The wailing is for the highlands; the masgam trees grow not. The wailing is for the garden store-house; honey and wine are produced not. The wailing is for the meadows; the bounty of the garden, the sihtu plants grow not. The wailing is for the palace; life unto distant days is not.” Can anything be more expressive of the community of life animating the whole of Nature than this poignantly worded lament? A point which differentiates the worship of Tammuz from the kindred, and better known, cult of Adonis, is the fact that we have no liturgical record of the celebration of the resurrection of the deity; it certainly took place, for the effects are referred to: “Where grass was not, there grass is eaten, Where water was not, water is drunk, Where the cattle sheds were not, cattle sheds are built.”[8]