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Author Topic: Mythical khalub tree of Sumeria/Mesopotamia = coconut
DD'eDeN
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I have determined that the mythical khalub tree was almost certainly the coconut palm, imported via Oman from Sumatra or India.

khalub(Sumerian)/khaluppu(Akkadian)/kelapa(Malay) = Coco nucifera = coconut palm

*muangualua(f/p) archaic -lua/leave.n/leaf/lapa
men.gelap@Malay: dark (inside thatched hut)
mongolu@Mbuti: dome thatched hut
duom palm fronds & frond ribs are used to make thatched dome huts along Eritrean coast.
lip@Tocharian: leaf
list@Croatian: leaf
ngongo@Mbuti: large leaf used to shingle huts


DDeden
Tropical Forester, Paleo-Etymologist

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Following is an article, with a claim that Khalub was a cherry tree.

University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Papers
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
2009

The KHALUB-tree in Mesopotamia: Myth or Reality?

Naomi F. Miller
University of Pennsylvania,
Alhena Gadotti

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252628763_The_KHALUB-tree_in_Mesopotamia_Myth_or_Reality

... When one of us (Gadotti) approached the other (Miller) with epigraphic information about the Sumerian KHALUB-tree (Akkadian
khaluppu), we decided to follow the trail as far as it would go. Although most of the lines of evidence can be used, it will be seen that a definitive identification still eludes us.
Nevertheless, this exercise demonstrates how to investigate the problem, spells out the qualifications and unavoidable ambiguities that must be dealt with, and provides a base against which one may assess references to this tree in any new texts that have yet to be discovered.
The best-known reference to the KHALUB-tree comes from the Sumerian composition "Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld", which mentions a tree that was planted along the Euphrates; in the beginning, " a solitary KHALUB-tree, planted on the bank of the pure Euphrates" (Gadotti 2005, 305).

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xyambuatlaya

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BrandonP
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How well would coconut palms be able to grow in a climate like Iraq's? I've seen a few of them standing around in humid subtropical places like Hong Kong (I lived there as an expat during my high school years), but I'm not sure they would fare so well in a desert environment unless the gardener went out of their way to water them. Coconut palms do best in the wet tropics, in places like Singapore or Hawaii.

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DD'eDeN
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quote:
Originally posted by Tyrannohotep:
How well would coconut palms be able to grow in a climate like Iraq's? I've seen a few of them standing around in humid subtropical places like Hong Kong (I lived there as an expat during my high school years), but I'm not sure they would fare so well in a desert environment unless the gardener went out of their way to water them. Coconut palms do best in the wet tropics, in places like Singapore or Hawaii.

Right, they don't grow well or reproduce outside the tropical belt. In California palms are abundant but coconuts don't grow outside greenhouses.

Oman has a humid zone in the Dophar plain where 50,000 planted coconut palms grow well.

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xyambuatlaya

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BrandonP
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quote:
Originally posted by DD'eDeN:
Oman has a humid zone in the Dophar plain where 50,000 planted coconut palms grow well.

OK, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info!

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