Francesca Stavrakopoulou, «Exploring the Garden of Uzza: Death, Burial and Ideologies of Kingship», Vol. 87 (2006) 1-21
The Garden of Uzza (2 Kgs 21,18.26) is commonly regarded as a pleasure garden
in or near Jerusalem which came to be used as a royal burial ground once the tombs
in the City of David had become full. However, in this article it is argued that the
religious and cultic significance of royal garden burials has been widely
overlooked. In drawing upon comparative evidence from the ancient Near East, it
is proposed that mortuary gardens played an ideological role within perceptions of
Judahite kingship. Biblical texts such as Isa 65,3-4; 66,17 and perhaps 1,29-30 refer
not to goddess worship, but to practices and sacred sites devoted to the royal dead.
6 Francesca Stavrakopoulou
Given their religious importance, gardens also played a notable
ideological role in the socio-political promotion and propaganda of
royalty. A number of Neo-Assyrian kings are credited with the
creation of monumental gardens within or beside their palaces, which
were both visually impressive and horticulturally prestigious in their
collections of trees and plants gathered from the furthest reaches of
the empire, demonstrating the royal mastery of other peoples, their
gods, and the produce of their lands. Like their divine counterparts,
these royal cultivators — or “creators†— also enjoyed strolling in
their gardens (18). Perhaps the most famous of ancient gardens are
the so-called “Hanging Gardens of Babylonâ€, constructed by
Nebuchadnezzar II in the sixth century BCE and modelled upon the
Neo-Assyrian palace gardens planted by Sennacherib in Nineveh (19).
For the Persian king Cyrus the Great, a large monumental garden was
an integral component of his palace at Pasargadae. There is evidence
to suggest that this garden was intended to function as a central
ceremonial location in the heart of the royal complex, for the palace
was open-sided in adjoining the garden, and the garden itself
contained stone features designed to support the royal throne and
footstool (20). In planting and cultivating gardens, these kings may
have been imitating their divine counterparts, creating their own
“heavens†on earth (21).
In view of the ideological and religious symbolism of royal and
temple gardens, the biblical claim that certain Judahite kings were buried
in a garden is significant. The majority of commentators have assumed
that the Garden of Uzza was simply a royal pleasure garden which was
secondarily utilized as a burial ground, either to take the overspill from
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Literature (Leuven 2000); L.E. STAGER, “Jerusalem and the Garden of Edenâ€, EI
26 (1999) 183-194; ID., “Jerusalem as Edenâ€, BAR 26/3 (2000) 36-47, 66; S.R.
SHIMOFF, “Gardens: From Eden to Jerusalemâ€, JSJ 26 (1995) 145-155.
(18) D. STRONACH, “The Royal Garden at Pasargadae: Evolution and Legacyâ€,
Archaeologia Iranica et Orientalis. Miscellanea in honorem Louis Vanden
Berghe (eds. L. DE MEYER – E. HAERINCK) (Leuven 1989) 475-502.
(19) S. DALLEY, “Nineveh, Babylon and the Hanging Gardens: Cuneiform and
Classical Sources Reconciledâ€, Iraq 56 (1994) 45-58; ID., “The Hanging Gardens
of Babylon at Ninevehâ€, Assyrien im wandel der Zeiten (eds. H. HAUPTMANN – H.
WAETZOLDT) (HSO 6; Heidelberg 1997) 19-24.
(20) STRONACH, “Royal Garden at Pasargadaeâ€, 480-482.
(21) Echoes of this concept may be reflected in the Arabic term janna,
“(heavenly) gardenâ€, “paradiseâ€, cognate with Semitic gn and biblical ˆg, which
are usually rendered “gardenâ€.
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