“Tree of Life” Decoration on Iron Age Pottery from the Southern Levant

Abstract

This paper aims at clarifying the significance of the “tree of life” decoration engraved or painted on large jars found from Iron Age strata in Israel. They are anomalies because most Iron Age pottery is red washed with little paint or engraving. During the Late Bronze Age a “tree of life” decoration appears quite often on the pottery, and at first glance these Iron Age decorations appear to suggest the continuation of the Canaanite tradition of a fertility goddess and a polytheistic worldview. However, the writer shows that with the passage of time the meaning of the “tree of life” changed from representing a fertility goddess to representing the blessings of Yahweh on the basis of (1) a study of the change in the symbolic world of the “tree of life” as reflected in iconographic artifacts from MBII to Iron Age IIC, and (2) interpretation of inscriptions and drawings from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud.