Date Palms, Deer/Gazelles and Birds in Ancient Mesopotamia and Early Byzantine Syria. A Christian Iconographic Scheme and its Sources in the Ancient Orient

Two artworks of two different genres made almost two thousand years apart from each other serve as a point of departure for this study. One is a floor mosaic made in early Byzantine Syria in the sixth century A.D., and found in the monastery of Tall Bī‘a, the other is an incised ivory pyxis from the Middle Assyrian period, dated to the thirteenth century B.C. Date palms, one or more hoofed creatures and birds in a heraldic posture are focal elements on both. The comparison of the two designs and the analysis of the symbolic role of individual motifs in Mesopotamian and early Christian-Byzantine culture indicate that the similarities between their iconographic schemes are not mere chance. Although direct influences can certainly be rejected, we may assume a persistent visual tradition which included also the design on the pyxis; furthermore, despite the different overall meaning, the similarly strong symbolic content of certain elements in Christianity made them suitable for reinterpretation and thus they probably had an invigorating influence on Byzantine art.