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Trees and gender in Assyrian art1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

Paul Collins
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The question of identifying cultural symbolism of any period is tortuous without textual or verbal evidence. It is particularly difficult when dealing with an ancient society removed by thousands of years and vast distance in space. Such is the case when interpreting the art of Mesopotamia. Occasionally, textual references help to illuminate possible meanings of imagery. More often than not we are left with nothing but our own culturally conditioned perceptions to explain what we see. However, alternative readings suggested by gender studies raise new ways of approaching familiar scenes. In a recent article I argued that the appearance of a fruiting date palm in the so-called “Garden Party” relief of Ashurbanipal (r. 668–631 BC) from the North Palace at Nineveh helped to situate the scene within a queen's garden. Despite the fact that the climate in Assyria is unfavourable for date-palm cultivation, the image of the tree, closely associated with a goddess, symbolized the feminine space of the garden. I would like to take this proposal further and suggest that the fruiting date palm is a marker of femininity in other images from ancient Iraq and, in addition, that the conifer tree can appear as a symbol of masculinity.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 68 , 2006 , pp. 99 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2006

Footnotes

1

My thanks are due to Donald P. Hansen for inviting me to present a version of this paper at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University where it benefited from his comments and those of Holly Pittman. My thanks also to Oscar White Muscarella, Jean Evans, Kim Benzel, Jaime Neary and Anne Garner, who read an earlier draft and made useful suggestions.

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