By Caroline Tully

Every society has symbols of leadership, and in a surprising number of Mediterranean and Near Eastern societies these are trees. Why?

Part of the answer regarding trees has to do with the use of symbols in daily life. The largest category of Aegean Bronze Age representational art consists of engraved metal signet rings and carved stone seals, known as glyptic art. Like the sealing system in the Near East, these objects were part of palatial administration systems and would have belonged to palatial emissaries. They were used to secure and identify property, to designate ownership, and as a symbol of office or authority. Usually under 3 centimetres in size, the primary purpose of signet rings and stone seals was identification of their owner; however, they also functioned as jewellery.

Minoan gold Ring, HM 1700. Photo by Jebulon.

Around 11,000 seals and sealings are known from the Aegean Bronze Age, but the number depicting human forms is comparatively small. The most complex and spectacular figurative scenes appear on metal signet rings and depict human and divine figures engaging in ritual activities. In the absence of deciphered texts from Minoan Crete, seal iconography is the richest and most diverse category of evidence relied upon in the interpretation of Minoan religion.

Minoan gold ring CMS VI. 278.

Almost forty examples of precious metal signet rings, stone seals and their impressions on clay sealings from Crete, mainland Greece and the Cyclades, dating to between around 1580–1430 BCE, depict human figures performing ritual in conjunction with sacred trees.

Minoan gold ring, HM 989.

This iconography also appears in three fresco paintings, two fragments of stone vases, on an ivory pyxis lid, and a bronze votive plaque.

The images can be divided into four different categories according to the absence, presence, and types of architectural structures associated with the tree. These are: trees in rocky ground or associated with large stones known as baetyls;

Minoan style gold ring from Mycenae. CMS I. 17.

trees with walls and gateways;

Minoan gold ring from Knossos. CMS VI. 2. 281.

trees with cult structures such as altars and platforms;

Clay sealing from Chania. CMS VS IA. 176.

and trees in boats.

Minoan gold ring from Mochlos. CMS II. 3. 252.

In images of tree cult, female figures performing ritual activity predominate, and often even substitute for the tree as the focus of cult.

That a tree cult featured in the visual repertoire of the Minoan sealing system, as well as in elite crafts such as wall painting, carved stone vases and ivory, and engraved bronze, suggests that the cult was of high status and embraced by palatial functionaries who were the representatives of rulers. Inextricably linked with a state-level society, such imagery therefore must reflect elite ideology.

Female symbolism has been associated with trees and vegetation in the Levant from as early as the Neolithic (7500–5200 BCE) into the Iron Age II (900–586 BCE) and features in sculpture; wall painting; metal pendants; metal, terracotta and stone figurines and plaques; seals; painted pottery; wooden objects; and texts.

Incised slab with abstract female figure and animals from Mari.

Stylised tree depicted on ceramic pithos from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud.

In the early twentieth century, Sir Arthur Evans, excavator of the palatial site of Knossos on Crete, sought to explain Aegean images of tree cult by proposing the existence within Minoan religion of a wooden cult object, cognate with the biblical asherah, a term mentioned forty times in the Hebrew Bible. In the biblical text the asherah is a wooden post or living tree that was often paired with a sacred stone or massebah, characteristic of early Israelite religion. In the Septuagint the term asherah is rendered as alsos, grove. According to the earlier Ugaritic texts, in addition to being a wooden object or tree, Asherah also designates a female deity, mother goddess of the Ugaritic pantheon and partner of the chief Ugaritic deity, El. She was associated in the human world with the role of queen mother.

Biblical prohibitions of a tree cult taking place “on every high hill and under every green tree” suggest that worship of a tree goddess was part of Israelite popular religion enacted at rural locations, while elites, such as members of the Judean royal family, participated in Asherah cult in urban places. This may have also been the case in Late Bronze Age Crete, as suggested by images of tree cult set in natural locations and in conjunction with architecture, as well as the presence within the landscape of religious sanctuaries at mountain, rural, cave, and urban locations.

A sacred female tree associated with royal ideology was also evident in Late Bronze Age Egypt; inscriptions name her Isis, Nut, Hathor and sometimes Neith.

Arms and breast emerging from a sycamore tree pouring water. Limestone stela dating to the 19th Dynasty.

Isis was the personification of the Pharaonic throne, Hathor personified the palace and was mother/consort to Horus, and Neith suckled pharaohs. Levantine Asherah was also worshipped in Egypt during the New Kingdom in the guise of Qudshu. Earlier, in the Middle Bronze Age, the goddess Ishtar was associated with both trees and royalty.

The Investiture Scene painting from the palace at Mari.

These goddesses symbolised effective rulership, fertility, nurturance, protection, regeneration, order and stability.

Sacred trees associated with female figures appeared earlier and lasted longer in the Levant than they did in Crete or Egypt. Like the Minoan examples, Levantine sacred trees were interchangeable with female figures, paired with sacred stones and altars, associated with open-air cult sites, as well as urban palatial locations. Crete was in contact through trade with the Levant from the Early Bronze Age with interaction intensifying in the early second millennium. Influence on Crete of aspects of Levantine religion was probably part of that relationship, particularly within the elite sphere.

While the tree may have associations with females and royalty, they are not the only components in Aegean images of tree cult. The examples in which trees are situated within rocky ground may be evocative of the mountainous Cretan landscape.

Clay sealing from Haghia Triadha. CMS II. 6. 5.

That trees in rocky ground allude to mountains is evident in Akkadian seals and may be the case in Minoan glyptic as well. If the tree represents a female deity that has associations of queenship/royalty and is, moreover, similar to known Levantine and Egyptian goddesses, the rocky ground may in turn possess associations with the male partner of such a deity. In Ugaritic and Israelite religion mountains were associated with male deities such as El, Baal and Yahweh. El’s mountain was a source of water and fertility, a meeting place of heaven and earth; it had connotations of royalty and governance and was the place where the divine council met.

Kings, queens or specific rulers are not identifiable in Minoan art, but elite figures certainly are. We know that gold rings and stone seals depicting images of tree cult were tools of, and perhaps indicators of positions within, Minoan administration. While we do not know if there actually was a single ruler or a royal dynasty in Late Bronze Age Crete, elite administrators may have sought to evoke associations of a wider Near Eastern visual and symbolic language in which a tree that was also a goddess had associations with royalty.

Caroline Tully is an Honorary Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her book, The Cultic Life of Trees in the Prehistoric Aegean, Levant, Egypt and Cyprus is published by Peeters.