PHOENIX 

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Artistic work fot the International Colloquium about Cultural Co-existence in the west of Al-Andalus, in Silves Center for Luso-Arabic Studies (CELAS), PT, 2018

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Phoenix dactylifera is the botanical name of the palm tree which goes by the common name of the date palm. Cultivated for its many useful products (its fruit, leaves, fibres and “wood”) this tree has an important place in the economy of the deserts. Archeological evidence suggests that the date palm has been used for millenia from North Africa to the Middle East, and all the way to northwest India. Its fertilization requires a cross-pollination between a male and female form, but the history of its domestication is still relatively unknown. However, its seeds have been found in archeological sites going back 8000 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 were present in the region at least 30,000 years ago. Geographically speaking, in cultivated date palms two different ancestral genes appear: one appears in the Middle East and the other in North Africa. This reflects an independent original domestication in Africa or a crossing of individual wild local trees with trees imported from the Middle East, thus including their prior domestication. The date palm was introduced by the Carthaginians into the agriculture of the Iberian peninsula from the hot zones of North Africa. 
The symbolism of this tree has always had a very important and cross-cutting role in the various traditions.