ABSTRACT
The large number of aquatic and semi-aquatic animals identified with the earth is presumably linked to the motif of the emergence of the earth from the circumferential ocean or from a watery chaos below or surrounding the earth.51 However, another widely diffused model of the universe is based on the plant kingdom-the cosmic tree, which is sometimes depicted upside down.52 In one sense, all these models are isomorphic. Chthonic motifs are associated with the subterranean world, whereas the cosmic tree embodies a multi-tiered world created from a primordial ancestor.
