10.6084/m9.figshare.7490471.v1
Irit Ziffer
Irit
Ziffer
Pinecone or date palm male inflorescence – metaphorical pollination in Assyrian art: Supplementary material
Brill Online
2019
pinecone
date palm
male inflorescence
stylized tree
pollination
Sumerian
Assyrian
Ecology not elsewhere classified
2019-01-07 09:41:03
Figure
https://brill.figshare.com/articles/figure/Pinecone_or_date_palm_male_inflorescence_metaphorical_pollination_in_Assyrian_art_Supplementary_material/7490471
The following contribution focuses on Assyrian
stone reliefs depicting winged figures holding a bucket and reaching a
cone-shaped object toward a stylized tree. Ever since the discovery of the
reliefs, the cone-shaped object was considered as either a conifer cone or a date
palm male inflorescence used in the symbolic pollination of the stylized tree,
derived from the date palm. Utilizing the visual material combined with textual
evidence and based on the importance of the date palm as economic resource that
gave rise to a plethora of meanings, religious, royal and popular, I shall
argue that the scene refers to the artificial pollination of the tree.