divine mystery of generation.[5] In Babylonia the sacred tree was no doubt closely associated with Istar, the divine mother, who was originally not a Semitic, but an Accadian goddess, and whose cult, together with that of her bridegroom Tammuz, was introduced into Chaldaea from Eridu, a city which flourished on the shores of the Persian Gulf between 3000 and 4000 B.C.[6] That the Accadians were familiar with the worship of the tree may also be inferred from the fact that their chief god, Ea, was closely associated with the sacred cedar, on whose core his name was supposed to be inscribed. [Illustration: Fig. 4.—Sacred tree with its supporters, surmounted by the winged disc.(From an Assyrian cylinder. Goblet d’Alviella.)] [Illustration: Fig. 5.—Sacred tree, much conventionalised.(From a capital of the Temple of Athena at Pryene. Goblet d’Alviella.)] [Illustration: Fig. 6.—Sacred tree, from a sculptured slab in the Treasury of St. Mark’s, Venice.] But however much their attitude towards the sacred tree may have been modified under Accadian influence, the Chaldaeans in their worship of the tree only followed the rule of their Semitic kindred, for “the conception of trees as demoniac beings was familiar to all the Semites, and the tree was adored as divine in every part of the Semitic area.”[7] Even that stationary Semite, the modern Arab, holds certain trees inviolable as being inhabited by spirits, and honours them with sacrifices and decorations, and to this day the traveller in Palestine sometimes lights upon holy trees hung with tokens of homage.