Plants, gardens and horticulture in their relationship to Egyptian culture and cosmology 

First of all, I would like to thank Professor Van der Staay, Chairman of the Clusius Lecture, Professor Erik de Jong, and Doctor Gerda van Uffelen for their kind invitation to Leiden, here at this famous Clusius Foundation. Somewhere on the Web I found that Charles de l’Escluse while studying in 1551 with the botanical Professor Guillaume Rondelet in Montpellier, strengthened his vocation for botany in that city of the Languedoc. The botanical garden of Montpellier – the Hortus Regius Monspeliensis –, built from 1596 onwards by the physician Richer de Belleval, is one of the most ancient in France. Alyre Raffeneau Delile, who took part in the French Expedition to Egypt in 1798, brought back a very beautiful Egyptian herbal, as well as a perfectly conserved copy of the Book of the Dead. He is also responsible for the marvellous botanical plates published in the part of the Description de l’Egypte devoted to Natural History. Delile was the first naturalist to draw perfectly the sacred lotuses of the Egyptian priests – Nymphæa lotus, Nymphaea caerulæa and the lately introduced Nymphæa nelumbo – as well as the dum palm tree, totally foreign to the Venetian naturalist Prosperus Alpinus in his de Plantis Aegypti liber. The architects who took part in the French expedition succeeded in expressing both the vegetable and divine nature of the Egyptian temple in reproducing the real splendour of those sanctuaries with their colours.

When contemplating our society’s infatuation with Egyptian artistic production, its temples, its necropolis, we must always keep in mind the close and specific relationships of the Pharaonic nation with the Nilotic environment. We shall notice in this presentation that the Egyptians were strongly tied to the natural aspect of their valley, which appears as a conquest of man. Conversely, they hated the desert aspect, the arid and barren edges where death raged. Needless to say, these links invoked specific religious thoughts: gods, men, trees, plants and stones are productions of the demiurge as shown on a relief decorating the left plinth of the door of the sole remaining obelisk of the temple at Karnak.

Having said that, let us come to our subject – “ Plants, gardens and horticulture in their relationship to Egyptian culture and cosmology ”. From the traditional point of view of the Egyptian priests responsible for its creation, the temple – a large or a small one – was a representation of the universe, a microcosm of the Nile valley, following the nature of the Nilotic environment. If you glance at the construction of the Upper Egypt temples, if you choose Edfu for example, you notice that the capitals and columns of the first court reproduce the shape of a papyrus thicket whose entirety is supposed to be an aspect of the nest of Horus in Chemmis, a place in the Western Delta. In this nest, Isis, in the shape of a snake, protected her son from the harmful influence of Seth, the god of confusion, the desert deity fighting from the freshness of the Northern wind at the beginning of the Egyptian year, that is to say from the 9^th of July onwards. But if you can decipher the late hieroglyphic writing, you will notice that these architectonic elements, according to the work of M. Morfin-Erroux, are believed to be the supports of the sky because they are assimilated by the god Shu, embodying the atmosphere during creation. Moreover, several low reliefs on the Ptolemaic temple plinths show that the temple emerges from a primordial environment made of lakeside plants, papyrus and rushes, with hippopotamuses and crocodiles, as represented in the Palestrina mosaic. In fact, this leads us to highlight the concept of creation among the Egyptians. In antiquity, each temple was considered to be erected on an original mound. Ancient priests thought that the marshy vegetation emerged for the first time in these places and they established the temple concept as an ambivalent space like a mineral and a vegetable universe with both resources. From a general point of view, this environment is the one in which the plants’ growing appeared to be an effect of the divine presence, so that the whole country was an extension of the original sacred mound. This is explained in Theban cosmogenic texts, recalling the birth of the god Amun, the king of the gods.

This concept dates back to a distant past when the growth of the Nile valley civilization was closely linked to a specific environment. Before historical times, man slowly conquered the space and settled on the sandy natural mounds (the gezîreh) let in the valley and the Delta by the original Nile – the ur-Nile – whereas the Nile valley was covered with large areas of marshy plants, extending the oasis phenomenon toward the north. Historically speaking, the country of the Pharaohs owes its double nature to the primordial aspect of the valley. It is important to point out that traditionally in Egyptian perception the administrative units, the nomoi, were organised into two main parts: an agricultural land (uu) and a marshy land (pehu). The agricultural land occupied the highest part of Nile banks, the marshy land the lowest part of the valley. To those, we must add the pasture areas at the edge of the Nile valley. The features of each different kind of land are responsible for the nature of their flora. If the border of the desert and wadis which drain rainwater in the valley are colonised with acacia species (Acacia tortilis), sycamores and tamarisks, and it is the plants of marshy lands – lotuses and papyrus – and fruit trees – palm trees in particular – which are specific to the Nile valley that have put their stamp on the temples’ architectural structure, this is because every temple is understood, as we noticed before, as a window opened wide on the original divine universe, a marshy environment belonging to a Golden Age when gods lived on earth. Trees, whose presence is certified on the river banks since the origins – the balanite, the dum palm tree, the willow, the acacia seyal, the Maerua crassifolia, the jujub tree, the persea and many fruit trees such as the fig tree, some late introduced species like pomegranate trees, are never associated with Egyptian architecture however. The choice of vegetable motifs in architectural elements is clearly the result of the indigenous nature of some of them and of their religious or symbolic meaning.

But if these trees are not chosen to be used as architectural supports, they are very often considered as sacred trees. In religious texts both trees and plants reveal a theoretical view of the vegetable expansion in the Nile valley to a certain extent. It is another aspect of Egyptian thought concerning the vegetable universe. In the excerpts of late period religious monographs, each district (nomos) shows elements traditionally borrowed from the biotope perceived as the one of the origin, in particular sacred trees and plants associated with local etiological legends. It is my duty to explain the interest of such monographs for Egyptian studies and of Egyptian concepts related to sacred trees. The most complete religious monograph is the one concerning the 17th district of Upper Egypt – the one of Dunâuy. This document, called the Papyrus Jumilhac, gives an accurate explanation of the different legends concerning the district, compiled in the Late Period when priests, involved in a national movement of looking backward, decided to preserve the tradition of the past for future generations. For that purpose, they copied ancient documents which had been partly eaten by worms or mice, as is revealed by the texts themselves. The author of the P. Jumilhac explains the characteristics of the different sacred mounds with their specific trees or plants, the sacred lakes, the channels, the agricultural and marshy lands based on local etiological legends.

Most of the local clergies elaborated such documents for their districts. The remnants of Egyptian texts, engraved on the walls of sanctuaries or written on sheets of papyrus in priestly libraries show many excerpts from these religious monographs. According to the geographical concepts of the land of the Pharaohs, all these excerpts drew the religious features of an Egypt in considering the different links of the districts with their biotope as an essential concept. In a paper given at Dumbarton Oaks last June, I wrote that such excerpts represented a sort of “religious genome” of Ancient Egypt. Temples and papyruses kept several copies of these specialised extracts, all belonging to the late period. If we look at these documents and consider the sacred trees and the sacred mounds, it is possible to map out the vegetable features of the districts, one after another. We must add that these excerpts of religious monographs only give a selection of a wider range of sacred trees. They give two or three tree names, whereas the papyrus Jumilhac or some other excerpts of monographs give up to seven vegetable species. So, these lists are just indicative of the most important vegetable features of each district. These species are nearly all indigenous as we shall notice on this diagram :

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Occur.	Acacia,	Balanite	Jujube tree	Maerua crassifo-lia, Forsk.	Acacia tortilis	Willow	Sycamore	Acacia seyal	Arbre tem	Syrian fig tree	dum palm tree	Lotus, ur-âa	Tamarisk	hebet plant

From a scientific point of view, these species seem to be distributed according to their relative importance in Egyptian thought. But their number is only indicative because the range of sacred tree species is certainly wide open. The black colour represents the Southern districts, the grey colour the Northern ones. If we consider only the sacred lists themselves and take a selection, we find that Acacia (Acacia Nilotica) occurs 28 times equally distributed between Upper and Lower Egypt, Balanite (Balanites aegyptiaca) 22 times, and the jujube tree (Ziziphus spina Christi) 23 times. These are the main represented species.

Then Maerua crassifolia 7 times, only in Upper Egypt, Acacia tortilis 7 times, including one time in Lower Egypt, the willow (Salix safsaf) 5 times only in lower Egypt, the sycamore 6 times including 2 times in Lower Egypt, Acacia seyal 3 times including one time in Lower Egypt, twice for the tem tree, which we know nothing about.

And, finally, the Syrian fig tree, the dum palm tree, the lotus, the tamarix and the hebet plant: one time each.

In our overview of the specific religious meaning of the different vegetables, in which we devote our attention to both trees and plant species, we begin with those whose shape is used in architecture. First of all, the palm tree (Phoenix dactylifera) considered as a sacred tree in the monograph excerpts of the Kôm Ombo temple, in Southern Egypt. The absence of the palm tree among the lists of sacred trees is very surprising. In fact, a few reliefs reveal the existence of a sacred palm grove at Bouto, the sacred city associated with the origin of the kingship in the North. Its presence in temple architecture is attested since the Fifth Dynasty in the royal funerary temples of Abusir. During this period the prevailing concept of the monarchy is the sun’s filiation with the king. In erecting palm tree columns in the peristyle of these buildings, therefore, the palms of which surely evoked the sun’s beams as well as an idea of the time in the hieroglyphic of the year, the architects demonstrated the very nature of the 5th Dynasty. From this dynasty onwards, the kings were definitely considered as sons of the Sun, and this royal title continued until the end of the Pharaonic State. Some palm columns of Abusir were reused by the architects and engineers of Ramses II, at a time when they turned everything to account. Moreover, in late temple architecture, at Philae and Edfu, the presence of very naturalistic palm columns expresses first of all the solar nature of the divine host but also a concept of plenty. In one place, in the papyrus Jumilhac, the palm tree is also considered as the expression of Isis mourning, shaking her hair. In contrast, in the Middle Kingdom, palm tree columns can only be interpreted as a motive without any special meaning and were used in civilian as well as in funerary architecture.

Lotus columns are also typical in the funerary temples of Abusir during the 5th Dynasty, for the same reason as the palm tree column: lotuses and their golden stamens are associated with the appearance of the sun’s first beams at dawn. The capitals of these architectural supports are always represented with a bunch of closed lotus flowers held together with a vegetable link. The fact that these lotus flowers are never open is highly evocative of a promise of the sun’s light, the appearance of new gods, or one of an agreeable moment when the flower breathes its perfume. It is difficult to distinguish the white lotus from the blue lotus, but both are linked to the moon and to the sun, respectively, because they flourish at night and at dawn. Lotus offerings are traditionally shown on the reliefs of Ptolemaic temples, as a guarantee of the sun’s rising from its primordial environment or as a recollection of the cosmogenic myth.

The role of the Nile papyrus (Cyperus papyrus L.), the paper reed, is widely expressed in Egyptian thought. The place of papyrus is important throughout Egyptian myths, religious scenes and architecture. This plant is a manifestation of life, whose greenness extended over large areas of the whole of Egypt from its origin. A glance at the aspect of the marshy area of the Sadd in Sudan near Juba at the north of Lake Victoria gives an idea of the main features of the Upper Nile Valley’s specific environment during Pharaonic times. Being an expression of the marshy character of the Nile valley, papyrus columns are attested as a recurring architectural theme since the Old Kingdom. It is the most varied column style and the most representative because it is inherent to the nature of the Nile Valley. Hence, it must have been considered by the temples builders as the witness to the mythical environment par excellence.

The papyrus capitals are shown either open or closed. In the hypostyle hall of the temple of Amun-Rê‘ in Karnak, the capitals of the axial papyrus columns, higher than the lateral ranges, are open. The axial columns with open capitals are illuminated by sunlight through stone railings, while the lateral closed capitals are plunged in shadow. Whatever their place in a temple, they always express a marshy, regenerating environment of thickets which are theoretically alive with animals. At Karnak, the hypostyle hall recalls the place where Horus is born and it shields the coronation ceremonies, by analogy with the young Horus in his nest of Chemmis with the king. In fact, at several times during the history, the Northern marshes of the Delta were traditionally considered as a shelter against his enemies, because it was easy to survive there : the marshy environment rich with many nutritious plants – including the papyrus itself – fed their hosts. For such a reason, the papyrus appears in several rituals and offerings. The ritual of “rubbing the papyrus” - in brief , making noise to drive the waterfowl - announced the hunting and fishing season in the marsh. This activity during the high water season (Akhet) was called “the works of Sekhet”, because the goddess Sekhet was considered to be a bird-catcher and protected this seasonal activity.

Papyrus is mainly considered to be a traditional economic plant, because of its annual gathering from the beginning of the Nile onwards, when seedlings emerged from the marsh under particular aquatic level conditions in the Delta. In Saqqara’s Old Kingdom tombs, papyrus gathering scenes show this important aspect of the Egyptian economy. Huge bundles of papyrus are carried for plaiting mats and making special fishing and hunting boats. The main paper reed areas are located on the fringe of Northern Egypt and in the vicinity of branches of the Nile. The material came from papyrus farms supervised by the Egyptian clergy, the owner of many territorial properties. The temples’ scriptoria and the Royal administration were great users of papyrus sheets. Then, probably in the Late Period, from the Saitic period onwards, in the Seventh century B.C., it became a true monopoly of the monarchy, being certainly exported to Greece and elsewhere, along with salt from the salt marshes of the Canopic branch and natron from Nitria and from the wadi el-Natrun in the Western part of the Delta. According to papyrologic documentation, trade in papyrus sheets was organised on behalf of the crown during the Ptolemaic and Roman period. The importance of this economic activity certainly induced some religious beliefs and links between goddesses, writing and the law. Thus, goddesses are endowed with papyrus sceptres, because they are assimilated to Isis in her place of Chemmis and because they are at the same time the guarantors of the rights of Horus as told in the Myth of the Sun’s Eye, a demotic document of the 1st Century B.C.

Let us add to this historiography that the paper-reed of the Ancients, after the description of Pliny in his Natural History, was an object of real curiosity among the scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth Centuries, who were formerly called “les curieux” (the curious). This marshy plant was represented for the first time by Prosperus Alpinus in his de Plantis Aegypti liber during his stay in Egypt – he came back to Italy in November 1584 –, but it was acclimated in Europe by the famous humanist Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc at the beginning of the Seventeenth Century.

As we noticed before, the Acacia nilotica species is widely represented among sacred trees. It is a real reflection of the vegetable aspect of the Nile valley, because it colonises the edge of the valley and the entrances of the wadis. It is a robust and thorny tree; its dangerous aspect is associated with the defence of isolated places as necropolises. In fact, the acacia with its thorns generally appears as a natural protector of Osirian mounds distributed throughout Egypt, the primary one of which is located at Abydos. A scene sculpted on a lintel of the Monument of Taharqa of the lake at Karnak shows one of them. Above this Osiris tomb at Karnak, the sacred tree emerges from the mound. In addition to it, we can see a tree of this species above the Osiris tomb, on the inner-part of the Karnak-North Propylon. Amon-Min smiting the enemies burns opponents of Osiris in a cauldron and triturates them with a long knife. In one case, in the cella of the temple of Darius à Khargeh, a silhouette of an Acacia is endowed with an arm carrying a weapon, because it is considered to be a warrior deity. As a divine being, it takes part in the fight probably evoked from lost etiological legends. Coming into contact with the aquifer by means of its deep roots, and protecting Osiris, it is the first to be touched by the rising Nile. Consequently, the tree is frequently the element from which the flood of the Nile theoretically ran out, in particular on a relief found at Athribis in the Delta.

Other Acacia species, such as Acacia tortilis and Acacia seyal, are less frequent in the sacred lists. The first one is specific to desert or isolated areas. The deep roots of Acacia tortilis plunge into the aquifer and put into concrete form the line of the thalweg in the wadi. According to hieroglyphic texts, the Coptos area was famous in antiquity for its Acacia tortilis planting which allowed shipbuilding activities. If we look at the surroundings of Kuft, the name of Coptos today, it is really difficult to imagine that a forest existed in a distant past. Acacia tortilis was a manifestation of the local god, Min, because the Egyptians realised that it indicated the presence of water to men penetrating the Eastern desert. Acacia seyal, known from a very few examples in the sacred lists, is a beautiful tree, but is difficult to identify from the names of Egyptian trees.

The Balanite (Balanites aegyptiaca) was attested everywhere in the past, in particular in the South and in the Western oases. This species is a thorny tree bearing acidulous fruits, which progressively disappeared from Egypt starting a long time ago. Among the different sacred Balanites attested in Upper and Lower Egypt, two main sacred examples were worshipped at Heliopolis and at Thebes. The sacred tree of Thebes resulted from a relocation of the one of Heliopolis, from the 19th dynasty onwards, probably before, when solar beliefs were grafted onto the new theology of Amun. The Heliopolite Balanite is mainly represented in the copies of the Book of the Dead. It refers to the fight of the sun with the god Apopis. Standing upright in the shade of this tree, the god Rê‘ in the form of a cat, cut off the head of a huge snake embodying the god Apopis, the traditional enemy of Rê‘:  this serpent prevented the god from progressing through the sky in its bark. So, the representation of this tree expresses the victory of the sun over his enemies, like the palm tree of Apollo at Actium. The Theban sacred Balanite appears on the large primeval mound at Medinet-Habu on the Western bank of Thebes, somewhere in the area of the small temple of the original god of Thebes, Kematef. Its leaves and fruit are used as supports of both names of the king. A recent study revealed that, being twins, the fruits of the Balanite represented the names of pharaoh respectively encircled with cartouches. This tree also establishes a close relationship between the king and the divine Theban ancestors either during his coronation or during the renewal of the royal power, his jubilee.

The Jujube tree is a thorny tree and bears acidulous fruits, just as the former. In Egyptian thought, its thorny character calls to mind its presence in some sites of mythological battles. We find it on the fringe of the Eastern Delta, in the 19th, or Arabicus, district. There, after the texts sculpted on the monolithic naos of Ismaïlia, a war between the sun and his enemies took place. Under the reign of Nectanebo the First, its silhouette appears a few times on the sides of the naos of Saft el-Henneh where its shade protects divine statues. But we know that the Jujube tree was the tree of the god Thot in Nubia in the town of Pnubs.

Maerua crassifolia, the ima tree of the ancient Egyptians, is a shrub or small tree, which has no vernacular name in our languages. Its presence is not often mentioned – seven times – as a sacred tree, but it is rather widely attested in the Egyptian toponymy in the Southern as well as in the Northern area. According to the Egyptians, the oasis of Siwa was considered as the place of the ima trees and Imaou – the name of which indicates the presence of the species Maerua crassifolia – is a town on the fringe of the Western delta. It is worshipped at Edfu along with the Balanite and the Acacia. The tree itself is used to mark the years of the king and is associated with coronation rites; its wood was linked to the transmission of the divine heritage. To memorialise these ideas, the Egyptians offered some leaves of balanite, Maerua crassifolia and Moringa to the divine host of the Edfu temple.

The Willow (Salix safsaf) grows along the channels; it is found in a marshy environment. Its Egyptian name is borrowed from the root which contains the idea of covering. In Egyptian thought, it was considered to be a lunar tree because of the colour of its wood and the silvery shade of the lower part of its leaves. They turn themselves upside down at the onset of heat: then the tree puts on its silvery livery. It was consecrated to the god of the marshes, the crocodile Sobek, a local aspect of the falcon god Horus in the Fayyum and elsewhere. This probably results from a natural aspect of life in the marshes, as the crocodile would stand under the protective shade of the willow to watch for its prey. Along with the leaves of the Maerua crassifolia the leaves of the Willow were offered to the goddess Neith because of her links with the water and because she is a protector of navigation on the Nile. It is she who opens the waters and rivers by shooting her arrows in the flood, initiating the Nile’s rising. We find it also in fishing rites, because the crocodile Sobek is a good fisher. The Willow is sometimes associated with the phoenix in Heliopolis as well. But generally speaking, the Willow evokes an aspect of the Horus Eye, the moon. When a Willow’s bough is offered, the white colour of its wood and its silvery leaves call up the shining of moonlight. In the rite of “filling the moon”, attested in the Ptolemaic period, the presence of the Willow’s name among fourteen plants evokes the increasing lunar light and the beginning of the Nile’s rising. A late rite, appearing during the Ramesside period – the one of “erecting the willow” – is testified at Heliopolis. If we know that the Willow is the moon and that the moon is fertility, the rite of erecting the willow at the beginning of the Egyptian winter means that the moon spreads its seeds of generation through nature. The presence of the Willow sometimes recalls the return of the peaceful Distant one, in the form of the full moon and her role in the rising of the Nile. Its offering testifies the most important moments of the vegetative cycle, in accordance with the growing process of plants and the abundance of water. According to its symbolic meaning in the places where it appears, rites concerning the willow seem to be very popular because this tree is one of the most important plants of Ancient Egypt.

The tamarisk was once considered to be a sacred tree. Its name iser reveals an assonance with the one of Osiris, Usir. Many beautiful tamarisks grow today along the channels of the Delta. Shoots would colonise isolated mounds considered as necropolis places at the fringe of the desert. This explains why the tamarisk was often considered to be a funerary plant, but it was also common in pleasure gardens where it had no symbolic meaning.

Considered the tree par excellence, the Sycamore is indigenous to the Nile valley. Though found throughout Egypt, it only appears six times in the sacred lists. The small number of its occurrences hides the real importance of the Sycamore in Egypt, as its bearing can sometimes be really impressive. In addition, it was a nutritional species for Egyptians and they appreciated its importance during periods of scarcity, as it gave several annual harvests of appreciated fresh fruit. In such a way it contributed to balancing the diet of every Egyptian, and it was perceived as a natural protector for both the living as well as the dead. Metaphorically, its foliage was seen as the stars in the sky, and the tree as a whole was the sky itself spreading its protection, its shade. A chapter of the Book of the Dead recalls that two sycamores, the leaves of which were made of turquoise, grew in the East. In addition this tree, considered an equivalent to the immensity of the sky, was represented by the helpful goddess Nut – the embodiment of the sky – or Isis, Hathor or other assimilated goddesses. Many scenes of the New Kingdom show this popular goddess springing from the trunk, offering food and beverages to the dead and protecting them. Sometimes, this tree goddess is represented by a Sycamore and a Palm tree superimposed upon each other so that she represents two aspects of providential food for eternity. A few wooden stelae dating from the Libyan period show the presence of both trees somewhere near the necropolis and shading the offering tables, while mourners are depicted in front of the door of the funerary chapel. According to this documentation, the sycamores rose in tiers from the edge of the desert up to the first tombs of the Theban necropolis. Evidence of this is the fact that the inhabitants of the Memphite district worshipped Hathor, “lady of the Southern sycamore” as the protector of the necropolis and of a suburb of the Southern area of Memphis. She was a very popular goddess among women, as the owner of an old emblematic sacred tree of the Memphite district.

Nowhere did I find the name of the Moringa (Moringa aptera) as a sacred tree. From the fruit of this tall tree (10 or 15 metres) the oil of ben is extracted; this is a sweet oil used for making perfumes. It does appear among the vegetable objects used for the cult of Horus at Edfu, however, where priests offered the god boughs of Moringa. The wood of the Moringa has a protective aspect, and it appears in the rite of renewal of the royal power at the New Year. Moringa trees were sometimes planted in temple gardens, notably in Heliopolis. Also known is an epithet of Ptah of Memphis, “Ptah under its moringa”.

We have no trace of a sacred Persea (Mimusops shimperii) in ancient Egypt, but its importance specifically appears during the Coptic period, when a Persea was worshipped at Hermopolis after the episode of a visit of the Holy Family, related by several Christian authors. The leaves of the tree were supposed to be curative for certain diseases. These virtues attributed to the Persea were certainly borrowed from some Pharaonic beliefs. Formerly, the Mimusops shimperii, devoted to the goddess Hathor, was associated with the desire to have children. A few passages from demotic texts show that Persea was employed in cases of female sterility, in conjunction with the magical help of Imhotep, because Imhotep, son of Ptah of Memphis, was the mediator for having children.

The Ebony tree does not exist in Egypt, although it is typical of the African South. Its name does appear a few times in Egyptian texts, however, in relationship with local divine epithets, and call to mind the hypothetical link between the Distant One, the goddess Tefnut, and the location of the country Ebony tree, namely the district of Punt. Ebony had a very strong magical connotation because of its origin. Artefacts made of Ebony wood were part of the equipment of a magician. In the Alexander Romance, king Nectanebo, said to be a great wizard, uses a magic stick made of Ebony wood.

To sum up, we could tackle the problem of each local species, but globally, most of the Egyptian trees and plants reveal a specific religious belief, a local legend based on the aspect of the plant, on its cycle, on the colour of its flowers, the nature of its roots, the medical virtues of its elements. We have found many traces of liturgical objects in Egyptian texts, amulets made of wood the species of which is given. Looking closely at these examples, we can ascertain that it was the result of beliefs, the specificity of which was established as tradition much earlier, when man lived closely with his environment.

From another point of view, vegetable nature was appreciated in itself. Temples were also planted with symbolic gardens, because the exuberance of the vegetation around a temple was considered to be an expression of the divine host. Classical literature, following Herodotus and Strabo, describes the existence of several Egyptian temple gardens at Bubastis, Chemmis, Acanthos Polis and Abydos. These descriptions echo local realities. Following a representation of the tomb of the vizir Nefehotep (TT 49), the Amun’s Karnak temple of the 18th dynasty was surrounded by planted trees. At the base of each trunk a device was installed for irrigation. The main entrance – the pylon – was preceded by a large sphinx avenue (a dromos) with a beautiful garden on both sizes. Several Egyptian texts of the Late period, in particular the 25th dynasty, give evidence of such gardens planted by kings. A description of a beautiful temple garden is given in the text covering the statue of Djedher the Saviour, a contemporary to the arrival of Alexander the Great in Egypt (332 B.C.): two orchards were organised on both sides of the dromos and included Persea trees, Acacias, Sycamores, and many flowers and plants to be presented to the divine host of Athribis. Other temple orchards were planted with aromatic trees.

As a side note, let us mention the so-called botanical garden of Tuthmosis III in the Karnak temple, which reflected an aspect of the royal campaigns evoking the desire to represent as closely as possible to Amun all known vegetation from foreign countries in Asia and in Nubia. The vision of the vegetable universe remains closely linked to a religious aspect of the vegetable cycle warranted by the gods.

Nature was organised in orchards and pleasure gardens, focalising the desire of the upper Egyptian class to live in the open air during the warm season. A beautiful example of such gardens is represented by the one of Ineni, an important official who was a contemporary of Tuthmosis III and Amenhotep II whose tomb was located at Sheykh abd el-Gournah (Thebes). A representation of the tomb was published in watercolour plates by Hippolyte Boussac in 1896. The publication gives an accurate representation of the garden, with Ineni and his wife sitting in the shade of a pavilion in front of dum palm grove. Underneath, we see four registers each made with a rank of different species according to their shape. A text above the pavilion gives the exact number of each species:

Species	Units
Sycamore (Ficus sycomorus L.)	73
Persea (Mimusops laurifolia (Forsk.) Friis	31
Palm tree (Phoenix dactylifera L.)	170
Dum palm tree (Hyphaene thebaica (Del.) Mart.	120
Fig tree (Ficus carica L.)	5
khet en shen tree	3
Moringa (Moringa peregrina (Forsk.) Fiori	2
Vine (Vitis vinifera L.)	12
Pomegranate tree (Punica granatum L.)	5
Acacia tortilis L.	8
Carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua L.)	16
Jujube trees (Ziziphus spina christi (L.) Willd.)	5
tiun tree	5
Medemia argun Würtemb.	1
Sesbania	2
i[…] tree	lacuna
ih tree	lacuna
Maerua crassifolia Forsk.	3
Willow (Salix subserrata Willd.)	9
Tamarisk (Tamarix spp.)	10

The first columns of the text state: “To wander through his garden of the West, to refresh under his sycamores, to contemplate his tall and beautiful trees that he planted on the earth by the grace of the venerable god, Amun, the lord of the thrones on the Two Lands ” Thanks to the beautiful thesis of Nathalie Baum, this Ineni garden and its meaning are well known. The association of a list of vegetation with the image of a garden is unique. The order of the names in the list is not given at random, rather recalls traditional associations which give an idea of the existence of a proto-Egyptian botanical classification. Still, the Ineni garden is anything but a scientific representation: the text expresses the pride and satisfaction of the owner. He indicates that his garden is a valued centre of family life because trees and ponds bring freshness. The garden of Rekhmirê‘, Thoutmosis III’s vizir, represented in his tomb, is organised around a beautiful pool where gardeners water the plants. Another kind of garden is found at the tomb of Sennofer – the vine tomb – in the form of a large vineyard and beautiful trees. The tomb of Merirê‘ at Tell al-Amarna shows a garden in his estate in front of the house set out around a large pool. On the Western bank of Thebes the arrangement of such a house of the 18th Dynasty can be observed in the funeral estate of Amenhotpe the Hapu’s son, the prime minister of Amenhotep III.

All of these images clearly are a reflection of fertility, plenty and pleasure. A nymph of the garden, the spirit of the nature, is there and brings fruit and beverages. As usual in the funerary field, the features of the garden are ambivalent; reality and symbol are mistaken. In Egyptian thought, the garden is a peaceful place where the dead and his family lack no fruit or food of any sort and are quite sure to avoid scarcity and to breathe easily close to a fresh pool. In addition, everyone knew that in literature the garden shielded lovers from prying eyes and, according to love songs, garden plants themselves were kindly witnesses of seduction whereas in Egyptian stories, the gardener, the eyes of the estate owner, sometimes appeared as a censor of an affair.

For common people, a recurrent symbolic image, the so-called Elysian Fields – the Ialu Fields – in chapter 129 of the Book of the Dead, echoes a typical conception of Egyptian nature. The tomb of Sennedjem is decorated with such an elaborated scene pointing out different kinds of fields, channels, lakes and a pleasure garden organised on an island. For the deceased and his wife, this scene represented a place for working (harvest) and for relaxing for eternity.

In conclusion, the choice of the most beautiful species in Egypt for some tombs and the quality of their representation show us that the principal trees and plants of pleasure gardens were considered as the most important of all. A very beautiful example is represented in the tomb of Sennedjem at Deir el-Medineh. On an island of the Elysian Fields, perfect silhouettes of palm trees, sycamores and mandrakes, red poppies and centauries emerge as the most visible plants of Egyptian nature.

In other scenes representing the Elysian Fields on papyri, it is possible to identify blue flax flowers growing under the influence of the moonlight as well as barley and wheat spikes at harvest time which are nourished by the sun. Flax fibres were used to make white linen clothes, which was consequently considered equivalent to the purity of the moon. The name of flax was metaphorically “pillar of the sky”, a name of the moon, because flax was considered to be the moon itself and growing in sympathy with it. Barley and wheat spikes – both primary cultivated cereals – were, for their part, offered to the divinity and were the source of many beliefs and many rites.

The documentation shows that the interest in plants and gardening was not only intellectual or religious. Some ex-libris recovered from royal libraries show the theoretical interest of Egyptians in horticulture, when they introduced foreign vegetable species in their land. Unfortunately, the specialised monographs formerly attached to these ex-libris are definitely lost. But the titles are significant inasmuch as the royal library of Amenhotep III kept at least two books dealing with moringa and the pomegranate trees. This is quite enough to be sure of the scientific aspect of horticulture during the time of the Egyptians. We cannot rule out the possibility that some excerpts of such books appeared in the works of Theophrastus, when this Aristotelous disciple came to the Nile valley during the third century B.C. It was a habit of Greek scholars to take their science from the Egyptian clergy. As we know from Clemens of Alexandria who reveals the different names of the traditional books kept in the temple libraries, among the Egyptian priests appeared many specialised scholars, ritualists, mathematicians and physicians. Historians such as the famous Manetho of Sebennytus translated the Sacred Book in Greek so that Greeks were able to know better Egyptian chronology. Finally, let us admit that Theophratus was certainly in touch with Egyptian priests specialised in the field of horticulture and able to read and translate the last precious papyrus rolls kept in specialised Houses of Life of the last temples.

Sydney H. Aufrère

Directeur de Recherche au CNRS

FRE 2742 du CNRS (« Archéologie religieuse de l’Égypte antique »)

Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier

Selected Bibliography

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Aufrère (S.H.) 1992, « Nil, tables d’offrande et bassins à libation, jardins funéraires et labyrinthes », Portes pour l’au-delà. L’Égypte, le Nil et le « Champ des Offrandes », Musée archéologique Henri Prades, Lattes, 1992.

Aufrère (SH.) 1995, « De l’influence des luminaires sur la croissance des végétaux. À propos d’une scène du papyrus funéraire de Nebhepet de Turin (ancienne collection Drovetti) », Memnonia VI- [1995], p. 113-121.

Aufrère (S.H.) 1998, « La loutre, le chat, la genette et l’ichneumon dans le fourré de papyrus », DiscEgypt 41, 1998, p. 7-28.

Aufrère (S.H.) (éd.) 1999, Encyclopédie religieuse de l’Univers végétal (ERUV). Croyances phytoreligieuses de l’Égypte ancienne, OrMonsp X, Montpellier, 1999.

Aufrère (S.H.) 1999, « Du marais primordial de l’Égypte des origines au jardin médicinal. Traditions magico-religieuses et survivances médiévales », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV I, MonspOr X, Montpellier, 1999, p. 3-36.

Aufrère (S.H.) 1999, « Les végétaux sacrés de l’Égypte ancienne d’après les listes géographiques d’Edfou et du Papyrus géographique de Tanis et autres monographies sacrées », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV I, MonspOr X, Montpellier, 1999, p. 121-207.

Aufrère (S.H.) 1999, « Note à propos des ex-libris de livres concernant les arbres de jardin ayant appartenu à une bibliothèque d’Amenhotep III », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV I, MonspOr X, Montpellier, 1999, p. 219-224.

Aufrère (S.H.) 1999, A. Lopez, « Les Papillons (“Monarques”) du tombeau de Khnoumhotep II à Béni-Hassan (Moyen Empire, xii^e dynastie) », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV I, MonspOr X, Montpellier, 1999, p. 265-278.

Aufrère (S.H.) (éd.) 2001, Encyclopédie religieuse de l’Univers végétal. Croyances phytoreligieuses de l’Égypte ancienne (ERUV II), OrMonsp XI, Montpellier, 2001, xvi-602 p.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2001 [in coll. with A. Lopez], « Représentations végétales énigmatiques du Nouvel Empire. La « liane » à feuilles sagittées [liseron] », in S. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV II, OrMonsp XI, Montpellier, 2001, p. 38-78.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2001, « Le sceptre de papyrus et les déesses », in S. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV II, OrMonsp XI, Montpellier, 2001, p. 83-88.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2001, « La fabrication du papyrus égyptien et son circuit commercial en Méditerranée, de l’époque saïte au Haut Moyen Âge », Méditerranées 30-31, 2002, p. 187-206.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2003, « Le “territoire cultivé” (ouou) et la “réserve aquatique” (pehou) dans les monographies des nomes de l’Égypte ancienne », in M. Mazoyer (éd.), La campagne antique : espace sauvage, terre domestiquée, Cahiers KUBABA Num. V, Paris, 2003, p. 9-44.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2003, « L’arbre sacré, les buttes arborées de l’Égypte ancienne et la crue du Nil », in M. Mazoyer, J. Pérez Rey, R. Lebrun, Fl. Malbrant-Labat (éd.), L’arbre : symbole et réalité. Actes des Journées universitaires de Hérisson (Allier) organisées par les Cahiers Kubaba (Université de Paris I) et la ville de Hérisson 21 et 22 juin 2002, coll. KUBABA. Série Actes II, L’Harmattan, 2003, p. 105-134.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2004, « Fêtes, processions et rites égyptiens dans le De Iside et Osiride de Plutarque », in M. Mazoyer (éd.), La fête. La rencontre du sacré et du profane. Deuxième colloque international organisé par les cahier KUBABA (Université Paris I) et l’Institut Catholique, 6 et 7 décembre 2002, Cahiers KUBABA, Série colloques, Paris, 2004, p. 43-59 = La fête. La rencontre du sacré et du profane, Notre vie liturgique. Études Inter-Religieuses 8, Septième année 2004, Centre d’Études et de Recherches Orientales, Ordre Antonin Maronite, Beyrouth, 2004, tome I, p. 211-238 (avec traduction arabe).

Aufrère (S.H.) 2005 (éd.), Encyclopédie religieuse de l’Univers végétal. Croyances phytoreligieuses de l’Égypte ancienne (ERUV III), OrMonsp XV, Montpellier, 2005, xv-668 p.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2005, « kronos, un crocodile justicier des marécages de la rive occidentale du Panopolite au temps de Chénouté ? », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV III, OrMonsp XV, 2005, p. 77-94.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2005, « La fabrication du papyrus égyptien et son exportation », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV III, OrMonsp XV, 2005, p. 103-117.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2005, « À propos d’une légende du P. Jumilhac. La nébride de papyrus », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV III, OrMonsp XV, 2005, p. 119-124.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2005, « Mythe de l’œil du soleil 6, 1 -17 : la métaphore du feldspath vert et du papyrus », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV III, OrMonsp XV, 2005, p. 125-134.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2005, « À propos d’une stèle du musée du Caire. Quelques éléments de réflexion sur la butte jAt », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV III, OrMonsp XV, 2005, p. 305-310.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2005 [En collaboration avec Chr. de Vartavan et V. Asensí Amoros, Bibliographie indexée de la flore, de la botanique sacrée des Anciens Égyptiens, des vestiges de végétaux retrouvés sur le sol de l’Égypte ancienne, ainsi que des vocables désignant des végétaux ou des parties de végétaux poussant dans les contrées du Nil importées ou acclimatées, en égyptien, en démotique et en copte, ainsi que ceux signalés dans la documentation papyrologique grecque et chez les auteurs antiques, dans S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV IV, OrMonsp XVI, 2005.

Aufrère (S.H.) 2005 (forthcoming), « The Vegetable Universe of Ancient Egypt, its symbiosis and religious re-interpretation (L’Univers végétal de l’Égypte ancienne, sa symbiose et sa réinterprétation religieuse) », in M. Conan, R. Kress (ed.), Botanical Progress, Horticultural Innovations and Cultural changes. Symposium organised by Dumbarton Oaks Garden and Landscape Studies and the Smithsonian Institution, 6-8 May 2004, 2005, .

Aufrère (S.H.) 2005 (forthcoming), « Threskiornis æthiopicus. Autour d’un mouvement migratoire de l’ibis dans l’Égypte ancienne », in M. Mazoyer (éd.), L’Oiseau. Entre ciel et terre. Deuxième colloque international de Hérisson, juillet 2004, Cahiers KUBABA, 2005, p. 1-24. 

Aufrère (S.H.) (forthcoming), « La “Campagne de Hotep” et la “Campagne des Roseaux” dans les Textes des Sarcophages et le Livre de Sortir au jour », in M. Mazoyer (éd.), La campagne dans l’antiquité, Colloque international organisé par l’Institut Catholique de Paris, l’Université Paris I Sorbonne et les Cahiers KUBABA, Paris, novembre 2004.

Barakat (Hala), N. Baum 1992, La végétation antique de Douch (Oasis de Kharga). Une approche macrobotanique, Documents de fouilles de l’Institut français d’Archéologie orientale 27, Le Caire, 1992, X-105 p. 

Baum (N.) 1988a, Arbres et arbustes de l’Égypte ancienne. La liste de la tombe thébaine d’Ineni (n° 81) (= OLA 31), Leuven, 1988.

Beaux (N.) 1990, Le cabinet de curiosité de Thoutmôsis III. Plantes et animaux du Jardin botanique » de Karnak, OLA, 36, Louvain, 1990.

Erroux-Morfin (M.) 1999, « Le saule et la lune », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV I, OrMonsp X, Montpellier, 1999, p. 293-316.

Erroux-Morfin (M.) 2001a, « Le Papyrus et son offrande. Cypéracées et Joncacées dans les textes égyptiens d’époque tardive », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV II, OrMonsp XI, 2001, p. 17-38.

Erroux-Morfin (M.) « Cypéracées, Nymphéacées, Phœnix, supports vivants des temples », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV III, OrMonsp XV, 2005, p. 135-153.

Germer (R.) 1985, Flora des pharaonischen Ägypten (Flore de l’Égypte pharaonique), Mainz am Rhein 1985 (= Sonderschrift DAIAK, 14), ix, 259 p.

Keimer (L.) 1927, « Le Potamogeton lucens L. dans l’Égypte ancienne. Un exemple de tradition dans les représentations figurées égyptiennes », REA 1, 1927, p. 182-197.

Keimer (L.) 1928, « Note sur la représentation exacte d’une feuille de Nymphaea Lotus L. sur un bas-relief de Basse Époque (Le Caire, 25 mars 1928) », ASAE 28, 1928, p. 38-41.

Keimer (L.) 1929, « Nouvelles recherches au sujet du Potamogeton lucens L. dans l’Égypte ancienne et remarques sur l’ornementation des hippopotames en faïence du Moyen Empire », REA 2, 1929, p. 210-253.

Keimer (L.) 1929, « Sur un bas-relief en calcaire représentant la déesse dans le sycomore et la déesse dans le dattier », ASAE 29, 1929, p. 81-88.

Keimer (L.) 1938, « Pavian und Dum-Palme (Babouin et palmier doum) », MDAIK 8, 1938, p. 42-45.

Keimer (L.) 1956, « La vache et le cobra dans les marécages de papyrus de Thèbes : contribution à l’étude de la religion de l’Égypte ancienne et à la grammaire de l’ornement végétal et animal », BIE 37 (Session 1954-1955), 1956, p. 215-257.

Koemoth (P.P.) 1994, Osiris et les arbres. Contribution à l’étude des arbres sacrés de l’Égypte ancienne, AegLeod 3, Louvain, 1994

Koemoth (P.P.) 1998, « Bosquets, arbres sacrés et dieux-guerriers », in W. Clarysse, A. Schoors et H. Willems (éd.), Egyptian Religion the Last Thousand Years I. Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Jan Quaegebeur, OLA 84, Leuven, 1998, p. 647-659.

Kurth (Dieter) 1975, Die Himmel Stützen. Die « tWA-pt »-Szenen in den ägyptischen Tempeln der griech.-röm. Epoche, Rites égyptiens II, Bruxelles, 1975.

Servajean (Fr.) 1999, « Enquête sur la palmeraie de Bouto (I) : Les lymphes d’Osiris et la résurrection végétale », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV I, orMonsp X, Montpellier, 1999, p. 227-247.

Servajean (Fr.) 1999b, « Du singulier à l’universel : le Potamogeton dans les scènes cynégétiques », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV I, OrMonsp X, Montpellier, 1999, p. 249-264.

Servajean (Fr.) 2001a, « Enquête sur la palmeraie de Bouto (II) : la légende de Psammétique », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV II, OrMonsp XI, 2001, p. 3-16.

Servajean (Fr.) 2001b, « Le lotus émergeant et les quatre Fils d’Horus. Analyse d’une métaphore physiologique », in S.H. Aufrère (éd.), ERUV II, OrMonsp XI, 2001, p. 299-317.

Schoske (S.), B. Kreißl, et R. Germer 1992, « Anch », Blumen für das Leben, München, 1992 .