Pomegranate

2. Pomegranates in the Ancient World

If he is in his seventies and gasping respiration continually afflicts him and he asks for pomegranates, he will die. If he is in his seventies and he asks for dates and eats them, he will get well.

Mesopotamian omen-based medical text, 9th–7th century BC

The Ancient Near East: Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia

History begins with the invention of writing in Iraq in the late fourth millennium BC, and with it the history of the pomegranate. The creation of writing developed alongside the practice of marking possessions with seals. One Mesopotamian individual living in the first cities around 3500–3000 BC chose the motif of a pomegranate to mark ownership of property. Complete with engravings schematically representing the internal sections of the fruit, the seal is one of the earliest surviving artistic representations of a pomegranate. This seal would have functioned as a form of identification, acting as a personal signature on accounting/trade documents written in clay, and ensuring the security of valued commodities sealed in vessels. The seal has perforations so that it could be worn on the body, either around the neck or on the wrist, as an item of jewellery. This steatite pomegranate was therefore inseparable from its owner’s identity, embodying who they were. The fruit was probably chosen as the icon for a seal for its symbolic value. This pomegranate, stamped on daily business transactions, evoked the fruit’s fertility, guaranteeing its owner fruitfulness in his affairs.

Mesopotamian stamp seal and its impression in the form of a pomegranate, 3500–3000 BC.

A roughly contemporary artefact, an alabaster vessel known as the Uruk Vase, represents the levels of world order during this time. The temple, the plain on which divine and human interaction occurs, is represented in the topmost register. Underneath this a register bears a representation of the world of man. Further down is a register of domesticated animals. Out of the watery bottom layer, trees grow, some of which bear a trio of pomegranates. The pomegranate is among the vegetal base on which society rests, enjoyed by the upper human and divine realms.

Although it is fortunate that recipes survive from ancient Mesopotamia, they are quiet as regards to the pomegranate’s use in cooking. The fruit seems to have been a popular banquet item, one text recording the serving at a wedding of ‘large pomegranate seeds plucked from their rinds’. Another manuscript notes that a hundred pomegranates were served as condiments among a long list of foods served at a feast held by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II.[1] Cuneiform tablets indicate that pomegranate was one of the various flavours added to the national and staple beverage invented by the Mesopotamian people: beer.

The pomegranate also makes an appearance in Mesopotamian narratives. Sumerian literature is dripping with plant-and agricultural-based allegories representing sexual intercourse. The pomegranate fits well among these. In one composition the historic king Shulgi (2094–2047 BC) approaches Inanna (also known as Ishtar), the Sumerian goddess of sex and war, with the following proposition: ‘My sister, I would go with you to my pomegranate-tree. I would plant there my sweet, honey covered … ’.[2] A break in the text leaves it up to our imagination as to just how Shulgi spills the seed and juice of his pomegranate on the goddess. The Old Testament draws directly from this Near Eastern tradition, for the author of the Song of Songs (7:2) likewise exclaims: ‘Let us go forth into the fields … where the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love.’ The suggestiveness continues throughout this book: ‘I would give you spiced wine to drink, the juice of my pomegranate (Songs 8:2).’ Even later in Mesopotamia, during the Assyrian period of the first millennium BC, the fruit remains explicitly sexualized in texts. An incantation text of the period thus reads:

Incantation: A maid, beautiful, loving, has come forth. The goddess Ishtar, who loveth the apple and pomegranate, sexual strength, has come forth.

Prayer for: If a woman has raised her eye to a man’s penis.

Ritual for it: Recite the incantation three times over either an apple or a pomegranate. Give it to the woman. Make her suck its juice. That woman will come and he will love her.[3]

This is imitative magic, drawing on the fertile juice of the apple/pomegranate in order to bring forth bodily fluids. Throughout the Mesopotamian textual tradition the fruit has strong ties with divinity, one Assyrian tablet describing a deity whose knees are pomegranates.[4] It is represented as literally part of a god. The strong link between the pomegranate and Inanna/Ishtar would influence the classical construction of female divinity.

Iconographically, the pomegranate is relatively rare in ancient Mesopotamian art. It does not occur in any sexualized images; rather, the fruit’s powers are drawn upon in the more tranquil setting of the scenes featuring the Assyrian Tree of Life. This motif features on large-scale palatial reliefs as well as smaller decorative seals and ivories. The plant species that this tree is supposed to represent has long been debated over in scholarly circles (it is usually thought to be the date palm). Occasionally, however, the standard palmettes that are characteristic of representations of the sacred tree are replaced, undeniably so by pomegranates. Sometimes, the winged genii (known as Apkallu) who heraldically approach the tree in procession are also represented carrying a pomegranate branch. The pomegranate probably served an apotropaic function, absorbing the evil that might otherwise possess the human inhabitants of the palace, as well as representing the Assyrian empire as a fruitful garden through its connotations with fertility.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, the pomegranate is remarkably absent from the Nile Valley region until the beginning of the New Kingdom period (sixteenth to eleventh century BC). By this time we have evidence for ancient intercontinental trade, or perhaps royal gift-giving, of the fruit, as attested by the presence of whole pomegranates found aboard the Ulu Burun shipwreck, a merchant vessel that sank with its vast international assemblage of cargo in the Mediterranean during the fourteenth century BC. A bronze cultic tripod of this period from Ugarit, Syria, is decorated with hanging pomegranate pendants, emphasizing the association the fruit had come to have across the ancient world with ritual, sacrifice and offering. The fruit was probably first brought back to Egypt as booty from the military conquests in Palestine and Syria that characterized the Egyptian experience of the early Eighteenth Dynasty. The pomegranate became a refreshing feature of Egyptian gardens, and, as highlighted in the quote from the Turin Papyrus featured in the Introduction, influenced the Egyptian concept of beauty. The pomegranate is included among the remedies of one of the oldest medical compilations, the Egyptian Papyrus Ebers of the sixteenth century BC, which suggests that it can be used as a treatment for the management of tapeworms. The pomegranate would have been quite effective against tapeworms, as its high alkaline value would paralyse the parasite’s nervous system.

Egyptian ointment spoon, 1336–1327 BC.

Assyrian cylinder seal and its impression illustrating the Assyrian sacred tree with pomegranates (replacing the standard palmettes), 850–825 BC. The king is represented symmetrically on both sides of the sacred tree, with two winged guardians behind him. The chief Assyrian god, Asshur, floats above the scene.

Amarna relief depicting Nefertiti sitting on Akhenaten’s lap and holding one of his daughters, 14th century BC. In front of the royal family is a container filled with fruit, including pomegranates.

The pomegranate appears in Egyptian art in both monumental temple reliefs and smaller, personal items. The Brooklyn Museum houses a colourful pomegranate-inspired ivory ointment spoon. The bowl of the ornamental spoon is crafted in the form of a large yellow-brown pomegranate. A second identical pomegranate covers the spoon bowl, acting as a lid that is slid open and closed by means of a pivot. Flowers, leaves and smaller pomegranates jut out from the stem that functions as the handle. The spoon demonstrates the Egyptian tendency to stylize the natural. The artisan who made it probably never saw a pomegranate tree in growth, for what is represented is an ideal rather than a reality: flowers and fruit never appear on the pomegranate plant at the same time. Even in Tutankhamun’s famed tomb we find a representation of the fruit: a silver pomegranate-shaped repoussé vessel. Such a vessel may have contained pomegranate juice. As in Mesopotamia, the juice was added to alcoholic beverages, although in Egypt a myth gave new significance to the pomegranate-beer cocktail: it was responsible for saving mankind. The tale tells us that the lion goddess Sekhmet, who has a taste for human blood, plans the mass destruction of all humanity. She is stopped by the sun god Re, who floods her path with a mixture of beer and pomegranate juice poured from 7,000 jugs. Sekhmet mistakes the red liquid for blood and quickly drinks it all. She is thus too drunk to pursue her slaughter. The pomegranate-shaped vases, charms and dried fruit specimens that have been found in many Egyptian burials were probably placed there as a symbol of the anticipated rebirth of the deceased into the afterlife. The fruit had ensured the survival of mankind once already in life, so why not in death?

Hellenistic terracotta stamp seal from Egypt, illustrating a pomegranate in the centre of a basket composition, 2nd–1st century BC.

From 550–330 BC, Egypt, Mesopotamia and the rest of the ancient Near East had come under the control of the Persian Empire. A cuneiform document from the Metropolitan Museum of Art records a Persian account of a rent payment made in pomegranates, attesting to their continued value and desirability. The Persian king Darius the Great is represented holding a pomegranate flower in a religious ritual at his capital of Persepolis. Alexander the Great would of course defeat the Persian Empire and absorb all this territory as his own; following his untimely death in his early thirties it was divided among his generals. Marking property was still practised at this time, with a stamp seal from Ptolemaic Egypt demonstrating the continued use of a pomegranate motif, although one that is much more elaborate, some 3,000 years later.

Following this period of Greek rule, a second Persian empire arose in Iran, that of the Parthians (247 BC–AD 224). The pomegranate features prominently on the decorative programme of their capital, Ctesiphon. The later Sassanian (AD 224–651) site of Nizamabad depicts rows of pomegranates with wings in relief, a style that would influence Islamic designs. Numerous silver plates that survive from this period depict the exploits of the Sassanian kings. One of these features the pomegranate between a pair of rams’ horns worn by a queen in what appears to be a marriage scene. She receives the ring of rulership from the king, who wears a pine-cone-topped crown equally evocative of fertility. Zoroastrianism was the religion of all these Persian kings, and its temples were traditionally surrounded by pomegranate trees. This religion is still practised today, and involves use of the pomegranate in certain rituals. The initiate of a Navjote, the Zoroastrian coming of age ceremony, is asked to sip a consecrated liquid known as nirang in order to cleanse both body and soul. Traditionally this drink was the urine of a virile bull, but pomegranate juice is used as a substitute today. Celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, involves the presentation of a bowl of water containing a pomegranate into which coins have been inserted, or sometimes just a single pomegranate twig is used. The coin-encrusted fruit acts as a symbol for prosperity, longevity and good health. All these modern Iranian practices had their roots in the ancient Persian empires.

Silver pomegranate vase from Tutankhamun’s tomb, 14th century BC.

Frieze from Nizamabad featuring winged pomegranates, 7th century AD.

Sassanian silver plate, 6–7th century AD.

The Classical World

There are only a few examples of the representation of pomegranates in the Bronze Age Aegean cultures of the Minoans and Mycenaeans. There is a similarity of shape between the pomegranate and the opium poppy, both plants having ancient connotations of fertility. There is no reason why the ‘opium’ crown of the Minoan ‘poppy goddess’ cannot be interpreted as a pomegranate. It is not until the advent of the Geometric period in Greece that we start to see a real explosion of clear material evidence relating to the pomegranate.

From the tenth to eighth century BC a type of pomegranate-shaped vase was particularly prevalent, covered in geometric motifs: zigzags, triangles, meanders, swastikas, chequering. Undecorated ceramic pomegranates have likewise been found in the Levant from this period. The redness of the clay is effective in representing the fruit. The Geometric Greek vessels are wheel-made and have a small hole in the bottom, allowing liquid libations to be poured through them, or pebbles to be inserted to enable use as a rattle. This period was the time in Greece when myths started to be written down. The nature of the pomegranate came to define the powers of the gods in these stories. The fruit’s ornamental form associated it with the beauty of Aphrodite. The likeness of pomegranate juice to blood represented life and death in the cult of Persephone. The abundance of seeds made it an appropriate symbol for marriage, presided over by the mother goddess Hera.[5] Votive clay pomegranates as well as real fruits were left as offerings at tombs (possibly hung from the calyx), as well as the various sanctuaries of these divine figures. The pomegranate vessel, which died out after the Geometric Period, may have influenced the form of the standard aryballos, a small spherical flask with a narrow neck used for holding perfume or oil.

A rather unusual ceramic that features the pomegranate is a kernos found at the temple of Hera at Samos. This unusual vessel of the sixth century BC is made up of a hollow circular tube affixed to smaller pots of various shapes that feed into it. These small vessels include the form of the pomegranate, standing out as the sole plant item, among both animal (such as a bull, shellfish, a toad and a ram) and human (a male warrior and a domestic female) shapes. The kernos seems to have developed from an even older Near Eastern form: other examples of this type of vessel, although much less sophisticated (having only three feeder vessels: a pomegranate, a bull and a bird), have been excavated from sites such as the ninth-century BC Levant settlement of Tel es-Safi. The general theme seems to be one of plenty and the circular shape suggests that the whole ceramic is a representation of world order. The vessel may have been used to mix ritual liquids and grains, each being poured through the smaller vessel that functioned as a symbol for that ingredient, the strange cocktail being shared as a drink between individuals from the cup-shaped attachments. In the pomegranate vessel’s case, the sacred juice of the fruit is a likely candidate.

Terracotta vase from Attica in the form of a pomegranate, 8th century BC.

Classical vase painting frequently places the pomegranate in scenes of a funerary nature (it should be remembered that most Greek vases of which the whole vessel survives are from funerary contexts, since they were buried as offerings with the dead). A red-figure pelike illustrates the mythological figure Electra mourning at the tomb of her father Agamemnon, in front of which several offering items have been placed, including a pomegranate. In another vase scene, a figure in armour is being handed a pomegranate, the fruit reflecting the bloodiness he faces on the battlefield. The warrior, however, holds up his right hand in a gesture that seems to be declining the offered fruit, as if refusing to accept death.

Kernos from the Heraion of Samos, 7th century BC.

Kernos from Tel es-Safi, 9th century BC.

It is not only death, however, that is represented on vase illustrations featuring pomegranates. Other scenes portray women performing domestic and ritual tasks, such as wedding preparation. The pomegranate will often be depicted placed between individuals of the opposite sex as they gaze at each other, as if for the first time. Several vase paintings depict the winged god Eros with a pomegranate, linking the fruit with the personification of desire itself. The fruit also features commonly as a stylistic border decoration on vases.

In emotive grave stele from Greek cemeteries, the dead are either represented solo in a contemplative stance or saying goodbye to their living loved ones, who lose composure as they reach out, unwilling to let go. Both male and female dead are often depicted holding pomegranates. Examples of this include the stele of a certain Polyxena and of Megakles. On the fifth-century BC Harpy Tomb of Xanthus in Turkey, one frieze represents a procession of women towards a seated female who holds a pomegranate in one hand and a pomegranate flower in the other, which she raises to her nose. Each of the women holds various attributes. One of them carries the same fruit and flower as the seated woman. While the seated figure may be a deity, it is more likely that this is an heroic representation of an individual who was buried in the tomb being brought offerings by her living family members. The strong association between the pomegranate and such scenes of death suggests that the fruit was considered a chthonic symbol, which would ensure safe transition to the underworld for the deceased. After all, Persephone was restored to life for at least some of the year.

Red-figure pelike, 4th century BC. To the right of the mourning Electra, a pomegranate sits on her father’s grave.

Black-figure amphora, 6th century BC. A warrior declines the offering of a pomegranate.

In a rare example of surviving Greek fresco paintings from the Lucanian tombs at Paestum, depictions of large red pomegranates are found in abundance. They hang rather conspicuously above a variety of scenes: the laying out of the dead body, people mourning the deceased, women doing textile work, agricultural labour, chariot racing, hunting, warriors in combat, banqueting and images of mythical creatures. The pomegranate fits well among the funerary rite scenes, but what of the domestic activities and sporting contests? The pomegranate may be physical, literally hung during the period of mourning, funerary games and feasts in memory of the deceased. Or it may be a symbol, repeated throughout this variety of different scenes, that hints at a belief in the promise of a continued pleasant existence after death. The fruit demarcates not real-world events, but heroic activities performed in the underworld, the pomegranate being the one constant that guides the deceased through these pursuits. It is likewise found elsewhere in Italian tomb painting, in the even older Etruscan cemetery at Cerveteri, where branches of the fruit held by women feature on decorative plaques.

Several ancient Greek writers describe tombs on which the pomegranate grows of its own accord, as a living memorial of the dead buried there. Pausanias writes of how a pomegranate plant germinated on the tomb of the hero Menoikeus, who, according to legend, killed himself to fulfil a prophecy that guaranteed the survival of the city of Thebes at the price of his life.[6] The bloody interior of the fruit reflects his self-sacrifice that saved the city. The same phenomenon occurred at the graves of two other individuals buried at Thebes, one of whom died defending the city, the other while attacking it. These were the brothers Eteokles and Polyneikes, who killed each other in combat.[7] The Furies planted pomegranate plants on their tombs, which Philostratus’ Images tells us had split-open fruits that were forever dripping blood. The pomegranate is used to imbue real physical spaces with a mythic tradition.

West frieze from the Harpy Tomb of Xanthus, Turkey, 5th century BC. Note that two other individuals on the south (a male) and east (a female) sides of the tomb likewise hold pomegranates.

Red-figure column krater, 4th century BC. Eros, wearing a pomegranate on his hip, approaches a woman.

Pomegranates feature in ancient Greek sculpture, largely in that civilization’s Archaic period (eighth century BC to 480 BC), when they often appear held by kore statues. These statues portray young women with a braided hairstyle wearing heavy drapery. They are most commonly found in a sanctuary context. Kore statues typically hold an offering of either a flower, a fruit or a bird. Several examples hold a pomegranate: the notable Berlin Kore, for instance, is represented holding the fruit turned on its side with its calyx facing the viewer. Kore statues acted as an advertisement, to display and celebrate a family’s daughter under the guise of a dedication to the gods. These sculptures were not portraits but the ideal. Indicating a girl’s eligibility for marriage, they were used as vehicles for the creation of alliances with other elite families. The attribute of a pomegranate would accentuate her beauty and desirability. Like most sculpture from the classical world, these would originally have been painted vibrant colours. Red pigment poignantly survives on a pomegranate held to the breast of a now headless kore statue, Acr. 593, from the Athenian Acropolis. The kore statues were also sometimes used as grave markers. It is plausible that those of these statues that hold pomegranates indicate a girl who died young, portraying her in the likeness of Persephone. A kore portraying a girl named Phrasikleia holds out a single pomegranate aril and wears a necklace with beads shaped like the fruit. A heart-wrenching inscription on the statue reflects that she died before she had the opportunity to bear fruit: ‘Grave marker of Phrasikleia. I shall be called a maiden forever, having been allotted this name by the gods in place of marriage.’[8]

Detail of Lucanian tomb painting showing a pomegranate and dog.

Lucanian tomb painting depicting a victorious warrior surrounded by floating pomegranates, 5th century BC.

However, it was not only female statues that held pomegranates. The famed ancient Greek wrestler Milo of Croton had a statue of himself holding a pomegranate set up at Olympia.[9] This was a reflection of Milo’s position as a priest of Hera, and of a legend circulating about the wrestler that he was able to hold a pomegranate without it splitting open while competitors tried to pry it from his fingers.

Homer recounts in the Odyssey that the legendary eastern king Alcinous grew pomegranates in his garden.[10] This is the beginning of a preoccupation in the accounts of ancient Greek writers with representing the East, several making use of a pomegranate in their construction of the non-Greek Other. These ancient historians saw Eastern luxury as decadent and effeminate, assuming that soft countries breed soft men. The father of history, Herodotus, tells us that the famous 10,000 ‘Immortals’ of the Persian army (the unit’s name stemming from the custom that every killed, wounded or sick member was immediately replaced with a new one, thus maintaining a constant number) carried spears which terminated in a golden or silver pomegranate at their lower end instead of a spike.[11] This conspicuous display of wealth seems rather impractical for the battlefield. The multi-seeded and Eastern-originating pomegranate is being exploited to symbolize the immense and multi-ethnic Persian Empire. Herodotus has Darius the Great use a pomegranate to praise his most loyal subjects. As the Persian king sits eating a pomegranate, he is questioned as to what he wishes to have as many of as the number of seeds in the fruit. Darius replies ‘Men like Megabazus,’ complimenting his trusted military commander.[12] Similarly Plutarch tells us that the Persian king Artaxerxes praised a man who gave him a single pomegranate, saying: ‘By Mithra, this man would speedily make a city great instead of small were he entrusted with it.’[13] The idea here is that the small pomegranate is used to represent the large one, its inner quantity of seeds making it far exceed its size.

The pomegranate was valued in Greek medicinal thought. The father of medicine, Hippocrates, recommended the fruit for a number of ailments, including the treatment of eye infections and morning sickness and to aid digestive health. In later Roman times, Pliny the Elder also noted the pomegranate’s potential, recording many remedies that made use of the plant, from the treatment of scorpion stings to epilepsy.[14] Pliny even noted that pomegranate rind could be burnt to repel gnats or ground down for use in the making of Roman perfume. The pomegranate is said to have arrived in Rome from Carthage, and was thus known to the Romans as mala punica (the Punic apple). In Roman art the pomegranate is most commonly found among the fruits of the wreaths signifying plenty that can be found on the sides of tombs and altars, including the famed Ara Pacis of Augustus. The pomegranate may also be found as a design on ceramic oil lamps of the Roman Empire, as a motif type from Cyprus demonstrates, and another even further east in Israel.

Even into late antiquity, the strong association between the pomegranate and female divinity was not forgotten. A sixth-century AD Byzantine tapestry from Egypt made of wool and linen depicts a very pagan theme, although by this time Christianity had become more predominant. It is a late representation of Hestia, the Greek goddess of the hearth. The goddess of the Hestia Tapestry wears a pomegranate headdress and earrings, emphasizing her role as the Polyolbos (‘rich in blessings’). The fruit, with its many seeds, is appropriately evoked in this image of abundance. The blessings that Hestia gives out are in the form of pomegranates, each standing for a virtue such as wealth, prosperity or excellence. A Byzantine arch of the Monastery of Apa Apollo in Egypt, from roughly the same date, likewise features the pomegranate as the epitome of plenty, growing upon the running vines that form the arch. The theme is classical, although unlike the tapestry, the context is purely Christian. The pomegranate would come to play an important role at the Byzantine court during this late antique period. Part of an empress’s marriage and coronation involved a ceremonial procession in which she was accompanied by dignitaries who carried three jewel-encrusted marble pomegranates.[15]

Cypriot pomegranate lamp, 1st century AD.

The Byzantine Hestia Tapestry, made in Egypt in the 6th century.

The pomegranate still has very strong symbolic value in modern Greece, demonstrating just how enduring ancient ideas and traditions can be. The fruit thus continues to be a favourite decorative motif on houses around the Mediterranean, as well as on textiles and ceramics. The historian Efthymios G. Lazongas notes that in a local tradition from the Greek town of Epidaurus, ‘peasants break open a pomegranate on the ploughshare of the plough and mingle the seeds of the pomegranate with the grains to be sown in order to achieve the desired prosperity.’[16] The pomegranate still has funerary connotations in Greece today, as part of a koliva offering prepared in commemoration of the dead. This is a sweet boiled wheat dish that contains pomegranate arils. Following a Greek wedding, a pomegranate is traditionally blessed and then broken on the threshold of the couple’s home in the hope of a long and fruitful marriage. This also may occur at other times of transition, such as the purchase of a new house or at the beginning of a New Year.