“The upper register lies behind the lower, in a primitive form of
perspective. The lower has two goddesses standing, holding vases, from which
streams of water flow. As these blend and fall, they become four streams (one
original stream becomes two and then four).
Professor Nick Wyatt
In the next extract from professor
Wyatt’s article,
A Royal
Garden: The Ideology of Eden
we find further possible Genesis-Edenic
symbolism. Typically, though, the Mari temple and its wall depictions,
conventionally dated here to the C19th BC, are considered to pre-date any text of
the Book of Genesis. In this series, on the other hand, we have re-dated
Zimri-Lim and his palace to almost a millennium later than this, to the era of
King Solomon of Israel, who influenced all of the kings of the earth (I Kings 4:34):
““From all nations people came to listen to Solomon's wisdom, sent by
all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom”.
This would have included Zimri-Lim king of Mari, an actual
biblical character (see below).
The Garden in the
broader Ancient Near Eastern context
Let us try to set
the Garden of Eden in the broader ancient Near Eastern context. Conceptually,
Eden may be identified in principle with other “gardens” in ancient Near
Eastern tradition, such as the scene in the Mari coronation painting, as well
as with royal Assyrian gardens, throne rooms, and so on. This is because they
all shared a common symbolism, without any particular one being derived from
any other. Jean Margueron stated that no garden has yet been identified in the
palace at Mari, but the investiture painting shows that at least the concept
was present, and was evidently important for ritual purposes. It is most likely
that the palm court (court 106) was the garden, even if a somewhat unconventional
one, used precisely for ritual purposes in conjunction with the throne-room, even
if the precise rites have left no record. And the vase and streams motif was
common and widespread in ancient Near Eastern glyptic art; moreover, the famous
marble statue of the goddess holding a vase from which water flowed was
actually situated at the threshold of the throne room, the whole architectural
complex thus functioning as a symbolic garden.
The famous
wall-painting from the royal palace at Mari, already building on a rich
tradition, depicts the scene commonly known as the rein-vestiture of King
Zimri-Lim of Mari, after he had regained his throne, though Margueron has now
argued … that it actually belonged in the reign of his father Yahdun-Lim. Its
date is to be estimated as ca
1840-20 BCE, no
greater precision being possible.
Damien Mackey’s comment:
I can be much more ‘precise’ than this, having previously identified Zimri-Lim’s
father, Yahdun-Lim, or
Iahdulim as
Biblical Eliada
This Eliada was
the father of king Solomon’s foe, Rezon (I Kings 11:23): “God raised up Rezon son of Eliada as an enemy against Solomon. Rezon had
fled from his master Hadadezer king of Zobah” - Rezon therefore being the
historical Zimri-Lim.
His former “master Hadadezer”, mentioned here, we have identified in this
series (following Dean Hickman) as the historical Shamsi-Adad I.
Shamsi-Adad I’s father, Uru-kabkabu or Ilu-Kabkabu becomes:
Ilu-Kabkabu
as Biblical Rehob
“Moreover, David
defeated Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah, when he went to restore his
monument at the Euphrates River” (2 Samuel 8:3).
Professor Wyatt concludes:
The location of
the painting is a guide to its spatial interpretation.
It is at the
side of the door going from the palm court (court 106) into the throne-room of
the palace. This lateral location suggests—and this can only remain within the realm
of possibilities—that it may have been duplicated on the other side of the
entranceway.
It is reasonable
to see it having served as a thematic linkage between the two areas, the court
and the throne-room connected by the antechamber, communicating between the two
and transferring the symbolism of one into the other, or of each to the other.
Thus the spacious courtyard, originally with a palm tree in the middle, seems
to have represented a garden, and the painting shows four trees of indeterminate
species—though they are probably to be identified as date palms—with figures of
a lamassu goddess … standing between each outer pair.
The inner two are
flanked by winged sphinxes and griffins, above and below respectively,
common motifs in
royal palaces, since both mythical animal forms are royal symbols.
There are two
registers in the central tableau, which, while located in the garden, represent
respectively the ante-chamber housing the statue of goddess and vase, and
throne room beyond. The upper register lies behind the lower, in a primitive
form of perspective. The lower has two goddesses standing, holding vases, from
which streams of water flow. As these blend and fall, they become four streams
(one original stream becomes two and then four). The upper scene, viewed as it
were through the flowing streams, since it lies “behind” them, has the goddess
Ishtar hand Zimri-Lim (or if we follow Margueron, Yahdun-Lim) the ring and the
rod … symbols of his kingly office. They are flanked by two attendant deities.
The diagrammatic
treatment given by Margueron suggests that the painting or paintings, if
paired, allowed persons entering the throne-room to anticipate their progress
towards it from the court. Thus the inner trees (doubled)—correcting
Margueron—represent the palm in the centre of the court. The goddess (a single
figure) with the vase who stands immediately inside the antechamber leading to
the throne-room by its two entrances, one at either end, is preceded by the two
vase-holding goddesses of the painting. The painting allows the viewer to “see”
through the antechamber wall to the scene in the throne-room beyond. All the
motifs here present, the trees, the rivers, the divine figures, the king
(robed), and the sphinxes and griffins, which will trigger responses in the
reader familiar with the biblical narrative, were already clichés [sic] in
Marian and wider ancient Near Eastern iconography. They occurred widely on
cylinder seals, on statuary and reliefs, and in derivative forms occur
throughout the ancient Near East over a protracted period of time. And wherever
found, their significance was not simply decorative, but ideological. Their
impact may of course have been limited to the literate classes who formed the
palace and temple personnel and the civil service. They would be the people who
carried seals, for example. But they had a common vested interest in
maintaining the mystique evoked in such devices. However, many royal motifs did
filter down in attenuated forms, to be recognised by all as symbols of royal
authority. This temporal and spatial ubiquity suggests that the motifs
maintained a relatively stable symbolic value throughout the two millennia from
at least 2000 BCE. This is significant when it comes to assessing later,
apparently quite distinct materials, such as the tree(s) in the biblical Eden
narrative. While biblical scholars are generally at pains to insist on the sui
generis nature of this tradition, it is more consistent with our broad
understanding of ancient Near Eastern culture to think in terms of a common
repertoire, a koine. ….
