Euphrates poplar

Diadem of the Sumerian Queen Puabi who was buried in the royal cemetery in Ur, Iraq, around 2600BC. Currently in the Pen Museum... 

Diadem central parts are these wreaths made of golden leaves...Identified as: 

wide poplar leaves (correct) 

narrow willow leaves (incorrect)

Here's why:

This is Euphrates poplar. It is the only poplar that grows in deserts and has great vitality and amazing ability to find water and resist heat, droughts, winds, including sand storms...

Euphrates poplar has two different leaf shapes. 

As a sapling, the leaves are shaped like willow leaves in order to reduce evaporation.

When it grows taller and more energy is needed to support the trunk, the leaves become bigger, turning into a round shape.

So both types of leaves on the Queen Puabi's headdress wreaths can be, and most likely are, Euphrates poplar leaves: young poplar (narrow) and old poplar (wide)...And not willow (narrow) and poplar (wide) leaves...

These amazing golden trees are also Euphrates poplar trees. Their leaves are green during spring summer and autumn. But turn golden yellow at the beginning of winter, when the temperature drops to 5°C to 10°C...Which in Iraq happens in Oct/Nov. Beginning of the rain season...

Kind of significant in Mesopotamia...I can bet that the choice of leaves used for the Queen Puabi's headdress was not accidental...Every other animal/plant shaped object found in her grave has religious significance (read is an animal/plant calendar marker)...For instance the diadem of Queen Puabi depicts 4 seasons...I talked about this in my post "Diadem of Queen Puabi"...

Anyway, Euphrates poplar also a tree under which Inanna falls asleep and is subsequently raped (Inanna and Shukaletuda)...I will talk about this legend soon. But I can bet that the choice of the tree that plays central role in this legend was not accidental either...

And maybe the fact that the Queen Puabi's headdress, which we know now is made only of Euphrates poplar leaves, turns Puabi (symbolically) into a living golden Euphrates Poplar tree is kind of important (symbolically)...🙂 What do you think?

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...