The persea tree from Alexander to Late Antiquity: A contribution to the cultural and social history of Greco-Roman Egypt

Although a great number of studies has already been devoted to the topic of sacred trees in Greco-Roman Egypt, this paper aims at offering a new contribution to this debate by shifting the focus of research from the hitherto dominant interest in ancient and modern botanical classifications to the study of the socio-cultural contexts (and their diachronic changes) in which sacred trees were used in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. The analysis focuses on the case study of the tree called περσ(ε)ία / persea in Greek and Latin sources. After drawing attention to the non-complete overlap between the denomination adopted by Greek and Latin authors for this Egyptian sacred plant and its “emic” Hieroglyphic / Demotic correspondents, ἰšd and šw3b, the focus will be on patterns of continuity, innovation and re-contextualization of Egyptian religious traditions in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt and on the social actors and contexts that were involved in the use and protection of sacred plants. When approached from this perspective, the evidence on persea provides a fruitful dossier to investigate some aspects of the dialectic between continuity and transformation in cultural traditions, with particular regard to cases where traditions were adapted beyond cultural and ethnic limits. Moreover, the persea dossier enables us to discuss ancient contexts in which, for religious reasons, nature was seen as worth of being protected and preserved against the risk of extinction. This will allow us to raise some preliminary questions concerning the limits of applicability of modern environmental thinking to ancient cultures, in contexts in which the preservation of vegetal species was seen as an important value for the identity of a community, thus requiring individual and institutional commitment.