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Texto retirado por el administrador Silberius
Motivo: Borrado a petición del autor

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Preámbulo.

Este es un artículo en construcción permanente. El objetivo es recopilar toda la información posible sobre el Jardín en la Historia y su propio desarrollo desde la antiguedad. Asimismo estudiar y presentar los hechos concretos que desembocan en el diseño y la creación de los Jardines Históricos de todo el mundo. Espero que sea de vuestro agrado y participéis con vuestras necesarias aportaciones.

Queda dedicado a todas las personas de una manera u otra vinculadas al mundo de la flora y a los generosos habitantes de este "oppidum", que no sólo se merece un especial jardín sino un enorme bosque.

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"¿construir o plantar?. Los constructores pueden demorar años en sus tareas, pero un día terminan aquello que estaban haciendo. Entonces se paran, y quedan limitados por sus propias paredes. La vida pierde el sentido cuando la construcción acaba. Pero existen los que plantan. Estos sufren a veces con las tempestades, las estaciones, y raramente descansan. Pero, al contrario que un edificio, el jardín jamás para de crecer. Y, al mismo tiempo que exige la atención del jardinero, también permite que, para él, la vida sea una gran aventura. Los jardineros se reconocen entre sí, porque saben que en la historia de cada planta está el crecimiento de toda la Tierra."

Prólogo de Brida. Paulo Coelho.1990.



Jardines míticos

Los orígenes de las creaciones míticas sobre el jardín habría que buscarlos en una´época de la existencia de la humanidad en la que el hombre vivía "placidamente" en medio de la naturaleza, en unas sociedades humanas cazadoras y recolectoras. Cuando está etapa desaparece y se extiende la domesticación de plantas y animales, lo que entendemos por agricultura y ganadería, el ser humano se sedentariza, se aglutina en ciudades, tiene que trabajar la tierra y atender a los animales. La guerra se socializa con el fín de proteger las posesiones del colectivo y también como fórmula de expansión y enriquecimiento. El ser humano se desconecta y deja de comprender el lenguaje natural. Es a partir de entonces cuando el hombre asocia el paraiso con esa naturaleza abundante y generosa, atribuyendo su creación y su pérdida a una intervención divina. es en este momento cuando los pueblos de oriente medio llevan a cabo esa creación literaria del jardín mítico, ese Paraiso Perdido. La humanidad, en mayor o menor medida ha tratado de recrear estos jardines.

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  1. #1 marprim 15 de mayo de 2006

    "Desde hace trece siglos, Japón diseña espacios de meditación en comunión con la naturaleza. Representan el universo y están concebidos para inspirar vitalidad y serenidad.
    Contemplar un jardín japonés es como sumergirse en un sueño en el que las rocas son montañas, donde la grava se modula en forma de ondas provocadas por la caída de una gota imaginaria en un estanque, y donde las cañas de bambú, al moverse, dejan oír la música de sus emociones.
    Como un fluir constante de sensaciones, colores y texturas, el diseño de los jardines japoneses fue concebido, hace más de trece siglos, como un instrumento para conseguir la correcta percepción de la realidad. A diferencia de los occidentales, los jardines japoneses no están hechos para pasear. Se deben admirar como si se tratara de una Pintura o una caligrafía, donde del desplazamiento del cuerpo y la apertura de la mente son esenciales.
    El budismo y otras doctrinas, que llegaron a Japón desde China y Corea a mediados del siglo VI, han jugado un papel fundamental en la concepción y desarrollo de estos jardines.

    "El shintoismo, el confucionismo y el zen nos enseñan que el hombre no estaría completo sin la naturaleza. Sería como un huérfano si no se sintiera hermano del agua, las plantas o las rocas," asegura Chisao Shigemori, el último miembro de una antigua familia japonesa que ha diseñado y renovado más de 500 jardines, entre ellos el London Kyoto Garden, construido en 1991."

  2. #2 Cierzo 15 de mayo de 2006

    Por no hablar de uno de mis Pinturas favoritas

    "El jardín de las delicias" de El Bosco

  3. #3 Cierzo 15 de mayo de 2006

    He encontrado una mejor imagen de la Pintura y no puedo resistirme a ponerlo

  4. #4 Brandan 15 de mayo de 2006

    Yo no me iría muy lejos a la hora de asignar el nacimiento del concepto de jardín, propiamente dicho. De acuerdo en que se llama jardín del Edén, jardín de las Hespérides, Jardín del Bien y del Mal, Jardín de las Delicias, etcétera, a parajes idealizados; pero obsérvese que se refieren a lugares que, aunque situados geográficamente, por motivos que desconozco, como en el caso del Jardín del Edén, no están en este plano de realidad o simplemente pertenecen a la morada de los Dioses; por lo que no son accesibles al ser humano hasta su muerte. A Brandán, por ejemplo, solo le fue mostrada una pequeña parte, mientras se le invitaba a regresar y esperar en su monasterio la hora de habitarlo.
    En mi oPinión, el concepto de jardín se hace plenamente significativo hacia el siglo XV, sin negar orígenes anteriores, como evolución de la Pintura gótica, dentro de la pespectiva lineal, con punto de concurrencia en el infinito del horizonte, que impone la visión del hombre occidental en esa época.
    Los griegos y los romanos desconocen conscientemente el horizonte en sus composiciones. Es el mencionado arte gótico el que empieza bien pronto a ofrecer muestras de visiones místicas representando el elemento atmosférico, las nubes. Giorgione, Veronés y El Greco, son buenos ejemplos.
    Se consagra entonces el "arte de la jardinería".
    Para hacernos una mejor idea, conviene que contemplemos el significado del propio término:
    jardín.
    (Del fr. jardin, dim. del fr. ant. jart, huerto, y este del franco *gard, cercado; cf. a. al. ant. gart, corro, ingl. yard, patio).
    1. m. Terreno donde se cultivan plantas con fines ornamentales.

    La definición casi hace por sí misma una descripción de la posible evolución hitórica del jardín. Cercado, corro, huerto, patio y, yo añadiría, posteriormente jardín y luego parque.

    parque.
    (Del fr. parc).
    1. m. Terreno destinado en el interior de una población a prados, jardines y arbolado para recreo y ornato.
    2. m. Terreno o sitio cercado y con plantas, para caza o para recreo, generalmente inmediato a un palacio o a una población.

    Notable es el hecho de que en los barcos, a la sentina se le llama "jardín", lo que podría dar una idea de la utilidad, si no de la verdadera procedencia, del espacio en cuestión. También es interesante notar que a los niños, cuando no tienen edad para protestar, o mejor dicho, para que se les haga caso, se les encierra en lugares que se llaman jardines de infancia o parque infantiles, como si llamándoles de este modo se conjurase el miedo a la separación que tienen, no solo los hijos de sus padres, sino los padres de sus hijos. Se llega al extremo de llamar "parque" a lo que en realidad es un artilugio que más parece una trampa vietnamita que un lugar de recreo y esparcimiento.

    Parece pues que el asunto tiene ascendencia germánica y que, como digo, es una concepción relativamente moderna que obedece a esta nueva visión del mundo.
    Los estanques epaciosos, las galerías, las alamedas, los panoramas, aparecen casi al mismo tiempo en la Pintura al óleo que en el arte de la jardinería.
    Se intenta representar en la naturaleza la misma perspectiva que en un cuadro, y en este cuadro se sublima la profundidad, se intenta producir el efecto de espacios lejanos.
    El primer teórico de la jardinería en occidente, León Bautista Alberti - Brunelleschi y Piero de la Francesca tambíén se ocuparon del aspecto teórico - estableció ya en 1450 la relación entre el jrdín y la casa , o mejor dicho, de la relación entre el jardín y los que lo contemplan desde dentro de la casa (algo así como lo que expresa Marprim para los orientales).
    Se pueden ver en sus bosquejos de la Villa Ludovisi y de la Villa Albani, como van aumentando de importancia las perspectivas lejanas. Los jardineros franceses, a partir de Francisco I, le fueron añadiendo cascadas, fuentes y los estanques, como en Fontaineblau.
    La culminación de la jardinería, en esa época, la encontramos en el punto de vista de los jardines rococó. Aquí se abren los caminos de flores, las avenidas de setos y en él se pierde la mirada en suaves ondulaciones. Es este punto de vista el que nos da la clave de para comprender la extraña manera que tenemos de someter la naturaleza al servicio de la representación simbólica de un arte.
    Pues no es otra cosa que el disparo de la mirada hacia el infinito, el anhelo del hombre gótico por alcanzar estos espacios, el que termina dando forma a los jardines barrocos.
    La dimensión histórica del jardín la da el tiempo. Pero eso es ya otra cuestión y este comentario se está haciendo demasiado largo.
    Un saludo.
    Una de la rosaleda del retiro.
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  5. #5 giannini 16 de mayo de 2006

    He trabajado sobre un jardín/alameda de La Coruña cuya plantación se inicia en 1723. En este caso, se mezcla el concepto de jardín con el huerto, en parte, supongo que para aliviar la carga que siempre supone el mantenimiento. Se trataba de un jardín público, aunque quienes lo idearon no tenían muy claro al principio si el jardín, plantío o alameda, iba a ser visitable o constituía una mancha que transformaría la imagen urbana, un mero adorno para ser contemplado desde el exterior. Si no recuerdo mal, se querían plantar 780 "álamos" con una parra al pie de cada uno. El plantío aparecía rodeado de Pyrus sp, rosas y otras plantas esPinosas que lo defendían, pero a la vez le daban color y olor, o mejor fragancia. Tanto en su perímetro como en el interior -junto a las regatas- se plantaban flores así que entiendo que constituye un híbrido entre alameda, jardín y huerto, máxime cuando se comprueba que los jardineros -campesinos de la zona- no recibían una retribución dineraria sino en especié: tenían derecho al usufructo de las uvas, podían plantar espárragos, alcachofas, fresas, melones, sandías, berenjenas, tomates, lechugas, escarolas, pimientos, perejil, hierbabuena, repollos y otras verduras "de las que no esquilman la tierra". Entre estas últimas se consideran -y prohiben- las calabazas "grandes", coles, habas, "chirivías y otros géneros dañosos a los árboles".

  6. #6 kaerkes 16 de mayo de 2006

    Más datos sobre el Huerto Alameda que comenta gianinni se han tratado en el artículo de oPinión titulado "Jardineria, Moda y Comercio". Si queréis comentar este tema podeis seguir en aquel artículo para evitar que la información quede desperdigada.

  7. #7 kaerkes 16 de mayo de 2006

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    Garden of Eden-
    Oil on oak panel, 77,5 x 107,5 cm
    Groeninge Museum, Bruges. BACKER, Jacob de .


    El jardín y el huerto están bastante presentes en la Biblia: David encuentra a Betsabé, Susana es observada por los viejos, En el nuevo testamento Crsito es apresado en el Huerto de los Olivos, sufre su agonía en el Getsemaní y es visto resucitado en un huerto. Los dos jardines míticos principales de la Biblia son el Edén, comienzo de la Humanidad y el Paraiso, final de la historia.
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    El jardín del Edén ha sido creado por Dios para que Adán y Eva dispongan de todos los placeres.es un paraiso terrenal, situado en Oriente, entre brazos de un río: Pishón, Geón, Tigris y Eufrates. En el centro del jardín se encuentra el arbol de la vida, que covierte en inmortal al que come sus frutos y el arbol de la Ciencia, con su fruto del Bien y del Mal. Después de consumir el fruto, un querubín con la espada encendida prohibe el acceso a este paraíso, que se ha situado , dependiendo de las épocas en Armenia, India o Irak.

    Inserto un artículo sobre la localización del Edén:


    Has the Garden of Eden been located at last?

    By Dora Jane Hamblin



    By using an interdisciplinary approach, archaeologist Juris Zarins believes he's found it--and can Pinpoint it for us. The author, a frequent contributor, met Dr. Zarins and his Eden theory when writing of Saudi archaeology (September 1983) and has followed his work since.






    "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed" (Genesis 2:8). Then the majestic words become quite specific: "And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel [Tigris]: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates" (Genesis 2:10-14).

    But where now are the Pison and the Gihon? And where, if indeed it existed as a geographically specific place, was the Garden of Eden? Theologians, historians, ordinary inquisitive people and men of science have tried for centuries to figure it out. Eden has been "located" in as many diverse areas as has lost Atlantis. Some early Christian fathers and late classical authors suggested it could lie in Mongolia or India or Ethiopia. They based their theories quite sensibly on the known antiquity of those regions, and on the notion that the mysterious Pison and Gihon were to be associated with those other two great rivers of the ancient world, the Nile and the Ganges.

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    The area thought to be the Garden of Eden, which was flooded when Gulf waters arose, is shown in green.
    Yellow areas of Bahrain and Arabian coast represent Dilmun, paradise land of Ubaidians and Sumerians

    Another favorite locale for the Garden had been Turkey, because both the Tigris and the Euphrates rise in the mountains there, and because Mount Ararat, where Noah's Ark came to rest, is there. In the past hundred years. since the discovery of ancient civilizations in modern Iraq, scholars have leaned toward the Tigris-Euphrates valley in general, and to the sites of southern Sumer, about 150 miles north of the present head of the Persian Gulf, in particular (map, above).

    To this southern Sumerian theory Dr. Juris Zarins, of Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, would murmur: "You're getting warmer. For Dr. Zarins, who has spent seven years working out his own hypothesis, believes that the Garden of Eden lies presently under the waters of the Persian Gulf, and he further believes that the story of Adam and Eve in-and especially out-of the Garden is a highly condensed and evocative account of perhaps the greatest revolution that ever shook mankind: the shift from hunting-gathering to agriculture.

    No single scholarly discipline will suffice to cover the long, intricate road Zarins has followed to arrive at his theory. He began, as many another researcher has, with the simple Biblical account, which "I read forward and backward, over and over again." To this he added the unfolding archaeology of Saudi Arabia (SMITHSONIAN, September 1983), where he spent his field time for more than a decade. Next he consulted the sciences of geology, hydrology and linguistics from a handful of brilliant 20th-century scholars and, finally, Space Age technology in the form of LANDSAT space images.

    It is a tale of rich complexity, beginning 30 millennia before the birth of Christ. Of climatic shifts from moist to arid to moist, with consequent migrations eddying back and forth across, and up and down the Middle East. And of myriad peoples. There were hunter-gatherers whom agriculturists displaced. There were prehistoric Ubaidians who built cities, Sumerians who invented writing and the Assyrians who absorbed Sumer's writing as well as its legend of a luxuriantly lovely land, an Eden called Dilmun. Finally there were Kashshites in Mesopotamia, contemporaries of the Israelites then forming the state of Israel.

    An endless search for food

    There are two crucial if approximate dates in reconstruction. The first is about 30,000 B.C., with the transition from Neanderthal to modern Man. This, some anthropologists believe, took place along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and Aegean seas and in Iraq. At that time the Great Ice Age still held most of Eurasia in its grip, and it caused the sea levels to fall by 400 feet so that what is now the Persian Gulf was dry land, all the way to the Strait of Hormuz. It was irrigated not only by the still-existing Tigris and Euphrates but also by the Gihon, the Pison and their tributaries from the Arabian peninsula and from Iran. It seems reasonable that technologically primitive but modern Mm, in his endless search for food, would have located the considerable natural paradise that presented itself in the area where the Gulf now lies.

    But Eden wasn't born then. That came, Zarins believes, about 6000 B.C. In between 30,000 and 6000 B.C., the climate varied. From 15,000 B.C., rainfall diminished drastically. Faced with increasing aridity, the Paleolithic population retreated, some as far as the area known to us as the "Fertile Crescent" (north along the Tigris and Euphrates, westward toward the moist Mediterranean coast, south to the Nile), and also eastward to the Indus River valley. Others, perhaps wearied by the long trek, made do with the more austere conditions of central Arabia and continued foraging as best they could.

    Then, at about 6000 to 5000 B.C., following a long arid stretch, came a period called the Neolithic Wet Phase when rains returned to the Gulf region. The reaches of eastern and northeastern Saudi Arabia and southwestern Iran became green and fertile again. Foraging populations came back to where the four rivers now ran full, and there was rainfall on the intervening plains. Animal bones indicate that in this period Arabia had abundant game. Thousands of stone tools suggest intensive, if seasonal, human occupation around now dry lakes and rivers. These tools are found even in the Rub al-Khali or Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia. And so about 6000 to 5000 B.C. the land was again a paradise on Earth, provided by a bountiful nature-God---and admirably suited to the foraging life.

    This time, however, there was a difference: agriculture had been invented. Not overnight-"It was a very gradual process, not an event," Zarins emphasizes. It grew up along the Mediterranean coast and in today's Iran and Iraq as groups of hunter-gatherers evolved in-to agriculturists. Foragers from central Arabia, returning to the southern Mesopotamian plain, found it already resettled by these agriculturists. Because the process occurred before writing was invented, there is no record of what upheavals the evolution caused, what tortured questions about traditional values and life-styles, what dislocations of clans or tribes. Zarins posits that it must have been far more dramatic than the infinitely later Industrial Revolution, and an earthquake in comparison with today's computer-age discombobulation of persons, professions and systems.

    "What would happen to a forager when his neighbors changed their ways or when he found agriculturists had moved into his territory?" Zarins asks. These agriculturists were innovative folk who had settled down, planted seeds, domesticated and manipulated animals. They made the food come to them, in effect, instead of chasing it over hill and dale. What would the forager do if he couldn't cope? He could die; lie could move on; he could join the agriculturists. But whatever happened, he would resent it."

    Eden, Adam, and the birth of writing

    The crunch came, Zarins believes, here in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys and in northern Arabia, where the hunter-gatherers, flooding in from less hospitable regions, were faced with more technically accomplished humans who knew how to breed and raise animals, who made distinctive pottery, who seemed inclined to cluster in settled groups. Who were these people? Zarins believes they were a southern Mesopotamian group and culture now called the Ubaid. They founded the oldest of the southern Mesopotamian cities, Eridu, about 5000 B.C. Though Eridu, and other cities like Ur and Uruk, were discovered a century ago, the Ubaidian presence down along the coast of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia has been known for little more than a decade, when vestiges of their settlements, graves and distinctive pottery turned up.

    It was in Saudi Arabia that Zarins encountered the Ubaidians, and there that he began develoPing his hypothesis about the true meaning of the Biblical Eden. One clue lies in linguistics: the term Eden, or Edin, appears first in Sumer, the Mesopotamian region that produced the world's first written language. This was in the third millennium B.C., more than three thousand years after the rise of the Ubaid culture. In Sumerian the word "Eden" meant simply "fertile plain." The word "Adam" also existed in cuneiform, meaning something like "settlement on the plain." Although both words were set down first in Sumerian, along with place names like Ur and Uruk, they are not Sumerian in origin. They are older. A brilliant Assyriologist named Benno Landsberger advanced the theory in 1943 that these names were all linguistic remnants of a pre-Sumerian people who had already named rivers, cities-and even some specific trades like potter anti coppersmith-before the Sumerians appeared.

    Landsberger called the pre-Sumerian language simply Proto-Euphratian. Other scholars suggest that its speakers were the Ubaidians. However it was, the existing names were incorporated into Sumerian and written down for the first time. And the mythology of the lush and lovely spot called Eden was codified by being written.

    "The whole Garden of Eden story, however, when finally written, could be seen to represent the point of view of the hunter gatherers," Zarins reasons. "It was the result of tension between the two groups, the collision of two ways of life. Adam and Eve were heirs to natural bounty. They had everything they needed. But they sinned and were expelled. How did they sin? By challenging God's very omnipotence. In so doing they represented the agriculturists, the upstarts who insisted on taking matters into their own hands, relying upon their knowledge and their own skills rather than on His bounty.

    There were no journalists around to record the tension, no historians. But the event did not go unnoticed. It became a part of collective memory and at long last it was written down, highly condensed, in Genesis. It was very brief, but brevity doesn't mean lack of significance."

    How did it happen that an advanced people would perpetuate a myth making their own ancestors the sinners? It may be that the Ubaidians, who are known to have sailed down the east coast of Arabia and colonized there, ran into descendants of foragers displaced from a drowning Eden, from them heard the awful story of the loss of paradise and repeated it until it became their own legend. Or it may be that, responding to the increasing pressures and stresses of a society growing in complexity, they found comfort in a fantasy of the good old days, when life had been sweeter, simpler, more idyllic. However, it was a tale firmly established in Ubaidian mythology, then adopted and recorded by the Sumerians.

    LANDSAT spots a "fossil river"

    At this stage in his thesis, Zarins goes back to geography and geology to Pinpoint the area of Eden where he believes the collision came to a head. The evidence is beguiling: first, Genesis was written from a Hebrew point of view. It says the Garden was "eastward," i.e., east of Israel. It is quite specific about the rivers. The Tigris and the Euphrates are easy because they still flow. At the time Genesis was written, the Euphrates must have been the major one because it stands identified by name only and without an explanation about what it "compasseth." The Pison can be identified from the Biblical reference to the land of Havilah, which is easily located in the Biblical Table of Nations (Genesis 10:7, 25:18) as relating to localities and people within a Mesopotamian-Arabian framework. Supporting the Biblical evidence of Havilah are geological evidence on the ground and LANDSAT images from space. These images clearly show a "fossil river," that once flowed through northern Arabia and through the now dry beds, which modern Saudis and Kuwaitis know as the Wadi Riniah and the Wadi Batin. Furthermore. as the Bible says, this region was rich in bdellium, an aromatic gum resin that can still be found in north Arabia, and gold, which was still mined in the general area in the 1950s.


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    It is the Gihon, which "compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia," that has been the problem. In Hebrew the geographical reference was to "Gush" or "Kush." The translators of the King James Bible in the 17th century rendered Gush or Kush as "Ethiopia"---which is further to the south and in Africa--thus upsetting the geographical applecart and flummoxing researchers for centuries. Zarins now believes the Gihon is the Karun River, which rises in Iran and flows southwesterly toward the present Gulf. The Karun also shows in LANDSAT images and was a perennial river which, until it was dammed, contributed most of the sediment forming the delta at the head of the Persian Gulf.

    Thus the Garden of Eden, on the geographical evidence, must have been somewhere at the head of the Gulf at a time when all four rivers joined and flowed through an area that was then above the level of the Gulf. The wording in Genesis that Eden's river came into four heads" was dealt with by Biblical scholar Ephraim Speiser some years ago: the passage, he said, refers to the four rivers upstream of their confluence into the one river watering the Garden. This is a strange perspective, but understandable if one reflects that the description is of a folk memory, written millennia after the events encapsulated, by men who had never been within leagues of the territory.

    It was Speiser again who suggested that the mysterious Gush or Kush should be correctly written as Kashshu and further that it refers to the Kashshites, a people who, in about 1500 B.C , conquered Mesopotamia and prevailed until about 900 B.C. This Zarins considers a vital clue. "At the time the Kashshites were in control in Mesopotamia, the nation of Israel was being formed. The Hebrews must certainly have encountered them, and learned the handed-down traditions of early Mesopotamia, the myths and tales. They must have heard the words Eden and Adam."

    The name Eve does not appear in Sumerian but there is a most intriguing link---the account of Eve's having been fashioned from Adam's rib in the Garden story. Why a rib? Well, in a famous Sumerian poem translated and analyzed by scholar Samuel Noah Kramer, there is an account of how Enki the water god angered the Mother Goddess Ninhursag by eating eight magical plants that she had created. The Mother Goddess put the curse of death on Enki and disappeared, presumably so she couldn't change her mind and relent. Later, however, when Enki became very ill and eight of his "organs" failed, Ninhursag was enticed back. She summoned eight healing deities, one for each ailing organ. Now the Sumerian word for "rib" is "ti.," but the same word also means "to make live." So the healing deity who worked on Enki's rib was called "Nin-ti" and, in a nice play on words, became both the "lady of the rib" and the "lady who makes live." This Sumerian pun didn't translate into Hebrew, in which the words for "rib" and "to make live" are quite different. But the rib itself went into the Biblical account and as "Eve" came to symbolize the "mother of all living."

    This and other ties with Sumerian myth are very clear, and Zarins finds it telling that although the Hebrews had close associations with Egypt, their earliest spiritual roots were in Mesopotamia. "Abraham journeyed to Egypt, Joseph journeyed to Egypt, the whole Exodus story is concerned with Egypt, but there is nothing whatever Egyptian about the early chapters of Genesis," he points out. "All these early accounts are linked to Mesopotamia. Abraham indeed is said to have come from Ur, at the time near the Gulf, and the writers of Genesis wanted to link up with that history. So they drew from the literary sources of the greatest civilization that had existed, and that was in Mesopotamia. In so doing they turned Eden into the Garden, Adam into a man, and a compacted history of things that occurred millennia before was pressed into a few chapters."

    Long before Genesis was written, Zarins believes, the physical Eden had vanished under the waters of the Gulf. Man had lived happily there. But then, about 5000 to 4000 B.C. came a worldwide phenomenon called the Flandrian Transgression, which caused a sudden rise in sea level. The Gulf began to fill with water and actually reached its modern-day level about 4000 B.C., having swallowed Eden and all the settlements along the coastline of the Gulf. But it didn't stop there. It kept right on rising, moving upward into the southern legions of today's Iraq and Iran.

    "The Sumerians always claimed that their ancestors came 'out of the sea,' and I believe they literally did," says Zarins. "They retreated northward into Mesopotamia from the encroaching waters of the Gulf, where they had lived for thousands of years."

    Their original "Eden" was gone but a new one called Dilmun, on higher ground along the eastern coast of Arabia, enters the epics and the poems in the third millennium i.e. The by then ancient mythology of a land of plenty, of eternal life and peace, had lodged firmly in the collective mind and in a specific geographical area.

    The scholarly world first heard about Dilmun a little more than a century ago, when scholars were able to decipher cuneiform tablets unearthed by archaeologist Austen Henry Layard in Nineveh. an Assyrian stronghold in today's Iraq. Its earliest mention was in economic texts referring to traffic in people and goods. On later tablets, to their astonishment. scholars began reading, in literature, not only about Eden and Adam and the "lady of the rib" but also about a Great Flood, a Sumerian hero called Gilgamesh and his search for the Tree of Life. There was even a serpent. Gilgamesh had gone "down" from Sumer to the Gulf area where he had been told he would find a plant that would give him eternal life. "What he found may have been coral, which in antiquity was a symbol of eternal life," Zarins explains. "And after his labors lie went to sleep and a serpent came along and stole his eternal life--his coral, maybe. Now it may not have been a serpent as we think of one, but instead one of those beautiful feathery creatures that Assyrians depicted in reliefs. But the descriptions of Dilmun are of an area that fits what I've been saying, where societies could exist at the will and bounty of God, in a beautiful setting."

    A land for commerce and consecration

    There is a curious dichotomy in Dilmun as economic center and also as hallowed place of legend. Its exact location has been a debated issue. It is Zarins'---and most scholars'---conviction that it was the islands of Bahrain and Failaka and the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. "The island of Bahrain was the Hong Kong of its era," lie says, "a rich hub of international trade, with ships coming and going between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley civilization. Both there and on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia are tens of thousands of tumuli---far more than the sparse indigenous population would have accounted for-some very rich tombs, most dating to the period 2500 to 1900 B.C.

    Some suggest close ties with the Sumerians. Eden was gone so they would want to go to the paradise land of Dilmun either for pilgrimages or as the site of their final resting place. After all, if riches or eternal life were to be had in this area, they might as well get in on it."

    One final question must be asked. Why, when the Israelites accepted the ancient stories of Mesopotamia-Arabia, with all their freight of long-forgotten struggles, climatic changes, half-forgotten traditions, did they choose the word Eden instead of Dilmun?

    "Perhaps they never heard of the word Dilmun," says Zarins. "We don't really know. Archaeologist Daniel Potts is working on that problem right now:

    Did the word Dilmun exist in Hellenistic times? There was a linguistic break in Alexander the Great's time. The wedgelike cuneiform was replaced by the alphabetic writing of the Greeks, a much more efficient system. Power passed from the East to the West, to Greece and Rome. The old stories, the old words, faded into obscurity because power goes to those who have it. Until the discovery of the Nineveh tablets, Assyrian cuneiform was dead. Early translators never heard of it. The name and concept of Eden were transmitted not through the Sumerian language of Dilmun but through the Hebrew-Hellenistic one of Eden."

    It is an accident of history, of archaeology, of translation, perhaps, that Dilmun was lost and Eden remained. It should not shake the faith of any intelligent human being. If Zarins is correct, there is embedded in the Bible a very ancient folk memory, not only the story of Creation but also the story of Man's emergence from total dependence to perilous self-reliance, with all the man-made dangers incipient therein.



    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


    First appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, Volume 18. No. 2, May 1987. Used with permission of Miss Hamblin's sister and executor, Mary H. Ovrom. December 1, 1997





  8. #8 marprim 18 de mayo de 2006

    Brandan,puede ser ,en el caso de los jardines musulmanes,estuvieran organizados según una idea del mundo,en la cual,por ejemplo,Dios estuviera en el centro,y se representaria con una fuente,y a lo mejor diversos círculos representarían las diversas fases del alma para llegar a Dios o algo así.Creo que en los jardines renacentista también debian de funcionar este tipo de conceptos,(como lo que hablabais de la Pintura en el for de "la continuidad..") Parece que el jardín refleja,como todo arte,las ideas que se manejan en la época

  9. #9 kaerkes 18 de mayo de 2006

    Bueno, al respecto de la reflexión de Exgesis ya hemos dado nuestra oPinión al principio. El concepto jardín así como su uso ha variado mucho en la historia. Incluso hoy en dia, los jardines orientales tienen otra funcionalidad distinta los jardines occidentales.
    En el caso del jardín musulman, heredero claramente del Persa, influenciado a su vez por el Egipcio, etc y así sucesivamente., podríamos encontrar dos aspectos símbólicos, como representación del Paraiso con todos los elemntos para el disfrute de los sentidos (agua, olor, color, etc) y el heredado de los persas, que dividían su jardín en 4 partes, simbolizando los cuatro elementos (tierra, agua, aire y fuego). En el cruce, tanto en el árabe como en el persa se instalaban fuentes o miradores, pudiendo simbolizar al Creador.

    Todos estos elementos simbólicos se van traspasando desde la Edad Media hasta la creación de lo que entendemos por jardín/parque, cuya aparición es debida a la revolución industrial y el obrerismo.

    Mi oPinión es que es Oriente la cuna del jardín, entendido como lugar simbólico y espiritual. Y creo también que es imposible entender la evolución de los jardines hasta el XIX, sin entender los jardines persas, egipcios y clásicos, claramente influenciados por los anteriores. (romano y griego).

    No creo en la existencia de "jardines" en la cultura celta. No tiene sentido recrear la naturaleza divina cuando esa divinidad la tienes en un nemeton sagrado al que rindes culto. Otra cosa es la existencia de huertas, cercados a nivel productivo, que es de donde creo que pudo acomodarse la raiz germánica "gaar" (guardar, cercar).

  10. #10 Onnega 18 de mayo de 2006

    Hay jardines que inspiran obras literarias (Bomarzo), y obras literarias que inspiran jardines, como este jardín dentro de los Kew Gardens de Londres, recreación de un poema de Yeats. Aquí os pongo un trocito:


    Mary Reynolds

    Su jardín intenta reflejar el de ‘The Stolen Child’: un paisaje mágico de bosques, fuentes e islas en los que viven water voles, garzas, truchas, ratones. El jardín tiene la forma de una isla en un lago, con árboles, plantas acuáticas y marginal plants. Se llega a él por un sendero tortuoso, marcado por piedras centinela, conduce a un espacio central protegido que proporciona una sensación de conexión con la naturaleza y conciencia de su fragilidad
    [perdón por la traducción y las lagunas]

    Se puede hacer una visita virtual del jardín en http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/places/kew/defrabiodiversity.html
    Pinchando en "Virtual tour", y de paso en esa misma página en "Places-Kew Garden" se pueden ver fotos de estos jardines:


    Grass garden

  11. #11 marprim 24 de mayo de 2006

    El huerto monacal/El jardín del convento

    "Los Monasterios en sus comienzos solian estar en lugares apartados y la vida alli se organizaba de forma que se pudiera producir un autoabastecimiento. De ahi la importancia que adquirieron los huertos dentro de la estructura y el espacio de estos recintos. En primer lugar son la base de la alimentacion de la vida monacal. Patatas, zanahorias, acelgas, lechugas, alcachofas, ajos, esPinacas, habas y toda clase de hortalizas asi como los arboles frutales, como manzanos, perales o moreras. En segundo lugar las plantas aromaticas no solo aportan condimentos y aromas a las comidas sino que en muchos casos tienen un gran numero de propiedades medicinales que sirven de base para la preparacion de toda clase de unguentos y remedios contra los males. farmacias vivas que un buen herbolario podria utilizar en cualquier epoca del año, tanto frescas como conservadas en frascos. Las plantas no son solo buenas para comer sino tambien para curar se si toman en la medida adecuada. Romero, tomillo, oregano, salvia, santolina, manzanilla son algunas de las plantas habituales en muchos de estos huertos. Con muchas de ellas se pueden ademas hacer jabones (laurel), o preparar colorantes (oregano) o hacer cestos (cornejo), licores, mermeladas y un gran numero de productos cosmeticos.
    Para el reposo y la meditacion estos lugares eran, y siguen siendo ideales. Rodeados de calendulas, margaritas, lirios o lavandas, a la sombra de los cornejos, de los cipreses se crea un ambiente de recogimiento y paz dificil de reproducir en otros lugares. Y por ultimo con toda esta disponibilidad de productos lo logico es que se desarrollen las ciencias relacionadas con la agricultura, la medicina e incluso la investigacion genetica. Asi por ejemplo Johann Mendel en 1847 entró en la orden de los agustinos y experimentando en el jardín del convento descubrió que la herencia vegetal está sometida a rigurosas leyes matemáticas y sentó las bases de la genetica moderna.


    Convento de los Martires
    Se encontraba situado en el interior de lo que ahora se conoce como Carmen de los Martires. Fundado por el Conde Tendilla en 1573 se erige en Convento de Carmelitas Descalzos siendo prior San Juan de la Cruz desde 1582 a 1588. Fue destruido en 1842. El huerto ha sido recuperado recientemente respetando la mezcla de especies que podría haber conformado la vida monacal, plantas hortícolas, medicinales y aromáticas como romero, tomillo, orégano, lavanda o fresas. Al fondo del huerto se ha construido un cenador con caña de Motril.
    San Juan de la cruz dejo su huella en el huerto, con el acueducto que lo atraviesa y con un viejo ciprés, un Cupressus lusitánica, bajo cuyo influjo escribió su poema "La noche oscura", decía San Juan que no podía evadirse a la música del ciprés. Un sonido que era diferente al del resto de los árboles del huerto del antiguo convento... "
    http://waste.ideal.es/huertomonacal.htm
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  12. #12 arenas 23 de nov. 2006

    Acabo de descubrir este bonito artículo.
    Conozco el Pasatiempo desde hace muchos años por un artículo que salió en un dominical de " El Pais " y en 1989 que fuimos de vacaciones a Galicia entramos a verlo. En la puerta ponia "PROHIBIDO EL PASO PELIGRO DE DERRUMBE" o algo parecido, la puerta estaba abierta y dentro vimos gente , así que entramos. Yo aluciné. Aunque estaba todo bastante destrozado, me pareció mágico , aquellas figuras de cemento, aquellas conchas en los estanques, los camellos sin cabeza, los viajeros también sin cabeza, el buzo rodeado por un mar plantas, del enorme león creo que quedaba parte de las patas y en la parte alta quedaban dos esculturas mancas y las piernas de uno de los Naveira sentado y rodeado todo de una vegetación salvaje.
    El año pasado volvimos por allí y fuimos a visitarlo, lo han arreglado, restaurado y Pintado de colores pero las estatuas de emperadores romanos que rodeaban "el estanque del retiro" no han vuelto, el buzo de colores no me gustó nada, el león vuelve a estar imponente y las piernas de uno de los Naveira han desaparecido y detrás hay un feo edificio con carretillas y practicamente vacío.
    Iba a poner unas fotos pero no me deja así que las pondré mañana.

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