The garden in the iconography of the Ancient Near East: a study of selected material from Egypt

This study discusses a selection of iconographic material depicting Egyptian gardens in the New Kingdom (1500-1100 B.C.). Private gardens, necropolis gardens, royal and temple gardens are discussed. The garden was not only utilitarian in providing shade and coolness (walls, trees and water) or food (vineyard and fig trees) and medicine (herbs), but also symbolic. Important symbolic elements were: the flora, especially the lotus and mandrake, which represented life and love; fauna such as the fish and geese which represented regeneration and eroticism; and the water in the ponds and streams representing the primeval waters (Nun) from which all life originated. The garden represented life itself: the temple garden stood for the divine forces of life at work in the cosmos and the necropolis garden for the rebirth of life.