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In fact, from Ancient Near Eastern records to nautical practices as recent as the 19th century, sailors the world over used doves and other birds to help them find and navigate toward land. There, too, the hero (Utnapishtim) sends out a dove, which returns to the ship unable to find a perch. A similar flood story is told in parallel passages in the ancient Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. (The image of a dove holding an olive branch continues to be a symbol of peace to this day.) The third time, the dove did not return, and Noah knew that it was safe to leave the ark. The second time it brought back an olive leaf, so Noah could see that God’s punishment was over and life had begun again on the earth. The first time it found nothing and returned to the ark. In Genesis 8:8-12, after the ark has landed on the mountains of Ararat, Noah sends out a dove three times to see how far the flood waters have receded. The best-known example comes from the flood story of Genesis 6-9. Erich Lessing.īut that is not the only allusion to a dove in the Hebrew Bible. In Rome and throughout the Empire, goddesses such as Venus and Fortunata could be seen depicted in statues with a dove resting in their hand or on their head.ĭovecotes, or niches for doves, dot the exterior of this small clay house shrine from Cyprus, while the goddess beckons to devotees from within. coins from Ashkelon bore a dove, which represented both the goddess Tyche-Astarte and the city mint. The doves represented feminine fertility and procreation, and came to be well-recognized symbols of the Canaanite goddess Asherah and her counterpart Astarte, as well as her Phoenician and later Punic embodiment, Tanit. On one example from Cyprus, the entire exterior of the goddess’s shrine is covered with dovecotes. Small clay shrines from the Iron Age Levant depict doves perched atop the doorways of these mini-temples. In the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean world, the dove became an iconic symbol of the mother goddess. From the ancient world to modern times, this simple bird developed layer upon layer of meaning and interpretive significance, making it a complex and powerful addition to religious texts and visual representations. A particular favorite in art and iconography, the dove often represents some aspect of the divine, and its use has been shared, adapted and reinterpreted across cultures and millennia to suit changing belief systems.

Walters Art Museum, Baltimoreįew symbols have a tradition as long and as rich as the dove.

The dove continued to be used for various church implements throughout the Byzantine and medieval period, including the form of oil lamps and this 13th-century altar piece for holding the Eucharistic bread. In addition to its symbolism for the Holy Spirit, the dove was a popular Christian symbol before the cross rose to prominence in the fourth century.

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