PHOENIX 

​

Artistic work for the International Colloquium on 'Cultural Co-existence in the West of Al-Andalus', at Silves Centre for Luso-Arabic Studies (CELAS), Portugal, 2018

​

Phoenix dactylifera is the botanical name of the palm tree commonly known as the date palm. Cultivated for its many useful products (its fruit, leaves, fibres, and “wood”), this tree holds an important place in the economy of desert regions. Archaeological evidence suggests that the date palm has been used for millennia, from North Africa to the Middle East and as far as northwest India. Its fertilisation requires cross-pollination between male and female trees, but the history of its domestication remains relatively unknown. However, its seeds have been found in archaeological sites dating back 8,000 years before the present era, and the only fossil evidence of the pre-cultivation date palm is found in the Middle East, suggesting that these trees have been present in the region for at least 30,000 years. Geographically speaking, two distinct ancestral genes appear in cultivated date palms: one from the Middle East and the other from North Africa. This reflects either an independent original domestication in Africa or a crossing of individual wild local trees with trees imported from the Middle East, thus incorporating their prior domestication. The date palm was introduced by the Carthaginians into the agriculture of the Iberian Peninsula from the hot regions of North Africa. The symbolism of this tree has always played a very important and cross-cutting role in various traditions.

​