What is the sacred sycamore tree of ancient Egypt?

The sycamore fig of the goddesses Nut and Hathor, who lean out of it to give the dead food and water.

What the sign shows: A tree.
How Gerald Massey read it in 1907: Massey makes it the original tree of life and sets it beside the tree in the garden of Genesis.
Where you see it today: An old sycamore fig at Matariya in Cairo is still visited as “the Virgin’s Tree”.
Where it stands in Massey’s book: Massey names it 89 times across the book. Book VII, p. 450: “The power that appears in the tree”; Book VII, p. 451: “Hathor and the song of Wisdom”; Book IX, p. 551: “Not one who drowns”.
Signs that look like it: Papyrus, Lotus and Djed pillar. The app’s Symbol Trainer sets them side by side, so the eye learns to tell them apart.
In Massey’s words: “The tree of life, the emerald sycamore of dawn, stood with its roots below the horizon in the garden eastward.” (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (1907), Book VII, p. 453)
In the app: Trainer › Symbol Trainer › Sycamore. The app’s Symbol Trainer reads 42 signs this way, each with Massey’s own words and the page they stand on.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

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