Persea

The Persea Tree in Ancient Egypt


 * Egyptian Name:**

//Ished// or //S'w'b//

The Persea tree (//Mimusops laurifolia// and //Mimusops schimperi//) was known to the ancient Egyptians as the "Tree of Life," and was often mentioned in Egyptian mythology. The wood was used for furniture and other small items such as headrests, while the fruit was eaten.

The wood, fruit, and leaves of this tree were frequently used in funerary contexts with symbolic meaning. Small twigs and leaves of the persea have been found in many tombs - the fruit of the tree and two large bouquets of branches were found in the tomb of Tutankhamen. Faience or glass models of persea fruit and leaves were buried with the dead. The leaves were sometimes used as mummy garlands, such as the one found on Ramses II. Branches of the persea were often part of funerary bouquets. One temple inventory records "4,415 logs of persea" as part of a royal offering.

Regarded as sacred, kings were often depicted being protected by its foliage, and goddesses were pictured as emerging from the persea, offering food and wine to the deceased. The persea was related to creation myths because the fruit resembles a heart, and the leaf a tongue. One tradition held that the shape of the cartouche, in which royal names were inscribed, was a persea leaf, because it was on a leaf of this tree that the god Thoth wrote the king's name on his ascension to the throne.

The persea also had solar significance, associated with the rising sun. Ra was said to have split the persea tree in the morning after his victory over his enemies. Amun, too, was connected with this tree - a priest of Amun wrote during the Amarna Period about the god he used to serve: //"//My heart longs for thy look, O Master of the Persea Tree, when thy neck receives garlands of flowers!" Its fruit symbolized the "sacred heart" of Horus, and the Bennu bird was thought to rise from a burning persea tree at Heliopolis. It was sometimes said that the persea tree grew around the coffin of Osiris, protecting it. The persea was known as //Nht Hnmt Ntr// ("The Tree That Encloses the God.")

In the Roman period, the tree was dying out in Egypt because of overharvesting, and cutting it was prohibited by law. Today it is extinct in Egypt, although efforts are being made to reintroduce it.


 * Quotes from the Book of the Dead and other sources:**

The Persea Tree in the Orchard

The Fruit of Ancient Egypt

The Trees of Ancient Egypt