PART II. ADONIS
While it is only of comparatively recent date that information as to
the exact character of the worship directed to Tammuz has been
available and the material we at present possess is but fragmentary in
character, the corresponding cult of the Phoenician-Greek divinity we
know as Adonis has for some years been the subject of scholarly
research. Not only have the details of the ritual been examined and
discussed, and the surviving artistic evidence described and
illustrated, but from the anthropological side attention has been
forcibly directed to its importance as a factor in the elucidation of
certain widespread Folk-beliefs and practices.[12]
We know now that the worship of Adonis, which enjoyed among the Greeks
a popularity extending to our own day, was originally of Phoenician
origin, its principal centres being the cities of Byblos, and Aphaka.
From Phoenicia it spread to the Greek islands, the earliest evidence
of the worship being found in Cyprus, and from thence to the mainland,
where it established itself firmly. The records of the cult go back
to 700 B.C., but it may quite possibly be of much earlier date. Mr
Langdon suggests that the worship of the divinity we know as Adonis,
may, under another name, reach back to an antiquity equal with that we
can now ascribe to the cult of Tammuz.
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