plant
Cedar
An evergreen timber of temples and chests. Lebanese and other cedars enter story as local trees, not one world-tree.
Cedar is used in Medicine.
Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica lists cedar (kedros) and cedar-oil among drugs. First-century pharmacological use of the timber-tree, not Gilgamesh’s Cedar Forest and not Yggdrasil.
from Pedanius Dioscorides · De Materia Medica, 1st century CE
used in · sourced · documented
Mesopotamian tradition
Cedar appears in Mesopotamian tradition.
The Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh epic sends Gilgamesh and Enkidu to the Cedar Forest to cut timber and face Humbaba. A named cedar-expedition in that poem, not Dioscorides’ kedros and not Yggdrasil.
from Epic of Gilgamesh, c. 1200 BCE (this recension)
appears in · sourced · documented
sources
- De Materia Medica · Pedanius Dioscorides
Dioscorides, De Materia Medica.
- Epic of Gilgamesh
The Epic of Gilgamesh, Standard Babylonian version (flood tablet; underworld material).