Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics Embracing the Myths,...

In intimate connection with the worship of Assur, the supreme deity of the Assyrians, “the God who created himself,” was the Sacred Tree, regarded by the Assyrian race as the personification of life and generation. This tree, which was considered coeval with Assur, the great First Source, was adored in conjunction with the god; for sculptures have been found representing figures kneeling in adoration before it, and bearing mystic offerings to hang upon its boughs. In these sculptured effigies of the Sacred Tree the simplest form consists of a pair of ram’s horns, surmounted by a capital composed of two pairs of rams’ horns, separated by horizontal bands, above which is a scroll, and then a flower resembling the Honeysuckle ornament of the Greeks. Sometimes this blossoms, and generally the stem also throws out a number of smaller blossoms, which are occasionally replaced by Fir-cones and Pomegranates. In the most elaborately-portrayed Sacred Trees there is, besides the stem and the blossoms, a network of branches, which forms a sort of arch, and surrounds the tree as it were with a frame.

The Phœnicians, who were not idolaters, in the ordinary acceptation of the word—inasmuch as they did not worship images of their deities, and regarded the ever-burning fire on their altars as the sole emblem of the Supreme Being,—paid adoration to this Sacred Tree, effigies of which were set up in front of the temples, and had sacrifices offered to them. This mystic tree was known to the Jews as Asherah. At festive seasons the Phœnicians adorned it with boughs, flowers, and ribands, and regarded it as the central object of their worship.