COURTESY BENJAMIN YANG, TEL BURNA ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT
The Tree of Life was an important and ubiquitous motif throughout the ancient world. We find it in ancient Near Eastern texts and depictions presenting a tree or other plant with the power to impart health or life (e.g., Epic of Gilgamesh 11.283–309). A tree of life also appears in the biblical account of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9; 3:22, 24). Now a recently discovered pottery decoration from Tel Burna may reveal how this popular motif was understood in Canaanite religion.1
Tel Burna, a candidate for biblical Libnah (e.g., Joshua 10:29; 2 Kings 8:22), is a multi-period site in the Shephelah, the foothills between the coastal plain and the Judean highlands. This borderland gained importance in the Bronze Age, as attested by a wide range of ancient texts and archaeological remains. Yet Tel Burna remained unexcavated until the inauguration of the Tel Burna Archaeological Project in 2010. Since then, archaeological discoveries have shed light on the socio-economic, geo-political, and religious life of this Canaanite and, later, Judahite city.
TEL BURNA ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT
Excavations in the courtyard outside a cultic building dated to the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 13th century BCE), when Tel Burna was still a Canaanite city, revealed a variety of cult-related items. These included ceramic masks, offering vessels, and an especially intriguing decorated krater. The courtyard also yielded a high concentration of animal bones, which may indicate feasting. This archaeological context suggests the decorated krater, too, was used in the cultic activity that took place in the adjacent building.
The outside of the vessel is decorated with multiple scenes depicting the tree of life. One depicts a typical date palm (see drawing below, at right end). To the left of the date palm is a partially preserved image of what appears to be the hindquarters of two animals with tails. These could be lions or bulls, both of which appear in other Levantine examples of the tree of life motif. The next image contains two horned ibexes feeding on a dot-filled object. Similar depictions of flanking quadrupeds (or other figures) typically include a tree in the center. The last image depicts a bird.
Considering its cultural and archaeological context, the decorated krater was likely used to offer food or libation during Canaanite worship. The decorations depict not only the age-old tree of life motif, which first emerged in the Levant as early as the sixth millennium BCE, but also a Canaanite goddess, represented as a fruitful tree in one image and as a blooming pubic triangle fed on by quadrupeds in another. The animals were likely symbols of the earthly creatures whose lives were sustained by the deity, imagery that finds parallels in the Bible (Ezekiel 31:3–9; Daniel 4:10–12).
CHRISTIAN LOCATELL
A sacred tree being fed on by quadrupeds also decorates the well-known ewer found in a Late Bronze Age temple at Lachish, not far from Tel Burna. An inscription on that vessel identifies it as a gift to the goddess Elat, with the name of the goddess positioned directly over the tree. On a decorated goblet from Lachish, a similar goddess tree appears as a dot-filled, inverted triangle. Such tree imagery is frequently associated with the Canaanite goddess Asherah, who, according to the Bible, was often worshiped at sacred trees or groves (e.g., Deuteronomy 7:5; 16:21).
During the second millennium, we also find examples of Canaanite goddess iconography with dot-filled inverted triangles flanked by quadrupeds. These include metal goddess pendants with pronounced, dot-filled pubic triangles, as well as clay figurines, such as the one pictured here from Revadim Quarry, that depict a goddess with ibexes on her thighs feeding on trees that flank her pubic triangle.
In light of this converging imagery, the ibex-flanked and dot-filled object on the Tel Burna krater can be identified with a Canaanite goddess who was invoked in local cultic rituals. The piece thus illustrates the common identification of the cult goddess with a life-giving tree, which offers nourishment to the creatures of the world. This and other tree of life motifs reveal the centrality of this imagery as an important theme shared by cultures throughout the ancient Near East.
The Tree of Life was an important and ubiquitous motif throughout the ancient world. We find it in ancient Near Eastern texts and depictions presenting a tree or other plant with the power to impart health or life (e.g., Epic of Gilgamesh 11.283–309). A tree of life also appears in the biblical account of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9; 3:22, 24). Now a recently discovered pottery decoration from Tel Burna may reveal how this popular motif was understood in Canaanite religion.1 Tel Burna, a candidate for biblical Libnah (e.g., Joshua 10:29; 2 Kings 8:22), is a multi-period site in […]
