,
Babylon (ca. 575 BC) In
Assyrian religion, the palm is one of the trees identified as the
Sacred Tree connecting heaven, represented by the crown of the tree, and earth, the base of the trunk. Reliefs from the 9th century BC show winged
genii holding palm fronds in the presence of the Sacred Tree. It is associated with the goddess
Ishtar and is found on the
Ishtar Gate. In ancient
Mesopotamia, the
date palm may have represented fertility in humans. The Mesopotamian goddess
Inanna, who had a part in the sacred marriage ritual, was believed to make the dates abundant. Palm stems represented long life to the
Ancient Egyptians, and the god
Huh was often shown holding a palm stem in one or both hands. The palm was carried in Egyptian funeral processions to represent eternal life. The
Kingdom of Nri (
Igbo) used the
omu, a tender palm frond, to sacralize and restrain. Some argue the palm in the
Parthian poem
Drakht-e Asurig serves as a reference to the Babylonian faith. The palm was a symbol of
Phoenicia and appeared on Punic coins. In
ancient Greek, the word for palm,
phoinix, was thought to be related to the
ethnonym. , next to a palm that represents his birth on Delos (
Comacchio Painter, ) In
Archaic Greece, the palm tree was a sacred sign of
Apollo, who had been born under a palm on the island of
Delos. The palm thus became an icon of the
Delian League. In recognition of the alliance,
Cimon of Athens erected a bronze statue of a palm tree at
Delphi as part of a victory monument commemorating the
Battle of the Eurymedon (469/466 BC). In addition to representing the victorious League, the bronze palm
(phoinix) was a visual pun on the defeated Phoenician fleet. From 400 BC onward, a palm branch was awarded to the victor in athletic contests, and the practice was brought to Rome around 293 BC. The palm became so closely associated with victory in ancient Roman culture that the Latin word
palma could be used as a
metonym for "victory", and was a sign of any kind of victory. A lawyer who won his case in the
forum would decorate his front door with palm leaves. The palm branch or tree became a regular attribute of the
goddess Victory, and when
Julius Caesar secured his rise to sole power with a
victory at Pharsalus, a palm tree was supposed to have sprung up miraculously at the Temple of
Nike, the Greek counterpart of Victory, in
Tralles, later known as Caesarea, in Asia Minor. The
toga palmata was a
toga ornamented with a palm motif; it was worn to celebrate a
military triumph only by those who had a previous triumph. The toga itself was the garment of the civilian at peace, and was worn by the
triumphator to mark his laying down of arms and the cessation of war. The use of the palm in this setting indicates how the original meaning of "victory" shaded into "peace" as the aftermath of victory. Coins issued under
Constantine I, the first Christian emperor, and his successors continue to display the traditional iconography of Victory, but often combined with Christian symbolism such as
christograms. The Roman senator
Symmachus, who tried to preserve
Rome's religious traditions under Christian domination, is pictured on an ivory diptych bearing a palm branch in an allegorical triumph over death. File:Durand Stone.jpg|Palm branch inscribed on the
Durand Stone (
Kassite period, 1600–1155 BC) File:Egyptian - Large Amuletic Bead - Walters 42382 - Top View C.jpg|Monkey next to a palm, symbolizing the sun god's daily rising, on an Egyptian amuletic bead (ca. 1300 BC) File:Cylinder Seal, Achaemenid, modern impression 05.jpg|Palms on an
Achaemenid seal impression (5th century BC) File:Tetradrachm Antimakhos Theos reverse CdM Paris.jpg|
Poseidon holding a palm branch on the
reverse of a
tetradrachm of
Antimachus I Theos, king of
Bactria (2nd century BC) File:Winner of a Roman chariot race.jpg|Victorious charioteer holding a palm branch on a
Roman mosaic File:Symmacho detalio in basso, British Museum.jpg|Symmachus bearing the palm of triumph over death (4th century) ==Judaism==