Assyrian Tree

[madness]

Resources

Not all of these resources are discussed, this is a suggested reading list for further reference.

Austen Henry Layard
The Monuments of Nineveh. From Drawings Made on the Spot
Available online: here.

Barbara Nevling Porter
Trees, Kings, and Politics: Studies in Assyrian Iconography
Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 197

One God or Many? Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World
Transactions of the Casco Bay Assyriological Institute 1

Helene J. Kantor
Plant Ornament: Its Origin and Development in the Ancient Near East
Available online: here.

Ithamar Gruenwald
'"How Much Qabbalah in Ancient Assyria?" - Methodological Reflections on the Study of a Cross-Cultural Phenomenon'
in S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting (eds.), Assyria 1995

J. Andrew McDonald
Botanical Determination of the Middle Eastern Tree of Life
Economic Botany 56 no. 2
Available online: here.

Jack M. Sasson
Assyrian Mysticism and Its Afterlife
See (96-102): here.

Jerrold S. Cooper
Assyrian Prophecies, the Assyrian Tree, and the Mesopotamian Origins of Jewish Monotheism, Greek Philosophy, Christian Theology, Gnosticism, and Much More
Journal of the American Oriental Society 120 no. 3
Available online: here.

Mariana Giovino
The Assyrian Sacred Tree: A History of Interpretations
Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 230

'Assyrian Trees as Cult Objects'
in P. Taylor (ed.), The Iconography of Cylinder Seals
Warburg Institute Colloquia 9

Pirjo Lapinkivi
The Sumerian Sacred Marriage in the Light of Comparative Evidence
State Archives of Assyria Studies 15

Simo Parpola
The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy
Journal of Near Eastern Studies 52 no. 3
Available online: here.

Assyrian Prophecies
State Archives of Assyria 9
Available online: here with notes.

'The Assyrian Cabinet'
in M. Dietrich and O. Loretz (eds.), Vom Alten Orient zum Alten Testament: Festschrift für Wolfram Freiherrn von Soden zum 85. Geburtstag am 19. Juni 1993
Alter Orient und Altes Testament 240

'The Esoteric Meaning of the Name of Gilgamesh'
in J. Prosecký (ed.), Intellectual Life of the Ancient Near East
Comptes Rendus de la Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale 43

The Mesopotamian Soul of Western Culture
Available online: here.

Sons of God: The ideology of Assyrian kingship
Archaeology Odyssey 2 no. 5
Available online (but lacking the pictures from the original article): here.

Mesopotamian Astrology and Astronomy as Domains of the Mesopotamian "Wisdom"
Available online: here.

[madness]

Date Palm Theory

In 1890 Edward B. Tylor ('The Winged Figures of the Assyrian and Other Ancient Monuments,' Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 12) expanded upon the date palm identification of the Assyrian tree and created one of the most influential interpretations to date – that the tree scene represents an act of date palm fertilisation. The idea is that the tree itself symbolises a female date palm grove, and the cone-like object that the winged figures extend towards it is a male date cluster which is used to sprinkle pollen over the tree in order to fertilise it.

This interpretation has been given new life by Barbara Porter, in her 1993 article (and reprinted in Trees, Kings, and Politics) 'Sacred Trees, Date Palms, and the Royal Persona of Ashurnasirpal II,' JNES 52 no. 2. She argues that the tree scene, as a process of date palm pollination, reflects Assyria's political and economic concerns in the 9th century BC. She compares the tree scene to modern pollination:

A United Nations study of date palm cultivation in the modern Near East and Africa, published in 1982,³⁸ provides a detailed account of modern date palm pollination techniques; the pollination techniques described there suggest that the ancient carvings not only depicted an actual agricultural process, but did so with remarkable accuracy. The study reports that one common method of pollinating date palms in the Near East is to cut a ripe male flower cluster, carry it up the female tree, and shake it over the female flowers to fertilize them, finally leaving sprigs of the male flower among the female flowers to ensure full fertilization.³⁹ The male flower clusters are oval in shape and bear a marked resemblance to the oval shape in the ancient carvings.
Water also plays a role in the process of pollination. When the male flowers have been collected ahead of time, they may grow dry and are then dipped in water to make them less fragile during pollination; if dried pollen is used instead, it is common practice to sprinkle water over the female flowers after dusting them to keep the pollen from blowing away before complete fertilization occurs.⁴⁰ In both cases, a bucket of water is part of the standard apparatus of date palm pollination.

³⁸ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Date Production and Protection with Special Reference to North Africa and the Near East, prepared by the Horticultural Crops Groups, Plant Production and Protection Division, based on the work of V. H. W. Dowson, FAO Plant Production and Protection Paper, no. 35 (Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1982).
³⁹ Ibid., p. 62.
⁴⁰ Ibid.

Trees, Kings, and Politics, pp. 14-15

Therefore according to this theory, the cone object held in the winged figures' right hand resembles a male date flower, which they are shaking over a female tree in order to fertilise it; the bucket held in their left hand is filled with water and used to aid the pollination. Since the figures are supernatural beings, this would mean that it is a depiction of the pollination process done at the divine level (or a ritual re-enactment of this), representing the gods' gift to mankind of abundant crops and a secure agricultural success.

Another perplexing feature of the tree is the network of wavy lines connecting the tree itself to its palmette arch. We are given an interpretation of these lines by Edith Porada (see E. Porada and S. Hare, The Great King, King of Assyria: Assyrian Reliefs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1945), who argues that they represent a bird's eye view of a network of irrigation canals. When we consider that irrigation canals were an important feature of Mesopotamian date palm groves, this argument appears plausible.

Now if the date palm pollination interpretation is correct, then it would, according to Porter, reflect Assyria's political and economic concerns. The idea is that date palms became so socially significant that they were elevated to a sacred status, and the tree scene then would show Assyria's dependence on agriculture for its economy; it would contain the political/religious message that the gods are securing Assyria's agricultural success.

Porter then points out that in later times Assyria depended more upon military campaigns and less on agriculture for its economy, which happened to correspond to a decline in the depiction of the tree scene, and an increase in the depiction of the king as conqueror, in the later Assyrian palaces.

[madness]

Criticism on the Date Palm Theory

Figures from The Assyrian Sacred Tree
Figure 1 - Wall relief of kings on either side of AST. Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (British Museum, ANE 124531).
Figure 2 - Wall relief of eagle-headed genies on either side of AST. Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (British Museum, ANE 124583).
Figure 4 - Photo of human hand holding dried date spathe. Garden at La Mortola, Riviera. (Tylor, 1890, pl. 2, fig. 5).
Figure 5 - Wall relief of genie holding 'cone.' Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (Tylor, 1890, pl. 2, fig. 6).
Figure 10 - Photo of male date palm blossoms drying in the sun next to a meter stick. Shahdad, Kerman, Iran. (FAO, United Nations; after Dowson, 1982, p. 61).
Figure 13 - Drawing of wall relief of embroidery on king's garments. Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (Perrot and Chipiez, t. 2, 1884, pl. 443).
Figure 14 - Wall relief detail of genie holding bucket with engraved image. Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (Brooklyn Museum, BM 55.147).
Figure 15 - Cylinder seal impression of kings and genies and 'pomegranate-type' AST. Aššurnasirpal II. Unexcavated (?). Perhaps found in a Neo-Assyrian temple in Tarbisu. (British Museum, ANE 89135).
Figure 22 - Drawing of wall relief of embroidery on king's garments. Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (Perrot and Chipiez, t. 2, 1884, pl. 444).
Figure 32 - Men splitting flower clusters from male palms into individual sprigs. Baghdad, 1930s. (Dowson, pt. 1, 1949, pl. 221, fig. 2).
Figure 33 - Man holding male date palm flower cluster. Middle East, 1935. (Danthine, 1937, pl. 2, 7).
Figure 34 - Men splitting flower clusters from male palms into individual sprigs. Baghdad, 1930s. (Dowson, pt. 1, 1949, pl. 223, fig. 1).

---

Mariana Giovino, in The Assyrian Sacred Tree, acknowledges in her introduction that she is presenting a biased discussion against the date palm pollination theory. Perhaps she is right to do so, as she points out the many flaws in the theory.

Here I will provide a summary of three main points that Giovino makes against the theory:

- The gesture of the winged figures towards non-tree objects, such as the king himself
- Alternative methods of date palm pollination
- The questionable identification of the cone object as a male flower cluster

Other points that she discusses:

- Distinction between the depictions of the sacred tree and normal date palms, especially when they both appear in the same scene
- Assyria's climate conditions may have been too cold for date palms, though concluding that we simply "do not know" what climatic conditions were like in ancient Assyria
- Textual and comparative visual materials show that the bucket (banduddû = "bucket") and cone (mullilu = "purification instrument") are used for purification, not pollination
- That it is no less plausible to identify the network of lines surrounding the tree as festooning ribbons rather than irrigation canals

Fertilising the king
The foundation for the most damaging argument against the theory was laid by George Rawlinson in 1864. He observed that the winged genies point the cone object towards the king and suggested that this represents an act of protection. Concerning the genies' gesture towards the king, Giovino questions:

If 'cone'-pointing is meant to be an act of pollination, one wonders why the genies are trying to pollinate royalty.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, p. 45

Theophilus Pinches also observed this problem when the cone is pointed at winged bulls:

Pinches believed that it was possible to interpret figs. 1-2 using Tylor's theory, but since he could not summarily extend that interpretation to scenes involving the bucket, 'cone' and winged bull, he found the theory generally untenable. It is a serious problem for Tylor's theory that all scenes involving genies, bucket and 'cones' cannot possibly be explained as depicting acts of artificial fertilization. This problem with the fertilization theory becomes apparent only when one realizes how often the genies point the 'cone' at any number of different unfertilizable objects.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, p. 78

Barbara Porter, in Trees, Kings, and Politics, seems to be unfazed by this, and even uses it to support the pollination theory. She suggests that (at least in the case of fig. 1) the king becomes a link between the gods and the tree; he is not literally being pollinated but metaphorically becomes the conduit through which the gods' abundance flows in order to reach Assyria.

Giovino points out that not only is this a problem when the cone object is pointed at non-tree objects, but also when it is pointed at different kinds of trees. In fig. 15, for instance, we see the pomegranate-type of tree; it makes no sense that the winged figures would attempt to pollinate a pomegranate tree this way. Regarding the cone-type of tree in figs. 13, 14 and 22:

[Léon Heuzey] also reiterated the observation concerning the king being an unsuitable subject for fertilization by genies; and the fact that if we take the 'cones' to be male date spadices, then by logical extension the AST-types seen in fig. 22 would represent male date palms, and surely we would not expect the genies to be artificially fertilizing a male tree. . . . These various examples serve to show how different compositions and different AST-types do not fit Tylor's theory.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, p. 79

Again Porter defends her position, and states that, in the Northwest Palace at Kalhu, it is only the small decorative variants of trees that raise questions about their identity as date palms, whereas the larger trees "are consistently presented as stylized date palms."

Branch-tying or shaking/sprinking?
A second argument against the theory concerns different possible methods of pollinating a date palm that may have been employed by the Mesopotamians. Although there are no known Mesopotamian texts that reveal any secrets, there happen to be ancient classical texts that shed some light here. Tylor, in order to support his theory, quoted from Herodotus, Histories, 1.193; Theophrastus, Historia Plantarum, 2.8.4; and Pliny, Natural History, 13.7.34-35.

His select use of these quotes, however, portrays a misleading picture: he ignores any description of alternative methods of pollination, such as Pliny's description of wind pollination; even more suspect is that the Herodotus passage that Tylor quoted does not support his theory but rather opposes it:

[Heuzey's] observation reveals another problem with Tylor's theory, which is that Herodotus' description of artificial fertilization is at odds with Tylor's idea that the genies 'sprinkled' the AST with pollen. Tylor had quoted from Herodotus, who described the branch-tying method of fertilization, and he had also quoted from Theophrastus, and Pliny to a lesser extent, who described the shaking or sprinkling method. It is convenient for Tylor to claim that the method described by Theophrastus and Pliny is the one illustrated in fig. 2. But we might think that Herodotus' description, which portrayed a method supposedly used in Babylonia, was the one used in Mesopotamia. Also, Herodotus wrote at a date chronologically closer to the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, so perhaps he had a better idea of the method used at that time in Mesopotamia versus other methods described later on. Without any certain knowledge of the specific technique or techniques used in Mesopotamia, the most we can say is that either the branch-tying and/or the shaking/sprinkling method could have been used. Heuzey correctly pointed out that Tylor's select use of texts to fit his own interpretation of fig. 2 is suspect.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, pp. 81-82

Even so, these classical descriptions are still too vague to give an accurate picture of ancient pollination. Perhaps modern pollination methods can give us a better idea:

Dowson and Popenoe record nineteenth- to twentieth-century hand-pollination practices, and their descriptions give us some idea of the possibilities we might keep in mind when thinking about ancient practices. The most popular technique recorded by the experts is the 'inserting/tying' technique (perhaps referred to by Herodotus). In figs. 32 and 34, the men pull the flower clusters apart, in preparation for their role in fertilizing the females' flowers. In fig. 34 we see numerous sprigs, which formerly made up entire intact flower clusters. It is an individual sprig or a bunch of sprigs, but not the entire intact cluster, that is used to fertilize the female: a sprig (or sprigs) is inserted into a female flower cluster and then tied to the female cluster to insure pollination.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, p. 105

The reason for separating individual sprigs from the main branch of the male spadix is that the pollen itself is a precious substance that must be used economically (the spadix has been considered a commodity since at least the twentieth century). One might well have shaken a sprig of a cluster over a female's flowers before inserting it and securing it to the female cluster. However, according to the technique used in the nineteenth to twentieth centuries, one did not shake an entire male cluster over the flowers of a female date palm, as that would be uneconomical. One might tie an entire intact male cluster onto a female date palm (which has put forth several sets of female flower clusters) for fertilization but only in those cases where there is an abundance of male trees. Herodotus' source may have been describing the process of tying an entire intact male cluster onto a female palm, or tying one sprig onto a single female cluster or a bunch of springs. In any case, the act of tying must have been thought significant to be included in Herodotus' general description.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, pp. 106-107

This stands in contrast to Porter's claim that "the [modern] pollination techniques described [by a U.N. study based on work by Dowson] suggest that the ancient carvings not only depicted an actual agricultural process, but did so with remarkable accuracy." Giovino states that Dowson "never recorded such a method" that Porter described.

The cone object and the date spathe
A third argument against the theory concerns the identification of the cone object held by the winged genies. Porter suggests that the male flower clusters seen in fig. 10 resembles the cone object. However, notice that there is a metre stick among the flower clusters, showing that they stand 1 foot to 1½ feet high. Giovino is not convinced:

The nineteenth- to twentieth-century flower cluster specimens from the Middle East that I have seen at Kew Gardens measure at least 1½ feet long, the flowers fanning out to a width of at least 6 inches. Proportionally speaking, these are much larger than a genie's hand-held 'cone.' To my eye, these look nothing like the Assyrian 'cones,' though to Porter's eye the comparison was convincing.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, p. 103

Tylor had compared male spadices to the cone object, such as in figs. 4 and 5. However the examples that he used came from a garden on the Italian Riviera just over the border from France, and they are quite small and uniform. Date palm spadices that come from more southerly latitudes, such as in fig. 10, are much larger and less uniform, and they do not resemble Tylor's examples. Giovino also points out the problem of how the genies hold the cone:

[The male date spadices such as in fig. 10] do not compare well with the conelike object held by the genies. Perhaps Tylor recognized this fact and therefore chose a photograph of someone holding an inflorescence at its mid-section, with the narrow end of the spathe obscured (fig. 4). Holding the inflorescence in this way, at its broadest point, is not the most natural or economical way of imparting pollen to a tree and does not in any case resemble the cupped gesture of the genies, since their palms are turned round behind, and their fingers are closed upon the objects they are holding. Tylor's photograph is very misleading.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, pp. 35-36

See especially figs. 32 and 33, which demonstrate the size of the spadices. Clearly they are far too large to fit in the palm of the hand.

[madness]

Simo Parpola's Theory

Figures from The Assyrian Tree of Life
Figure 2 - Triadic configurations of Nodes, Volutes, and Circles
Figure 5 - The Sefirotic Tree
Figure 7 - The reconstructed Tree
Figure 9 - The distribution of the mystic numbers
Figure 12 - Via Mystica in the Gilgamesh Epic

---

In 1993 Simo Parpola became the most controversial scholar in the field when he published 'The Assyrian Tree of Life' in JNES 52 no. 3. In his article he used medieval Jewish mystical writings, the Kabbalah, in order to explain the Assyrian tree.

The main points of the theory is that the tree represents:
- The king himself, as a "perfect man"
- The divine world order
- A monotheistic symbol showing all of the gods united as a single god, namely Aššur

He believes that "Mesopotamian esoteric lore has a remarkable parallel in Jewish Kabbalah . . . and so does the Assyrian Tree"; that the Sefirotic Tree of Life (in its most common form attested since the seventeenth century C.E.) is "a form which strikingly resembles the Assyrian Tree," with its nodes and circles (fig. 2) presented in a triadic structure similar to the Sefirotic Tree (fig. 5).

After having discussed this remarkable similarity, Parpola begins his endeavour:

I had for years considered the identity of the Assyrian and Sefirotic Trees an attractive but probably unprovable hypothesis, until it finally occurred to me that there is a way of proving or rejecting it. For if the Sefirotic Tree really is but an adaptation of a Mesopotamian model, the adaptation process should be reversible, that is, it should be possible to reconstruct the original model without difficulty.

The Assyrian Tree of Life, p. 176

This reconstruction process is quite simple. For each Sefirot, Parpola equated it with a Mesopotamian god that fits its functions and attributes. Compare fig. 5 with fig. 7. He then filled in their mystical numbers, as fig. 9 shows.

Symmetry, balance, and harmony of the Tree
Once this was done, Parpola felt that he was "on the verge of a major discovery." His reconstructed tree appears to have a harmony that could not have come about by chance. It contains a structure that reflects Assyrian god lists, with generational triads of gods (Ea-Marduk-Nabu, Sin-Šamaš-Adad), the heaven god at the top, the netherworld king at the bottom, and the goddess Ištar as the heart of the whole system. What is especially intriguing is the numerical harmony of the tree:

The numbers on the left and right pillars are full tens, arranged in descending order, but the numbers on the middle pillar are not. So first the numbers from the middle are added up, 1 + 14 + 15, to get 30.

The numbers of the left and right pillars can then be compared. "According to the polar system of oppositions governing the Tree" (of Kabbalistic theory) the numbers on the left are negative and the numbers on the right are positive, meaning that the left is subtracted from the right. In each case (60 – 30 = 30; 50 – 20 = 30; 40 – 10 = 30) the result is 30. In adding up these three thirties, plus the thirty that is derived from the middle pillar, we have 120.

All of the numbers of the tree are then added up (1 + 14 + 15 + 10 + 20 + 30 + 40 + 50 + 60) to get 240. Add this 240 to the 120 and we end up with 360, "the number of days in the Assyrian cultic year and the circumference of the universe expressed in degrees." Furthermore, if the final number 360 is multiplied by the number of gods on the tree (10 including Mummu/Daat) we have 3600, the number of totality and perfection.

Parpola does not believe that this is all a coincidence; he considers it to be "mathematical proof of the correctness of the reconstruction."

Application to Mesopotamian religion
Parpola explains that the beginning of the Enuma Eliš epic not only describes the birth of the gods in a way that resembles the structure of his reconstructed Tree, but does so by means of a mathematical process. He compares the emergence of the primordial deities to Kabbalistic and Neoplatonic metaphysics:

When the primordial state of undifferentiated unity (Apsu + Mummu + Tiamat, "±0"), in which nothing existed, came to an end, nothingness was replaced by the binary system of oppositions (Lahmu and Lahamu) and the infinite universe (Anšar = Aššur) with its negative counterpart (Kišar). Aššur emanated Heaven (Anu) as his primary manifestation, to mirror his existence to the world.

The Assyrian Tree of Life, p. 191

Anu then begot Ea in "his likeness." Parpola reasons that "this can only be a reference to the fact that the mystic numbers of these two gods, 1 and 60, were written with the same sign." He continues with the mathematical process:

Lines 21–24 of Tablet I of Enūma eliš seem to describe the "birth" of the mystic number of Sin which can be derived from the number of Ea by simply dividing it by two. The irritation of Apsu caused by this play with numbers and the subsequent killing of Apsu and "leashing" of Mummu (lines 29–72) seem to be an etiology for the emanation of the third number and the establishment of the places of Ea and Mummu in the Tree diagram. The "birth" of Marduk, the next god in the diagram, is described in the following lines as expected. Marduk's mystic number, like the numbers of all the remaining gods, can be derived from the preceding numbers by simple arithmetical operations.

The Assyrian Tree of Life, p. 192

These simple arithmetical operations are:
Marduk: 60 – 30 ÷ 3 = 50
Šamaš: 60 ÷ 3 = 20
Ištar: 60 ÷ 4 = 15
Nabu/Ninurta: 60 - 60 ÷ 3 (or 2 x 20) = 40
Adad: 60 ÷ 6 = 10
Nergal: 15 - 1 (or 2 x 7) = 14

Parpola then analyses the Epic of Gilgamesh "through Kabbalistic glasses": whereas Enuma Eliš represents the birth of the Tree from the top down, the Epic of Gilgamesh represents a spiritual ascension of the Tree from the bottom up, following the pattern of his reconstructed Tree.

Fig. 12 and note 121 from his article demonstrates this view:

The codes for the individual gods are as follows:
Tablet I (Nergal): the strength, animal drive, and sexual potency of Gilgamesh; the strength and animal characteristics of Enkidu, his life on the steppe (a synonym of the netherworld), his association with gazelles and the cattle god Šakkan, his instinctive behaviour and instantaneous fall to temptation by the whore, as well as the length of the coitus (6 days and 7 nights), which ended only barely before it would have completed the number of Nergal (14);
Tablet IV (Adad and Girru): the repeated dream oracles received by Gilgamesh; the thunderstorm, fire, lightning, and bull (Adad's sacred animal) seen in the dreams; the voice calling from heaven; the fear striking the travelers;
Tablet V (Ninurta and Nabû): the slaying of Humbaba, described in terms resembling Ninurta's battle with Anzû and referred to as "triumph" in Tablet II;
Tablet VI (Ištar): the word dumqu "beauty" in line 6, Ištar's love affairs recounted, etc.;
Tablet VII (Šamaš): the divine court of justice, the harsh judgment passed on Enkidu, Enkidu's appeal to Šamaš;
Tablet VIII (Marduk): Gilgamesh's emotion and compassion for Enkidu, pervading the whole tablet; the magnificence of Enkidu's funeral;
Tablet IX (Mummu): penetration into the Garden of Knowledge;
Tablet X (Sin): the counsels of wisdom given to Gilgamesh, the role of the boat (cf. moon's barge), Utnapishtim's reflection and pondering. Note also the assonance of Siduri to Sin; Siduri, "the Ištar of wisdom" (Šurpu II 173), is here portrayed, through her veiling, as the daughter-in-law of Ea, the god of wisdom;
Tablet XI (Ea): the divine secrets revealed to Gilgamesh, the role of Ea in rescuing Utnapistim and granting him eternal life, the plant of life fetched from the Apsu;
Tablet XII (Anu): reunion with Enkidu.

The Assyrian Tree of Life, p. 193, n. 121

[madness]

Criticism on Simo Parpola's Theory

In 1996 Jack M. Sasson held a panel discussion [See (96-102): here] about Simo Parpola's theory on the Assyrian tree. It had been originally intended that the discussion would be published, but this never materialised.

The only essays to be published from this discussion, by Jerrold S. Cooper (JAOS 120 no. 3) and Barbara N. Porter (Trees, Kings, and Politics pp. 21-29), are summarised below [if anyone knows if any of the other papers have been published, please let us know].


[Many thanks to us4-he2-gal2 for summarising Cooper's article for us]

Jerrold S. Cooper
Assyrian Prophecies, the Assyrian Tree, and the Mesopotamian Origins of Jewish Monotheism, Greek Philosophy, Christian Theology, Gnosticism, and Much More
Journal of the American Oriental Society 120 no. 3

The Assyrian tree
Cooper here agrees with Parpola's assessment of the importance of the Assyrian tree, but takes issue with the assertion that the "almost total lack of relevant textual evidence" concerning the Tree, would in itself imply that the symbolism of the Tree was esoteric doctrine. He counters this assertion by noting the frequent difficulty in finding textual reference to Mesopotamian iconographic items, therefore that this difficulty does not reflect to what degree an object was considered esoteric. Also Cooper relates "there is absolutely no indication that the ancients were reluctant to write down anything, no matter how sacred or how secret." A text may be marked nisirtu, pirištu "secret".

Cooper continues: "Having established the Assyrian Tree's importance, and assuming that the lack of textual evidence for the Tree shows just how important and esoteric it was, Parpola next introduced the medieval Jewish kabbalistic Sefirotic Tree, "a form which strikingly resembles the Assyrian tree." Does it? The resemblance of the tree in fig.1 to the trees of Assurnasirpal and Shalmaneser (e.g. fig.2) is neither "striking" nor "remarkable" to me; nor is the resemblance particularly increased by substituting any of the more schematic glyptic variants of the Assyrian Tree (fig.3); nor do variant forms of the Sefirotic Tree set beside "similar" Assyrian trees bring the resemblance home for this viewer (fig. 4). I. J Gelb long ago warned us against being seduced by the formal resemblance of symbols.

Cooper addresses Parpolas argument for Symbolic similarity between Assyrian and Sefirotic Trees
Parpola investigated the roots of Kabbala in the Babylonian Jewish population, and found it a likelihood that the Sefirotic tree goes back to an ancient Mesopotamian model, the Assyrian tree. However he encountered a lack of textual evidence. Cooper relates "to get around the stumbling block of unprovability, he reasoned that "if the Sefirotic Tree really is but an adaptation of a Mesopotamian model, the adaptation process should be reversible, that is, it should be possible to reconstruct the original model without difficulty." This reconstructed original, he continued, would then be proof of the derivation of the Sefiotic Tree from the Assyrian. But why this theoretical reversibility should prove the proposition was nowhere explained...Rather, the flawed logic was simply repeated throughout: if a Mesopotamian phenomenon can be interpreted kabbalisticaly, then the kabbalistic ideas used to interpret it must have been part of and derived from Mesopotamian theology."

On Parpola's construction of a Mesopotamian Sefirotic tree, the reviewer finds this problematic as well. His assigning of mystic numbers is questionable given that there are "often several numbers attested for a given Mesopotamian god, and certain gods may share numbers." Cooper's skepticism is particularly apparent when reflecting on Marduk/Enlil association here with "Mercy" and when he reflects on Parpola's statement "practically all of the Assyro-Babylonian pantheon figure in the diagram, except Assur." To which Cooper comments "But all the great gods are there because he put them there -he might have picked lesser deities for some of the slots- and Assur is missing because he did not put him there. There are certainly several slots where Assur might have gone." He further asserts the inclusion of Šakkan on the bottom node ('not a great god') was to facilitate Parpola's explanation of the Gilgamesh Epic using the tree.

Further critic follows under the headings
"The Revised Model"
"Assyrian Monotheism"
"Ištar: The Holy Spirit?"
"Assyrian Prophets and Prophecies"
"Rhetoric and Discourse"


Barbara N. Porter
The Meaning of the Assyrian Tree Image: Iconographic Evidence
in Trees, Kings, and Politics
Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 197

Porter's essay is a critical review of the iconographic aspects of Parpola's theory. After pointing out that Parpola does not comment on the "consistent emphasis in [the palace of Assurnasirpal II] on elements that link the stylized tree to date palms" she repeats her date palm pollination arguments from her JNES 52 article for most of her essay.

On Parpola's idea that the tree represents the Assyrian king himself as a "perfect man" she remarks that if it really did have this important meaning, then why did depictions of the tree lose its prominence and almost completely disappear from later palaces?

Parpola considered that the gesture of the winged figures towards the king instead of the tree shows that the king is to be identified with the tree. Porter finds problems with this interpretation:

In many carvings from Assurnasirpal's palace, the king did indeed replace the tree as the object of the winged figures' gesture - but so did his courtiers and anyone else who passed through the doorways of the palace toward which the winged figures extended their bumpy oval objects. Are we to conclude that all the people who went through these doors were identified with both king and tree? Probably not. It seems more reasonable to conclude that king, tree, and visitors to the palace were all understood to be recipients of the same divine protection and blessing, expressed in a gesture that originally represented the bestowal of agricultural fruitfulness, and by extension, the bestowal of an abundant and secure life. These images do not imply that the king was identified with the stylized tree.

Trees, Kings, and Politics, p. 28

---

In September of 1997 Barbara Porter held a conference at the Casco Bay Assyriological Institute dealing with monotheism in ancient religions. The conference involved:

John Baines
Stephen A. Geller
Simo Parpola
H. S. Versnel
Barbara Nevling Porter

The papers submitted to the conference, and its resulting discussions, are published in:

Barbara N. Porter
One God or Many? Concepts of Divinity in the Ancient World
Transactions of the Casco Bay Assyriological Institute 1

During the discussions, Parpola was questioned about his reconstructed tree:

On How the "Assyrian Tree Diagram" of Parpola's Theory Might Have Been Created:

VERSNEL (to PARPOLA): You see the whole model you present as "firmly rooted in a complex but internally coherent doctrinal system" ...that they constructed, a theology of an esoteric nature that was an elite construction [expressed in the tree diagram].... You give an interpretation of the tree as having three functions: to represent (1) the social and hierarchical situation of the divine council, the gods; (2) their familial relationships; and (3) their numerical relationships... These three systems of relationships are preexisting.... How could it possibly be that three complex, different, preexisting systems could enter one system and still work?
GELLER: It's too neat.
PARPOLA: Let me put it this way. There is a divine council; it is attested very early, about the third millennium. The genealogical relationships are attested early, but are adjusted for Assyrian purposes to fit the tree. The emergence of the tree symbol in visual arts coincides with the emergence of mystic numbers in the texts...and happens at the same time as the emergence of the Middle Assyrian empire. I cannot escape the conclusion that this is the creation of some wise man close to the king....
VERSNEL: They inherited a numerical system that was not made up to fit the diagram, but existed previously?
PARPOLA: Yes, the numerical system was not devised to yield a tree but had come into existence a different way.
VERSNEL: That's what I mean. How could they all fit together? The one was a momentaneous picture of the earthly council at a particular time, the other had originated much earlier, then all of a sudden, bing! they all coalesce neatly....
PARPOLA: They do fit because you can make such a diagram. But to make the diagram, they had to invent some numbers. The number of Nergal didn't exist before. It's new.... These genealogical relationships are well attested for Mesopotamia, but there are other relationships.
VERSNEL: So this is a choice out of possible relationships?
PARPOLA: These are not my choice; ok, if I have chosen, I have chosen those that are firmly attested for the Assyrian period.

One God or Many, pp. 340-341

---

Interestingly, positive criticism of Parpola's work has come by the way of scholars of Jewish mysticism.

At the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, Ithamar Gruenwald gave a lecture titled "Is Simo Parpola Crazy?" An enlarged and updated version of the lecture is available in the published proceedings.

Ithamar Gruenwald
'"How Much Qabbalah in Ancient Assyria?" - Methodological Reflections on the Study of a Cross-Cultural Phenomenon'
in S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting (eds.), Assyria 1995

Gruenwald answers the question that is on everyone's mind - is Simo Parpola crazy?

Contrary to what we may expect, the word is not always used in a negative sense. Thus, in the 1990 edition of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, the entry "crazy" receives these definitions: "1 colloq. (of a person, an action, etc.) insane or mad; foolish. 2 colloq. (usu. foll. by about) extremely enthusiastic. 3 sl. a exciting, unrestrained. b excellent. 4 (attrib.) (of paving, a quilt, etc.) made of irregular pieces fitted together...." Thus, even when we answer our question in the affirmative, no insult is necessarily implied. Simo Parpola evidently did things that, in the words of the Dictionary, are "exciting" and "excellent." In my view of the matter, his reconstructions are, once again in the words of the Dictionary, "made of irregular pieces fitted together." If his recent publications look, in the words of the Dictionary, "unrestrained," this can well be interpreted as being indicative of Parpola's extraordinary creativity and innovative positions.

Assyria 1995, p. 116

Scholars tend to follow routine procedures of interpretation, depending on routine ways of thinking, reporting the dry facts and restraining their imagination and creativity in order to avoid "anti-historical" adventures. Problems with these routine procedures become apparent, however, when the religious language and iconographic materials contain encoded messages. Gruenwald asks the questions:

1. Is there a way of going beyond the ordinary procedures of studying the facts of the past and gaining knowledge about them to their actual reconstruction? How can this act of reconstructing the past be accomplished? Usually, scholars rely on written and other documentary materials so as to accomplish that end. However, in recent historical studies, another question comes up:

2. How is the reliability of these documentary materials assessed and is there a way of getting beyond them? Reliability is here viewed not in the sense of factual trustworthiness, but in the sense of depicting the true and full spirit of the facts in question. Filming the performance of a certain ritual practice can reproduce the behavioral gestures of the people involved, but never the full spirit and structural meaning or function of the performed ritual. If this is true of contemporary events, it is all the more so when scholars have to rely on textual evidence and artistic representations of past events. The customary study of the past can be likened to taking individual pictures of an ongoing process. Sequence, dynamics and nuances are always skipped in such a procedure. Filming the events brings us closer to the desired notions of sequence and nuancing. However, the meaning and the sense of "structure" – that is, the inner grammar – is still missing, unless someone provides the necessary informative details.

Assyria 1995, p. 117

The live spirit and true nature of events is the most important factor in the reconstruction of the past. In order to present the full spirit Parpola has, using his scholarly intuition, applied a comparative method and interpreted ancient materials on the basis of medieval ones. The reason for this reversal of the natural sequence of historical development is that the snapshots of Assyrian religion that we have are not enough to give a satisfactory interpretation, and that the answer may lie in the historical subconscious.

Gruenwald states that Parpola has "made significant contributions to the study of the pre-history of medieval Jewish mysticism." The study of this pre-history is still in its formal beginnings, and indeed "the emergence of the Qabbalah at the end of the twelfth century is still a mystery." Parpola's work may well help to solve some riddles here.

Without going into details, it can be safely said that there is a lot in Jewish spirituality in general, and in Qabbalah, in particular, that can corroborate Parpola's thesis and work. From the perspective of Jewish mysticism, Parpola's conclusions can be much more assertively stated than he attempted to do himself!

Assyria 1995, p. 122

[madness]

Cult Object Theory

Figures from The Assyrian Sacred Tree
Figure 1 - Wall relief of kings on either side of AST. Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (British Museum, ANE 124531).
Figure 2 - Wall relief of eagle-headed genies on either side of AST. Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (British Museum, ANE 124583).
Figure 49 - Drawing of AST and kings in our fig. 1. Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (Detail after Layard, Monuments 1, 1849, pl. 25).
Figure 50 - Drawing of relief of canopied structure in a military camp. Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (Perrot and Chipiez, t. 2, 1884, fig. 67; British Museum, ANE 124548).
Figure 61 - Drawing of cylinder seal impression with 'arch-and-net' AST and worshipper. Neo-Assyrian period. (Ward, 1910, fig. 686; Metropolitan Museum, Ward 686).
Figure 62 - Drawing of cylinder seal impression of 'arch-and-net' AST and worshipper. Neo-Assyrian period. Impressed onto tablets found at Susa. (Ward, 1910, fig. 690; Harvard Semitic Museum, Sem. 1356).
Figure 63 - Red-figure vase painting of Orestes embracing the omphalos in Zeus' temple at Delphi. 4th century BC. (Roscher, 1913, Taf. 3, 2; Naples Museo Nazionale, Nap. 3249).
Figure 64 - Marble omphalos. Apollo temple, Delphi. 5th-4th century BC. (Delphi Museum, Del. 24749).
Figure 67 (Photo and Drawing) - Photo and drawing of bronze double-crescent binding. Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (British Museum, ANE 119429) (Perrot and Chipiez, t. 2, 1884, fig. 388).
Figure 68 - Detail of four bronze double-volute bindings. Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (British Museum, ANE N 710, N 420, N 421, N 423).
Figure 69a (Photo and Drawing) - Photo and drawing of relief of Aššurnasirpal II enthroned. Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud. (British Museum, ANE 124565; drawing from Layard, Monuments 1, 1849, pl. 5).
Figure 69b - Victorian-era reconstructed throne (now disassembled). Aššurnasirpal II; Nimrud (for throne reconstruction see von Luschan, 1912, Abb. 5).
Figure 72 - Drawing of iron helmet with bronze inlay of royalty enclosed in a niche. Neo-Assyrian period; Nimrud. (Dezsö and Curtis, 1991, p. 123, fig. 21; British Museum, ANE 22496).
Figure 73 - Place's reconstruction of two poles encased in bronze sheathing embossed with palm trunk imbrications. Reconstruction of entrance to Sîn Temple, Khorsabad. Sargon II. (Perrot and Chipiez, t. 2, 1884, fig. 197).
Figure 74 (Photo and Drawing) - Photo and drawing of relief of throne decorated with ASTs. Sargon II; Khorsabad. (For photo see Basmachi, 1975-76, no. 138; drawing after Hrouda, 1965, Taf. 16, 3; Iraq Museum, IM 18629).
Figure 86 - Drawing of most recent reconstruction of baked clay brick relief of bull-man and date palm. Shilhak-Inshushinak; Susa. (For photo see Harper et al., 1992, cat. no. 88; Musée du Louvre, Sb 14390-91, 19575-77).
Figure 88 - Reconstruction of mosaic column. ED III period; al-'Ubaid. (Hall and Woolley, 1927, pl. 34, 3).
Figure 89 - Recovered mosaic column. ED III period; al-'Ubaid. (Hall and Woolley, 1927, pl. 35, 7; British Museum, ANE 115328, and University Museum, Philadelphia, Phil B15887).
Figure 91 - Plan of columns from 'Pillar Hall.' Jemdat Nasr period; Uruk. (Nöldeke et al., 1932, Taf. 7).
Figure 99 - Cylinder seal impression and drawing showing 'rosette-type' AST. Neo-Babylonian period. (Von der Osten, 1936, pl. XI, fig. 129; formerly Brett Coll., Brett 129).
Figure 103 (Photo and Drawing) - Photo and drawing of bronze 'standard' top. Neo-Assyrian period; Aššur. (Vorderasiatisches Museum, VA Ass. 10400; drawing from Andrae, 1933, Abb. 34).
Figure 104 (Photo and Drawing) - Photo and drawing of mirror with 'palmette-type' AST enamelled handle. Neo-Assyrian period; Nimrud. (For photo see Hussein and Suleiman, 2000, no. 40; Iraq Museum, IM 115469).

---

The alleged sacred tree of the Assyrians . . . does not deserve to be called a tree at all. It looks more like a piece of furniture fitted together . . .

Alois Riegl, 1893, trans. E. Kain, 1992, pp. 94-95

The Assyrian tree can be compared to other ancient cult objects, such as the maypole, the wooden ashêrah, the Egyptian djed pillar, and the Greek omphalos.

The philologist Heinrich Zimmern believed that there was an etymological relationship between Hebrew ashêrah and Akkadian aširtu. The term aširtu normally refers to a cult cella, and Zimmern, based on additional comparisons with Hittite usage of the word, claimed that the word also meant a wooden cultic post, and also as the name of a goddess (as a personification of the cult object).

Birger Pering applied Zimmern's interpretations and furthermore, seeing the Assyrian tree as the place linking heaven and earth, compared it to the Greek omphalos:

Pering regarded the AST appearing in fig. 61 as resembling more an omphalos than a tree. When we compare painted and sculpted examples of the omphalos seen in figs. 63-64 with the cylinders seen in figs. 61-62, we note that the most obvious similarity shared between the omphalos and this particular AST-type is the ovoid shape decorated with netting. Although the philologist Arent Wensinck had already suggested a close formal relationship between the omphalos and trees appearing in ancient Near Eastern art, Pering was the first to see the AST as the omphalos itself, as an actual object.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, pp. 150-151

Walter Andrae used Pering's idea, but in also considering the relationship between the winged disk, the tree, and the genie/animal/monarch figures, he understood the Assyrian tree as "a representation of the connecting element between heaven and earth that ultimately symbolized humankind." Andrae also saw the Assyrian tree as being one stage removed from the Greek Ionic column:

Between the reed plant images and the Ionic column, Andrae saw a series of different symbols, each having developed out of the last. So, for example, he believed that images of reed plants were eventually transformed into the Mesopotamian 'ring-post' symbol, which was in turn transformed into the Mesopotamian 'ring-staff' symbol, then the Mesopotamian 'rod with balls' symbol, and finally the AST symbol, before becoming the Ionic column. In tracing the form of the AST back to reed plants, Andrae argued that although the AST ultimately found its source in nature, its final form was far from mirroring an actual tree.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, p. 152

Tree Components
During his excavations of Nimrud, Austen Henry Layard found three-dimensional bronze 'binding' elements (figs. 67 and 68), now in the British Museum. Layard believed these to be elements used in furniture, such as on the cross-bar of a throne (e.g. throne of Aššurnasirpal II in fig. 69a). A reconstruction of a throne demonstrating the binding elements is shown in fig. 69b (however this reconstruction was determined to be inaccurate and has been disassembled). Other scholars, beginning with Alois Riegl, have compared the binding elements to that appearing on the Assyrian tree, notably Samuel Paley who in 1976 criticised and almost put an end to the cult object theory, yet also

acknowledged the close visual parallels between the AST and a piece of furniture, that is, Aššurnasirpal II's throne depicted in relief (fig. 69a). Although Paley quickly dismissed any parallel between 'trees' and thrones as meaningless, he unwittingly reintroduced Riegl's concept, which is useful for visualizing the AST as a cult object. . . . The idea that the AST had been constructed using pieces like those seen on Assyrian thrones is a useful one, as it encourages us to consider the separate components of these so-called trees in detail. If the AST was built like a piece of cult furniture, we might then expect the building materials and configuration of the AST to match those of other known pieces of furniture, such as thrones, or perhaps poles used for support in architectural constructions.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, p. 160

In analysing the binding elements that appear furniture, poles and the Assyrian tree, Helmut Kyrieleis determined that:

(1) the double-volute binding element is horizontal in construction, appearing mainly on support cross-beams of furniture, and (2) the double-crescent binding element is vertical in construction, appearing mainly on the front of poles and ASTs. He also noted that the double-crescent binding element is the only binding type to appear on poles and ASTs.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, p. 170

This is most clearly demonstrated in fig. 74, where two men are carrying a decorated throne, with the horizontal binding elements on the cross-bar of the throne appearing as double-volutes, and the vertical binding elements on the tree decorations of the throne appearing as double-crescents. But more intriguing is that we would expect this to be a scene representing a three-dimensional throne - the tree decorations would therefore also be three-dimensional!

Considering the separate components of the tree, then, we can compare them to those that appear elsewhere. The inverted chevron design that appears on the trunk of the tree also appears on poles supporting a royal canopy as in fig. 50 (compare to fig. 49). The ridged crescents at the top of the poles also match those on the tree. The decorated arches that appear around the Assyrian tree also appears in other contexts, such as the iron helmet in fig. 72. Giovino explains:

The presence of such decorated niches, in different contexts, may indicate a demarcation of space, within which, or in front of which, objects, statues or people once stood. Perhaps the decorated niche on the helmet represents an actual niche set into a wall whose outside perimeter has been decorated. Or perhaps it represents a two-dimensional niche that decorated a wall and in front of which people and objects stood. Or it could represent a three-dimensional freestanding unit, under which people and objects stood. All these possibilities, when applied to the AST seen in Aššurnasirpal's palace, encourage us to think about the AST as a piece of cult furniture, as something that could be set up and, when necessary, taken down and stored.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, p. 162

We can also get a better understanding of the function of the winged genies, the Apkallu, if they are analysed as a separate component to the tree (instead of depending on it as per the date-palm theory). The Apkallu appear in textual and comparative visual material performing acts of purification or protection. They hold in one hand a banduddû bucket filled with water, and in the other hand a mullilu "purification instrument." F.A.M. Wiggermann has identified the mullilu with a fir-cone (terinnu), which is also a textually attested instrument used for purification. But how would a fir-cone be used for this purpose? Giovino explains that it is very effective for such practical purposes, in a manner similar to the use of the aspergillum in modern religious ceremonies:

It may seem odd that a pine cone should have been used as a purification instrument, but if you try dipping an open cone in water and then flicking your hand, you will find that it projects a neat cylinder of liquid in a very successful way.

Assyrian Trees as Cult Objects, p. 114

Archaeological Evidence
The Neo-Assyrian royal city of Khorsabad was excavated by Victor Place and Gordon Loud, and their findings include a wooden pole decorated with metal bands outside the Šamaš temple, and metal encased wooden poles outside the Sin temple. Fig. 73 shows Place's arbitrary restoration with the poles as trees; Loud also initially considered the poles to be trees, but since there was no archaeological justification for this he later changed his interpretation to decorated standards.

During the excavations of Susa, Jacques de Morgan and Roland de Mecquenem uncovered much more promising archaeological material in a deposit near the Inšušinak temple on the 'Acropole' mound, dated to the thirteenth to twelfth centuries BC. Various large bronze leaves and branches, bronze nails, and gold, silver and bronze sheeting; these items could conceivably have been nailed to a wooden pole. In fact, molded brick reliefs associated with another temple dedicated to Inšušinak at Susa appear to confirm this (fig. 86), as the spiky palm fronds at the top of the tree in the brick reliefs are very similar to the bronze palm fronds found at the Acropole.

The idea of placing artificial trees or treelike poles at temple entrances (such as at the Sîn temple at Khorsabad), or placing artificial trees across the facade of a temple (such as at the Inshushinak temple at Susa), appears to have had a history extending from the third millennium BC in Mesopotamia. Several examples from the third to second millennium serve to illustrate this tradition.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, p. 182

The first such early example comes from the Ninhursag temple at Tell al-'Ubaid (an Early Dynastic III site, c. 2600-2300 BC). The site was excavated by H. R. Hall and Leonard Woolley who found two types of decorated columns, one type sheathed in copper, the other inlaid with triangular tesserae of red sandstone, black bituminous limestone, and mother of pearl (figs. 88 and 89), a geometric pattern that resembles palm trunk imbrications, like the triangle design of the Susa brick relief.

An even earlier example comes from the Eanna precinct at Uruk (Jemdet Nasr period, c. 3200-2900 BC), which contained a ziggurat dedicated to Inana, and a broad area of courtyards and terraces. Within this layout was the 'Pillar Hall' containing a double row of freestanding columns, and engaged half-columns at either end. These columns were decorated with a mosaic of multicoloured terracotta cones (fig. 91), containing triangular patterns that may have been inspired by imbricated tree trunks.

The fortified entrance to the Ekišnugal (Sin's sanctuary), probably built during the reign of Warad-Sîn (Old Babylonian period), contained two mudbrick columns fashioned as palm trunks, with the mudbrick wall extending from the entrance made up of engaged columns and niches that imitated palm logs. Again, the imbrications on the entrance columns closely match the Susa brick relief. Examples of mudbrick columns with palm trunk designs were also found at Tell al-Rimah and Tell Leilan in northern Mesopotamia.

Turning to a different kind of tree, the rosette or sun-type tree (e.g. fig. 99), the remains of an actual cult object of this type has been recovered (fig. 103), found at Aššur by Walter Andrae. He interpreted it as a standard top, however there is an attachment point at the top of the object as well as at the bottom, which betrays this interpretation. A possible solution is that there was once another object fixed to the top of the rosette, such as a mirror; fig. 104 demonstrates this with a precious item found in one of the queens' graves at Nimrud, a metal sheet mirror attached to the head of a palmette. On the other hand, Andrae's concept might be supported by the Khinnis/Bavian rock relief, which shows a female deity (probably Mulissu) holding a standard topped with a palmette/pomegranate tree.

Giovino concludes her book with a discussion of the kiškānû, a kind of tree that appears to have been connected to temples. This is demonstrated in Sumerian texts written during the reign of Rīm-Sîn (successor to Warad-Sîn) which describe kiškānûs as part of the Ekišnugal (the sanctuary with mudbrick palm imitations, discussed above). During Rīm-Sîn's visit to the Ekišnugal he is greeted by magnificent kiškānû trees and guardian gods that decorate the doorway leading to the abzu (see ETCSL 2.6.9.6). These kiškānû trees may have been artificial and made up of metal, as two Bogazköy texts relay, or they may have been actual trees.

Finally, Giovino provides some tentative working conjectures as a plan of action for future studies:

(1) It seems quite possible that the AST-image is an accurate representation of a cult object.
(2) This cult object was perhaps set up in the sanctuary of a temple in Aššur, and replicas may have been set up elsewhere.
(3) Similar but not identical objects may have been placed in the sanctuaries of temples across Assyria.
(4) The object depicted in figs. 1-2 may have denoted Aššur; related types may have denoted other deities (e.g., the Khinnis/Bavian AST-type may have denoted Mulissu, Aššur's consort).
(5) The objects may have represented trees.
(6) Whether or not they represented trees, they were possibly considered as substitutes for gods.
(7) These objects may have received sacrifices and prayers and undergone purification rituals.
(8) As with other kinds of cult statues in the ancient Near East and elsewhere, the AST-object may have taken on sacred power in its own right.

The Assyrian Sacred Tree, p. 201

[amarsin]

I humorously-titled talk (given before I began grad school) was "'Is Simo Parpola Crazy?' An Answer from the Perspective of the Study of Jewish Mysticism":

Contrary to some joking comments, it was not the shortest lecture ever given, requiring merely a three letter, single word answer. The lecture referred to Prof. Parpola’s recent work which compares the Assyrian Tree of Life to the medieval Jewish Kabbalah, and suggests, amongst other ideas, a direct line of descent from Assyrian religion through Judaism into Christianity, finding the concept of a messianic figure or “saviour god” in Assyrian religion. Though Prof. Gruenwald, an expert in Jewish mysticism, admits there is much work to do, he believes that Prof. Parpola’s creative, remarkable and risk-taking study has “cracked open” a very long-standing mystery, i.e. the origin of the Kabbalah.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Thanks for the links! ;] Its very enjoyable to review the functions of the scholarly world ;] Im reviewing Parpola's JNES 1993 Madness - this article is huge! (I am truly in awe of what the author has termed his "footnote appartus")

By the way, I dont know what redundancy it may have with your first listed resource, but have you seen

Sacred Trees, Date Palms, and the Royal Persona of Ashurnasirpal II
Barbara Nevling Porter
Journal of Near Eastern Studies > Vol. 52, No. 2

?

[saharda]

To me it looks like a lattice work needed to grow cucumbers. The cones that the Eagle Djinn are holding look like cucumbers that are freshly picked and with the ridges still on. Their holy water buckets look like baskets for placing said cucumbers. I'm not saying that this is what it is. What I am saying is that you can see whatever you like if you look hard enough.

[saharda]

I would like to defend the fertilization theory in regards to "fertilizing" the king and the bull. If one were to see the king as symbolizing fertility and the same with the bull, then pointing the cones towards him could be a symbol of a divine gift of fertility. I am not sure, but I think that the divine parent way of looking at ones descent continued into Assyria (The Sumerians often traced lineage along three lines. We have notes of them calling the sister of their personal god their aunt for example.) This therefore could be a powerful fertility spirit acting through the king or the bull as a manifestation of their fertility.

From a more human point of view this could be the king announcing his divine fertility. He is pure and fertile. If sweet water holds the same connotations that it did in Sumer, this could also be a fertility symbol.

[saharda]

A few things I really do not see. The link to Jewish mysticism is tenuous. We know when it originated, and that was the middle ages. attempting to connect it to ancient practices is an attempt to legitimize it on the basis that older things are better.

I also don't see irrigation canals. those lines go over and under each other. They really look more like vines than anything else. Again, I think that the date palm idea is a decent one, but the lines really aren't irrigation canals.

[madness]

In regards to the picking of cucumbers from the trees, that is not altogether a bad interpretation, and in fact similar ideas about fruit-picking have been suggested since the nineteenth century, especially considering this Middle Assyrian cylinder seal:

img260.imageshack.us/my.php?image=26ks5.jpg

Where the genie appears to be bending a stem as if to break it off, with his foot on the base of the tree in order to secure his hold. However the main problem with seeing this as a scene of fruit-picking is that the genie here is holding a palm frond, not fruit.


attempting to connect it to ancient practices is an attempt to legitimize it on the basis that older things are better

Parpola explains that "the emergence of Kabbalah as a doctrinal structure can now be reliably traced to the first century A.D. [if not earlier]" (and refers the reader to Idel, Kabbalah, pp. 30 ff.). He furthermore states that "The renowned rabbinical schools of Babylonia were the major centers from which the Kabbalistic doctrines spread to Europe during the high Middle Ages . . . given the fact that [the Sefirotic Tree] seems to have originated on Babylonian soil, the likelihood that it is based on a Mesopotamian model appears considerable. As a matter of fact, a number of central Kabbalistic doctrines, such as the location of the Throne of God in the Middle Heaven, are explicitly attested in Mesopotamian esoteric texts."

There are many examples of Jewish cultural borrowings from Mesopotamia, leading Parpola to contend that this also includes the Kabbalah.


I also don't see irrigation canals. those lines go over and under each other

An alternative interpretation is that they represent ribbons decorating the tree. Consider our modern celebration of Christmas, where we string ribbons around a tree, decorating it with lights, baubles and candy canes. Perhaps this is a closer parallel to the Assyrian tree than we realise...

[saharda]

It clearly isn't meant to be a cucumber in this picture, but are we even sure that it is supposed to be the SAME plant from depiction to depiction? They had Cucumbers, Dates, Opium, and tamarind in the area just to name a few.

As for the connection between Kabbalah to the first century, Is there evidence of a basis of belief, or a practice? and even if it is evidence of practice is it evidence of a complete practice or simply a kernel that will grow into the practice we know today.

I have had discussions with a number of Kaballah practitioners over the years, and I always run into this issue. The key turning points seem to be the destruction of the temple and the crusades.

In the destruction of the temple you have an isolated environment for ideas to change from the uniform beliefs of the temple. The temple was already somewhat secrative, and the various isolated groups would like to keep some elements of this where they can. This leads to the development of secret esoteric practices.

In the crusades you get a blending of the groups from the east and the west and a stronger persecution of the Jews. This continues into the inquizition where the environment becomes even more hostile towards Jews. This hostility and percieved helplessness forces some to look to the supernatural for help. You will notice that most of our existent Kabbalistic texts come from long after the beginning of the common era. Subsequent texts seem to build off of these as the earliest texts rather than from a more ancient tradition.

As for the ribbon, I like that idea, but it works better with a vine than it does with a tree because you need to bind many vines to a frame. It also really doesn't look like a tree.

[madness]

Pirjo Lapinkivi in The Sumerian Sacred Marriage refers the reader to positive reviews of Parpola's work.

Weinfeld, Moshe
1996 "Feminine Features in the Imagery of God of Israel - The Sacred Marriage and the Sacred Tree," VT 46, 515-529.

Gruenwald, Ithamar
1997 "'How Much Kabbalah in Ancient Assyria?' Methodological Reflections on the Study of a Cross-Cultural Phenomenon" in S. Parpola and R. M. Whiting (eds.), Assyria 1995 (Helsinki) 115-127.

Idel, Moshe
1998 "Radical Hermeneutics: From Ancient to Medieval, and Modern Hermeneutics," in Ermeneutica e Critica. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Atti dei convegni lincei 135 (Roma), 165-201.


Needless to say I was excited that scholars of Jewish mysticism, especially Moshe Idel, would find Parpola's theory tenable. I finally got a copy of Idel's "Radical Hermeneutics."

And what a disappointment. The only thing he has to say, while discussing Stephen Lieberman's A Mesopotamian Background for the So-Called Aggadic 'Measures' of Biblical Hermeneutcs? HUCA LVIII, is in note 61:

Compare the pioneering studies of Simo Parpola, especially The Assyrian Tree of Life . . .

Lapinkivi's statement that this is a "positive review" is very misleading. It is at best a "positive" reference, it reveals almost nothing about Idel's opinion of Parpola's work.

Gruenwald's paper is a great read, however, and I'll put up a summary of it soon.

[us4-he2-gal2]

ACK! that is a travesty Madness! Sounds like Parpola's student was doing some very fine cherry picking there by mentioning that "positive review'. That misinformation that really costs! But dont regret spending the money, even if you get a few duds, you'll still end up very well read. Certainly one of the best read I know!

[xuchilpaba]

madness said:

I know this is OT. But now that I think about it.. This tree resembles the Kabbalah tree of life.

[madness]

Well actually your statement here is a main point of concern.

The crux of Parpola's theory is that the Assyrian tree resembles the Sefirotic Tree. Other scholars, such as Jerrold Cooper, are less inclined to see this resemblance.

[xuchilpaba]

Theres defenately a depictrial resemblence. I don't know of anything beyond that. I have read things in the Zohar though, that are based off alot of older Jewish traditions that are obviously from Mesopotamia. But of course, no one remembers things like Gilgamesh and etc at the time the Zohar was written.

[saharda]

Image resemblances are like cognates (False and otherwise) If you look hard enough one word sounds like another word. One shape looks like another shape. I could argue that the criss crossing patterns could be a spiral rather than a criss cross and that they were depicting DNA.

So let us look at it from another point of view. When are our first depictions of the Sephirotic tree of life? Where do they come from?

[madness]

Well your question here underlines a main point of skepticism towards Parpola's theory. In his JNES article he states in note 46:

". . . the diagram reproduced here represents the most common form of the Tree in current Kabbalistic literature and is attested in this form since the seventeenth century."

There is therefore some 2500 years separating the Assyrian tree from the Sefirotic tree. Is it possible that the Assyrian form remained in the memory of the Kabbalists for so long?


Perhaps another point can be made against Parpola's theory, from the point of view of the cult object theory [yes I've left my post on this subject to sit for a while, but I'll get it done eventually].

If the Assyrian tree, as depicted in cylinder seals and on wall reliefs, was once an actual 3 dimensional object, i.e. a wooden pole with metal bands and decorations, then what Parpola saw on the tree as representations of mystical nodes may well be nothing more than metal binding elements designed to hold the tree up and to connect the decorative ribbons to the central pole.

Is it possible that the Assyrians intended for such mundane architectural features to have an esoteric meaning behind them?

Well, given the nature of Mesopotamian religion, maybe it's not so far fetched...

[xuchilpaba]

Theres some Mesopotamian beliefs left over in Jewish folklore of the time of Jewish mysticism. Along with some of it being in the Zohar. Theres some eeriy parrells with the Jewish Lilith story to the Gilgamesh and other Mesopotamian myths that pop up in the Medieval ages of Europe. Oh and we have the Babylonian magic thing; fear of witches, incubi/succubi, and the evil eye and all that that pops up about the same time. So I agree, maybe it isn't so far fetched.

[us4-he2-gal2]

The Assyrian tree exploration continues! Am glad to see this ode to determined progress continue Madness, and your insights grow ever the more specialized and rare. Lets see about these new posts..

First I am struck by the discussion on the kassite seal above. Your comment "This scene is very similar to typical depictions of the sacred tree, with the Anzu bird hovering above, and two fish-men flanking the central figure" is brilliant - and also the comparison between the image from Aššur and the one from early URUK is a convincing comparison and surely we suspect some strong continuity here.

Secondly, your suggestion that the skirt in the image of the tree man from the temple of Aššur is like the bronze sheathing that are embossed with palm trunk imbrications found at Khorsabad, is a beautiful suggestion. It definitely looks so to me!


It is somewhat difficult to piece together what we should make of parts of the above, so let me try and sum the essential about the two spirits:

spirit 1. The mes tree was the flesh of the gods and the in one creation story the flesh and blood of the god We-ila is used to form man. Ghost, etemmu, may be seen as derived from this flesh. There is also a move to associate Ninurta with the mes tree.

spirit 2. The personal god inhabits also the living body.



We have run into the concept of two spirits which inhabit the body on the Sisig thread, where Sisig or Zaqiqu act as the living soul as opposed to the one that descends to the netherworld. Scurlock had discussed two types of spirt, etemmu - and zaqiqu.

extract from the Sisig thread

---

Scurlock: "The ghost (eţemmu) was closely associated with a person's physical remains. In some contexts, it is spoken of as if it were identical with the corpse, as when eţemmus are "sleeping" in their graves or lying about unburied. In fact, it was a constituent element of the corpse proper (pagru), having its origin in the fact that a god was slaughtered and his flesh and blood mixed with mortal clay in order to create mankind.
In addition to having an eţemmu, a living being was possessed not only of what we might refer to as his "life force" (his "breath," or napiš-tu) but also of another windlike emanation, namely the zāqīqu (or zīqīqu). This spirit was imagined as a sexless (and probably birdlike) phantom able to flit about or slip through small apertures, and as such, it became associated with dreaming, because it could safely depart the body when one was asleep. The contrast between zāqīqu and eţemmu thus roughly corresponds to the distinction, found in the folklore of other cultures, between a "free" or "dream" soul on the one hand and a "body spirit" on the other. In short, the zāqīqu is the closest ancient Mesopotamian equivalent to the modern concept of the "soul."

---

So if the personal god inhabits the living body as Abusch says, and also makes intervenes with the great gods on behalf of the man as we traditionally read of personal gods - one wonders at the distiction between the personal god and the zaqiqu spirit, which also lived in the body, and as we see on the Sisig thread, also made interventions and appeals to the gods at least in dream form.

As for Annus' identification of Ninurta and the Meš tree or kiškanû I am not sure I havent seen this anywhere else. We took
a decent look at the kiškanû tree on the kiškanû thread, where we observe its role in the incantation literature is clearly that of divine mediator, as magical connecter of heaven and earth, divine and mundane. (As reads the passage above, "Whose roots reached as deep down as the bottom of the underworld, a hundred leagues through the vast sea waters, And whose top reached as high as the heaven of Anu?") It was especially featured at the temple at Eridu and is repeatedly associated with Enki by way of the spell of eridu, the abzu, and several minor dieties associated with the kiškanû.

[madness]

.... seems that imageshack randomly removes images for some reason, I'll have to re-upload them to a different host.

[Salmu]

I have an article for you which may entertain

Found whilst researching for my thesis, the discussion is very interesting, and relevant

Andrew McDonald, 2002, "The Botanical Determination of the Middle Eastern Tree of Life," Economic Botany 56.2: 113-129

Well researched and referenced

Andrea

[madness]

Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out next time I go to the library, if they have it.

[adapa]

This is a very interesting thread. I haven't read most of the articles mentioned here, but I have gone through the Parpola article pretty carefully and I think he is stretching his data a little. We tend to forget that the Jewish Qabbalah is not a consistent tradition but is a conglomerate of numerous and conflicting traditions. The Jewish Qabbalah that we know today originated from Isaac Luria in the 17th cent. in Safed. The Tree of Life glyph originated in the Zohar tradition which goes back to Moses de Leon in 14th cent. Spain but drew heavily on ideology from the circle of Isaac the Blind in France. These Jewish mystics were separated from Mesopotamia in both time and space and had plenty of other influences (the Cathars, for one), so that it seems unlikely that there was any Mesopotamian influence on the tree of life. Now the early Jewish mystical tradition we call the Merkavah tradition was definitely from a Babylonian milleau, same as the Babylonian Talmud, but there is no tradition of a tree, or of sefiroth there. The magical treatise called the sefer Yetsirah is of unknown provenance and of unknown date, but everything about it has the aroma of Mesopotamia. It does refer to sefiroth, but in its context the sefiroth are numbers, not mystical states of conscienceness as reflected in the later Tree of Life. The sefer yetsirah is interested in the manipulation of the Hebrew letters and is the basis of the later mysticism of the heretic Abraham Abulafia, whom the Zoharian qabbalists and the conservative rabbis tried so hard to suppress.

[adapa]

Speaking not as a scholar, but as a high priest of the Ancient & Reformed Church, the Assyrian glyph of the two divine beings doing something to a tree with cone-like things in their hands is the basis for our agubba rite, the rite of water purification. The bag they're holding is full of holy water. The cone-like things they are holding are pine-cones used to sprinkle the holy water on the subject of the purification rite. Again, this has nothing to do with scholarship, it is how we do it today, and we don't really care if it is historically correct or not. It is accepted by Inana and Enki and that is what we mostly care about.

[madness]

That's pretty much how it worked in Assyria as described by Wiggermann in Mesopotamian Protective Spirits, p. 67.

The apkallu hold a banduddû "bucket" (containing holy water) in their left hand, and a mullilu "purifier" in their right. The purifier is identified as a fir-cone [and not as a date-palm inflorescence].

The cone is dipped in the bucket, and the water is sprinkled towards the recipient in a purification ritual.

[madness]

English translation of "Understanding the Tree of Life" by Simo Parpola

He describes what influenced him to write his JNES 52 article and how he came to his discovery.

www.insideassyria.com/rkvsf/wwwboard/msgs/Article_2-2DUX.html

[ninurta2008]

Very interesting article Madness, I find it fascinating how similar the two are.