Sacred Trees and Enclosed Gardens j 135135 135
- Wasilewska, E. (2000), Creation Stories of the Middle East, Jessica Kingsley Publishers,
p. 192. - Roth, A. M. (2000), Father earth, mother sky: Ancient Egyptian beliefs about concep-
tion and fertility, in A. Rautmanm, ed., Reading the Body: Representations and Remains in the
Archaeological Record, University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 227– 232. - Hassan, F. A. (1998), The earliest goddesses of Egypt, in L. Goodison and C. Morris, eds.,
Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and the Evidence. University of Wisconsin, pp. 98– 112. - The Project Gutenberg EBook of Egyptian Literature. The Book of the Dead. Dominion
Over Elements. From Papyrus of Ani (British Museum No. 10,470, sheet 16). - Shabti are funerary figurines placed in tombs along with grave goods. They functioned as
servants for the deceased, performing whatever tasks might be expected of the deceased in the
afterlife. When multiple shabti were included, they were housed in special “shabti boxes.” - This is not to say that Egyptian male deities were never associated with plants. Some male
gods were identified with trees in Egypt, although they were never materially equated with the
trees, as were the goddesses Hathor, Nut, and Isis. For example, Osiris, the god of death and
regeneration, was identified with grain, and the agrarian God Min is associated with a ritual
“kitchen garden.” - Number 1966, Vernus, Chants d’Amour, pp. 83– 36, cited in Antelme and Rossini, Sacred
Sexuality in Ancient Egypt, p. 87. - “Genius” is a Latin term that, in pagan religions, referred to “the tutelary god or attendant
spirit allotted to every person at his birth, to govern his fortunes and determine his character,
and finally to conduct him out of the world; also, the tutelary and controlling spirit similarly
connected with a place, an institution, etc.” (Oxford English Dictionary). - Mallowan, B. P. (1983), Magic and ritual in the northwest palace reliefs, in P. O. Harper
and H. Pittman, eds., Essays on Near Eastern Art and Archaeology in Honor of Charles Kyrle
Wilkinson. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. - The cone of a conifer tree was called terinnatu by the Assyrians and is explained in the lex-
ical text as “the seed of the ashuhu tree.” During Ashurnasirpal’s time, the wood of the ashuhu
tree was used to make tall doors for temples or palaces. Assyriologists have concluded that the
ashuhu tree is a pine, possibly the Aleppo pine, Pinus halepensis (Postgate 1992). For a compre-
hensive overview, see Giovino, M (2007), The Assyrian Sacred Tree: A History of Interpretations.
Academic Press, Fribourg/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen. - He was even credited with founding the field of anthropology itself (Lowie, R. H. [1917],
American Anthropologist 19:262– 268). - There is an interesting story behind the specimen shown in Tylor’s photograph. Living in
England, Tylor did not have direct access to male date palm inflorescences, so he sought the aid
of his friend and fellow Quaker, Sir Thomas Hanbury. About twenty years earlier, the wealthy
Sir Thomas had, on a whim, purchased the Orengo Palace during a vacation trip to the Italian
Riviera. The building was located on a promontory on the Cape of Mortola overlooking the
Mediterranean, a short distance from the town of Ventimiglia, just east of Monaco. Sir Thomas,
who was an avid gardener and whose brother, Daniel, was a well- known pharmacist and botanist,
had the idea of converting the property to a botanical garden that would grow exotic species from
around the world. He began buying up the surrounding land and soon had acquired 45 acres of
real estate, which was bordered on three sides by mountains covered with Allepo pines. By the late