Mariana Giovino’s The Assyrian Sacred Tree: A History of Interpretations is Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 230, from Academic Press Fribourg and Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen, copyright 2007. She defines the motif by the relief behind Aššurnaṣirpal II’s throne at Nimrud, a panel about 1.93 by 5.32 metres, with humans and genies who appear to anoint a palmette on a pole. No Assyrian text discovered to date explains it. Images run from about 883 to 627 BC. She dates Aššurnaṣirpal II to 883 to 859 BC, and she lists later examples under Shalmaneser III, Tiglath-Pileser III, Sargon II, Esarhaddon, and Aššurbanipal. Three readings compete: the tree of life from 1849, a date palm from 1888, and a constructed cult object from 1864. Her own result is that a date palm, or any real tree, is unlikely, and a constructed object is likely. She keeps the kiškanû at Ur, in texts of Rīm-Sîn from about 1822 to 1763 BC, separate from that result. Seven apkallu lived before the Flood in a tradition she reports. She does not discuss Atlantis.
The book is in copyright. The quotations in the review are short excerpts.