mace or enlightenment jewel-in-the-lotus of Tibet and South-East Asia, the symmetrically scrolled cloud and bat motifs and the similarly scrolled ruyi or ju-i scepter and lingzhi or fungus of longevity of the Chinese tradition. Both as a form of the lotus rising from the swamps to touch the sun and as a (palm) tree reaching from earth to heaven, the palmette carries the characteristics of the axis mundi or world tree. The fleur-de-lis, which became a potent and enigmatic emblem of the divine right of kings, said to have been bestowed on early French kings by an angel, evolved in Egypt and Mesopotamia as a variant of the palmette. Similarly, from the early 13th century to 1806 the divine right of the Holy Roman Emperors was conferred by investiture in the Imperial Regalia, which included the coronation mantle displaying the twin lions (recalling the twin lions of Aker above) guarding the palm in the form of a tree of life, with its two pendant clusters of fruit. It is believed that the Irminsul, the sacred pillar of the Saxons and equivalent of the Norse Yggdrasil, another version of the world tree, took on its palmette form under Gallo-Roman influence. Even everyday garden gates throughout Western suburbia are topped with almost identical pairs of scrolls seemingly derived from the motifs associated with the akhet and the palmette, including the related winged sun and sun disk flanked with a pair of eyes. Churchyard gates, tombs and gravestones bear the motif over and again in different forms. The anthemion is also the mint mark of the Mint of Greece, and it shows in all Greek euro coins destined for circulation, as well as in all Greek collectors' coins. Gallery See also Acroterion Blue Egyptian Water Lily Tomb of the Palmettes Indo-Corinthian capital Pataliputra capital Notes References Jessica Rawson, Chinese Ornament: The Lotus and the Dragon; , British Museum Pubns Ltd, 1984 Alois Riegl, Stilfragen. Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik. Berlin 1893 Helene J. Kantor, Plant Ornament in the Ancient Near East, Revised: 11 August 1999, Copyright 1999 Oriental Institute, University of Chicago Idris Parry, Speak Silence, , Carcanet Press Ltd., 1988 Gombrich, Symbolic Images: Studies in the Art of the Renaissance, London, Phaidon, 1972 Ernst H. Gombrich, The Sense of Order, A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art, Phaidon, 1985 External links Ancient Egypt, the tree of life Plant Ornament :