The Tree of Life: a symbol found in many cultures

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One name, several symbols

The tree of life is one of the most widespread motifs in the human imagination: a tree whose roots reach down into the earth and whose branches rise toward the sky naturally suggests a link between worlds, growth and the continuity of life. For this reason it appears in very distant cultures. But be careful: it is not a single symbol passed from one people to another. In many cases, “tree of life” is a name given by researchers or by modern tradition to images that did not have this name originally. This page presents what is known about the main traditions, distinguishing facts from comparisons.

Why the tree inspires so much

There are good reasons why cultures with no contact with one another have taken the tree as an image. It is vertical: its roots, trunk and crown suggest three levels, the underground, the earthly and the heavenly. It changes with the seasons: it loses its leaves and grows them back in spring, like a cycle of death and rebirth. It is long-lived: some trees live for centuries, even millennia. Finally, it feeds and shelters: fruit, timber, shade. This “natural” reading explains why the tree is an image that is easy to invent several times, without needing to imagine a shared origin.

Mesopotamia and Egypt

In the palaces of Assyria, in the first millennium BCE, many reliefs show a stylized tree, flanked by winged genies or by the king. Specialists often call it the “sacred tree” or “tree of life”, but this name is a modern label: Assyrian sources do not use it, and its meaning is debated among Assyriologists.

In Egypt, the expression “tree of life” appears in ancient texts. The sky goddess Nut is sometimes depicted as a sycamore that offers food and water to the dead. Researchers do not agree on the origin of the motif: Egypt, Mesopotamia, or independent emergence in several regions.

The Bible and Christianity

In the book of Genesis, two trees stand in the Garden of Eden: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life (Genesis 2:9; 3:22-24). After the fall, humanity is barred from access to the latter. The book of Proverbs says that wisdom is “a tree of life” for those who grasp her (Proverbs 3:18). The last book of the New Testament, Revelation, takes up the image (Revelation 22). Later, Christian theologians linked the tree of life to the cross. These are religious interpretations, which we report as they are without discussing them.

The sefirot tree in Kabbalah

In Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, the tree of life (etz chaim) refers to a diagram of ten divine principles, the sefirot, through which the Infinite (Ein Sof) manifests itself in creation. They are linked by a network of paths. In the version adopted by Western esotericism, known as “Hermetic Qabalah”, there are twenty-two paths between the sefirot, associated with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and, since the nineteenth century, with the twenty-two major arcana of the tarot. The drawing of this tree as we know it took shape gradually from the Renaissance onward; one of the first printed diagrams to circulate widely is that of the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, in the seventeenth century.

This association with the tarot is a construction of occultists (see history of the tarot), not a historical fact about the origin of the cards.

Yggdrasil, the Norse world tree

In Scandinavian mythology, as recorded in medieval Icelandic texts (the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda), Yggdrasil is an immense tree, generally identified with an ash, which supports and connects the nine worlds. Creatures live in its branches and at its roots. It is not a “tree of life” in the biblical sense, but a world tree: an axis that links the levels of the universe. It is compared to other world trees, which is why it belongs to the same family of symbols.

Mesoamerica, India and Asia

In Maya societies, a cosmic tree, often identified with the ceiba (silk-cotton tree), stands at the centre of the world and links the underworld, the surface of the earth and the sky. Some researchers see this tree in the iconography of the sarcophagus lid of Pakal at Palenque (7th century CE), although the exact interpretation is debated.

In Buddhism, the founder Siddhartha Gautama is said to have attained awakening while seated beneath a sacred fig tree (Ficus religiosa), the Bodhi tree, at Bodh Gaya, in India. Here the tree is not a symbol of eternal life, but a place of awakening and an object of veneration. Hindu traditions also know cosmic trees, such as the inverted fig tree mentioned in several sacred texts.

The so-called “Celtic” tree of life motif, popular in jewellery, is mostly a modern creation. The Celtic peoples did venerate certain trees (the oak in particular), but we have few detailed ancient sources, and the knot in the form of a tree is not an established medieval tradition.

Sacred trees in Europe: the case of the oak

In Europe, many trees were venerated, such as the oak in Gaul, Germania, Greece (the oak of Dodona, a sanctuary of Zeus) or Italy. In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder describes Gaulish druids gathering mistletoe from an oak during a rite. This remains one of the rare ancient written accounts of the subject, and it was written by a Roman author who was not himself present. That is why we avoid reconstructing a “Celtic cult of the tree of life” as if it were a well-documented tradition.

Klimt and the tree in modern art

In 1909, the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt created, for the Palais Stoclet in Brussels, a mosaic frieze dominated by a Tree of Life with spiralling branches. It is this work that gave the image its success in decoration, fashion and jewellery. Today, the tree of life has become an image of growth and rootedness, given for a birth, a birthday or a fresh start.

Summary

Tradition	Nature of the tree	Status
Assyria	Stylized tree on reliefs	Name given by modern scholars, meaning debated
Egypt	Sycamore of Nut	Mentioned in ancient texts
Bible	Tree of life in Eden	Religious text
Kabbalah	Diagram of ten sefirot	Mystical framework, later Hermetic reading
Norse	Yggdrasil	Mythology recorded in the Eddas
Maya	Cosmic tree (ceiba)	Specialists’ interpretation
Buddhism	Bodhi tree	Place of the Buddha’s awakening
Modern art	Klimt’s Tree of Life (1909)	Artistic creation

It is tempting to conclude that all these cultures share a single original symbol, but nothing demonstrates this. The tree is a natural image (it grows, it loses its leaves, it returns), and it may have been invented several times. If you love the tree of life as an object, you may choose it for its beauty and for what it evokes for you, without attributing anything more to it. See also our stone trees.

Giving or choosing a tree of life

If the symbol speaks to you, you can choose it in several forms. As a pendant, often made from metal wire wound into a tree shape (copper, brass, silver, steel), with stones in place of leaves. As a stone tree, a small decorative tree whose branches are wires holding tumbled stones. As a picture or an embroidery. Ask yourself a few questions:

• What metal is it made from? Sterling silver 925 and stainless steel are better suited to sensitive skin than alloys that are not specified. See our page on jewellery metals.
• Are the stones natural, dyed or reconstituted? See real or fake stone.
• What meaning do you want it to carry? For a birth, a departure, a new home, a family birthday, the tree of life says “we grow, we are rooted”. It is a personal and warm symbol, not a prediction.

Frequently asked questions

Also read

The meanings mentioned belong to tradition and symbolism. They are neither promises of results nor medical advice. Back to Major topics.