The descent of Tammuz to the lower world implies that he died, but the accounts have not made a direct statement of how he died, or what was the cause of his death. Perhaps we may conceive of the event of his death as having taken place at Eridu before the service of lamentation had developed into a cult honored at the court of Sargon of Akkad, where a temple was built for Tammuz after northern Babylonia had gained the ascendency over southern Babylonia. The literal cause of his death was that he was not capable of making plant-growth a continuous process. The power of the heat of the sun as the summer advanced was superior to the virtue which Tammuz possessed over plant-life. The fierce heat of the summer caused vegetation to take a paler hue; then the germs of decay entered; slowly and surely the face of the land was assuming the same state that existed before the power of Tammuz appeared to quicken the blade of grass and the fruit-bud of the early spring. So Tammuz was banished to the lower world. Romantically his entrance to the abode of the dead was due to the hand which Ištar had in the events of his life. She had many lovers, and she betrayed them all. Her betrayal in the case of Tammuz consisted in not aiding him in her sphere as great mother in the production of life on earth. Had she supplemented his effort and made the earth continue to bear and bring forth, counteracting the effect of the deadly heat of the summer solstice and the destructive wind of the south, the gardens and the fruit orchards over whose productiveness Tammuz presided would have enjoyed perennial fruitage, and Gilgameš would never have had to take up the sad accusation against Ištar: “Tammuz, the spouse of thy youth, Thou compellest to weep year after year.”[30] Also there had never gone up the song of lamentation: “He went down to meet the nether world, He has sated himself. Šamaš caused him to perish To the land of the dead. With mourning was he filled on the day When he fell into great sorrow.”[31] According to another story of the fate of Tammuz, Ištar was the victim of sudden and violent passion, and in a fit of anger for disregard of her command she had smitten him down, just as she crushed the _allallu_-bird she loved: “Thou didst crush him and break his pinions. In the woods he stands and laments, ‘O my pinions’.”[32] Also as she cast out of her sight the lion: “Thou didst love a lion of perfect strength, Seven and seven times thou didst bury him in the corners.”[33] The origin of the service of weeping for Tammuz is an interesting legend. When Ištar had slain her lover, she hastened, like the going down of the evening star, to the lower world in search of waters to restore him to life. She searches long, passing through all the compartments of Hades. The story does not give details of her finding Tammuz, but instead, a scene of his burial is introduced: