ca. 2112-2004 BCE. London, British Museum

These volute and vegetation references continue without a break in Mesopotamia , most importantly on cylinder seals, like that at the right. 

	Kassite period, 1595-1200 BCE. Paris, Louvre

The second millennium BCE saw the Semitic goddess, Ishtar, firmly syncretized with Inanna. The two shared much iconography, including the lion on which each often stands, the 8-pointed star, or rosette, symbolizing their dominion over the realms of heaven, and the date palm, which was often depicted alongside, or in place of the human representation of the goddess. It appears to have been in this mid-second millennium period when the date palm imagery became ubiquitous, as seen in the seal at the Louvre.

	Cypriot seal: Mistress of animals flanked by rampant horned animals. Late  Cypriot II, ca. 14th century BCE.  New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

At this juncture it is important to note tha t by 2000 BCE there was a thriving international trade in copper, emanating from Cyprus, and traveling to Mesopotamia, Egypt, and throughout the Mediterranean (See e. g. Gaber 2018). It is not surprising, therefore, that Cypriot cylinder seals of the  second millennium BCE exhibit some of the characteristics of Mesopotamian seals of the period. In particular, the principal deity of Cyprus was a "Great Goddess" (whose name remains unknown), so that it would be natural to borrow some of the iconography used for the Queen(s) of Heaven in Mesopotamia. This borrowing demonstrates that the imagery of the trees with volutes was common throughout the Levant in the Bronze Age.

	Bronze stands, 13th century BCE from Kition and Kourion.  London, British Museum, in the Cyprus room

Similarly, there is evidence that these paired volutes continued to be revered as symbols of one Great Goddess or another in the form of stylized trees. On Cyprus, for instance, the figure whom Jacqueline Karageorghis so correctly called "La Grande Déesse de Chypre," was the recipient of the gifts of devotees on bronze stands dated to the 12th century BCE. Because the worshippers in these bronze stands are bearing what are presumably the fruits of their labors-textiles, copper ingots, and music-it seems clear that they are meant to be offering them to the Great Goddess, and not simply to a tree. A simplified version of these bronze stands occurs in a number of plainer stands, like the one from the Cesnola collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Cypriot bronze tripod stand. 1250-1050 BCE. Cesnola Collection, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession no. 74.51.5684 Taanah stand. 10th century BCE.  www.baslibrary.org

In simpler Late Bronze Age tripods like this one, each leg is clearly meant to represent a symbol of the Great Goddess, her special "tree"-or at any rate, vegetal motif with a volute at the top of each. It is significant that in all of these examples the top of each leg shows a pair of clear volutes that, if they were found in Greece six hundred years later, would be called, "Ionic."

There is no doubt that the Tree of Life motif became increasingly elaborate and varied during the first millennium BCE. One of the main reasons for that elaboration and variation was the artistic exuberance of the Phoenicians, particularly in ivories. "The three main Levantine groups or 'traditions' [of ivory carving] are,  therefore, the 'Phoenician', the 'Syrian-Intermediate' and the 'North Syrian'. Each of these 'traditions'  consists of a series of defined groups, such as the easily recognizable 'Egyptianizing' ivories of the Phoenician  tradition" (Herrmann and Laidlaw 2013). The ivories from Aslan Tash, provide a case in point. There are other vegetal motifs, especially on ivory furniture panels like this one that include the volutes with a triangle, which is the basic formula for the proto-aeolic, or "volute" capital.

There are instances, however, where the original form of the original emblems of the Great Goddess, Inanna, remain recognizable-and perhaps intentionally so-into the first millennium BCE in the Levant. Witness the Taanach stand on which the Inanna bundles can be seen plainly in the topmost register. It seems likely that the "Great Goddess" bundles on the Taanach stand refer to the Queen of Heaven mentioned in the Tanakh by Jeremiah (e. g. 7: 18; 44: 19, 25), most probably Asherah. It is doubtless the veneration of a native (or at least local) Great Goddess in the Levant that led to the conscious use of Inanna/Ishtar's original symbol.

Similarly, in Cyprus there was a venerated Lady (of Heaven), the Cypriots' own "Great Goddess." This might account for the fact that the Inanna/Ishtar bundles persist in Cypriot art. These representations continued without a break, even into the Hellenistic period. Examples from Palaepaphos and Idalion are shown here.

Column capital from "Hadji Abdoullah" near Paphos; Kouklia Museum.

Column capital from "Hadji Abdoullah" near Paphos; Kouklia Museum.

Limestone plaque from Idalion, found in Hellenistic layers (Gaber 1999). (Photos P. Gaber.)