Ivory Furniture Element with a Tree of Lotus Flowers
Unknown · Neo-Assyrian period, eighth century BC
A narrow strip of ivory under eight centimetres high is carved as a tree made of lotus flowers stacked one above the other. The flowers open in turn up the stem, each cup of petals rising from the one below. It is a vertical ornament, meant to be read as a stylised sacred tree, the kind that winged genies and sphinxes flank on the figured plaques around it. Though only two centimetres wide, the piece is cut with the same precision as the larger scenes.
The lotus tree was found in room six of the Building of the Ivories at Arslan Tash, not in the main room fourteen, which shows that ivory furniture stood in several rooms of the Assyrian residence at ancient Hadatu in northern Syria. The building was excavated in 1928 by François Thureau-Dangin's mission and the ivories were divided between Syria and France. This piece came to the Louvre through the partage of 1929. The lotus, an Egyptian flower, was adopted by Phoenician carvers as a universal sign of life and renewal.
Did You Know? The flowers grow out of one another up the stem, a tree that could never exist in nature but that everyone in the ancient Near East would recognise.
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