Palmette

The half-palmette, bisected vertically, is also a very common motif, found in many mutated and vestigial forms, and especially important in the development of plant-based scroll ornament.

Egyptian palmettes (Greek anthemia) were originally based on features of various flowers, including the papyrus and the lotus or lily representing lower and upper Egypt and their fertile union, before it became associated with the palm tree.

Among the oldest forms of the palmette in ancient Egypt was a 'rosette' or daisy-like lotus flower[5] emerging from a 'V' of foliage or petals resembling the akhet hieroglyph depicting the setting or rising sun at the point where it touches the two mountains of the horizon – 'dying', being 'reborn' and giving life to the earth.

Third is a version consisting of a clump of lotus or papyrus blooms on tall stems, with a drooping bud or flower on either side, arising from a (primal) swamp.

The lotus and papyrus clump occur in association with Hapy, the god of the crucial life-giving annual Nile inundation, who binds their stems together around an offering table in the sema-tawi motif – itself echoing the shapes of the 'akhet' of the horizon.

This unification scene appeared on the base of the throne of several kings, who were thought of as preserving the union of the two lands of (upper and lower, but also physical and spiritual) Egypt and thereby mastering the forces of renewal.

These 'binding' scenes, and the heliotropic swamp plants appearing in them, evoked the necessity of discerning and revealing the underlying harmony, the origin of all manifest forms, that re-connects the dispersed and separate-seeming fragments of everyday experience.

[10] The plants depicted with this solar fan of fronds or petals and 'supported' by pairs of pendant blooms, buds or fruit clusters all seem especially to emulate and share in the sun's sacrificial cycle of death and rebirth and to point to the lessons it holds for mankind.

It seems likely that the underlying model for all these fertile shapes, echoed by the curling cows-horn wig and sistrum-volutes of maternity-goddess Hathor, was the womb, with the twin egg-clusters of its ovaries.

Most early Egyptian forms of the motif appear later in Crete, Mesopotamia, Assyria and Ancient Persia, including the daisy-wheel-style lotus and bud border.

[11] In the form of the palmette that appears most frequently on Greek pottery,[12] often interspersed with scenes of heroic deeds, the same motif is bound within a leaf-shaped or lotus-bud shaped outer line.

[15] Typically, the upper part of the motif consists of five or more leaves or petals fanning rhythmically upwards from a single triangular or lozenge-shaped source at the base.

Similar forms are found in the hovering winged disc and sacred trees[22] of Mesopotamia, the caduceus wand of Hermes, the ubiquitous scrolled scallop shells in the canopy of the Renaissance sculptural niche, originating in Greek and Roman sarcophagi, echoed above theatrical proscenium arches[23] and on the doors, windows, wrought iron gates and balconies[24] of palaces and grand houses; the shell-like fanlight over the door in Georgian[25] and similar urban architecture, the gul[26] and[27] boteh motifs of Central Asian carpets and textiles, the trident of Neptune/Poseidon, both the trident and lingam of Shiva, the 'bai sema' lotus-petal-shaped boundary markers of the Thai inner-temple, Vishnu's mount, Garuda,[28] the vajra thunderbolt,[29] diamond mace or enlightenment jewel-in-the-lotus of Tibet and South-East Asia, the symmetrically scrolled cloud and bat[30] motifs and the similarly scrolled ruyi[31] or ju-i scepter and lingzhi[32] or fungus of longevity of the Chinese tradition.