Exploring the Garden of Uzza 17 problem and thorny issue of the relocation of the royal household without the relocation of the royal dead” (66). This suggests that the veneration of ancestors need not be restricted to the precise site of their burial, leaving open the possibility that two or more locations might be employed within a cult of dead kings. Given the repeatedly demon- strated importance of gardens within Neo-Assyrian royal households, it is likely that the Northwest Palace included a garden in one of its courtyards, which may have performed a complementary religious function alongside the “garden of ancestors” in Room I. More important, however, are the ideological dimensions of the iconography of Room I, which indicate the elevated nature of the horticultural framing of royal mortuary beliefs and practices. The marble reliefs adorning the walls of Room I in the Northwest Palace at Kal˙u would thus appear to present an iconographic mortuary garden, within which the dead ancestors of the royal line are imaged as sacred trees. The alignment of the sacred tree motif with ancient Near Eastern kingship is well known (67). Given the regenera- tive nature of trees and their pervading association with the divine, coupled with the close association of kingship with the heavenly realm, the use of tree imagery within certain expressions of Neo- Assyrian royal ideology is not unusual. Indeed, similar conceptual configurations are reflected in biblical traditions in which kingship and tree imagery are closely related (68); remarkably, some of these texts are suggestive of a mortuary context for this correlation of kingship and trees (69). 4. The Garden of Uzza as a mortuary garden In Isa 65,3-5, 66,17 and perhaps 1,29-30, faint reflections of the sacred status of mortuary gardens may be discerned. Their function as (66) “An Assyrian Garden of Ancestors”, 148-149. (67) See, for example, Tree, Kings and Politics: Studies in Assyrian Iconography (ed. B.N. PORTER) (OBO 197; Fribourg – Göttingen 2003); G. WIDENGREN, The King and the Tree of Life in Ancient Near Eastern Religions (Uppsala – Wiesbaden 1951). (68) E.g., Num 24,6-7; Judg 6,9; 9,8-15; 1 Sam 22,6; Isa 6,13; 11,1.10; Ezek 17,3-10; 28,12-19; 31,2-18; Dan 4,10-33. (69) For example, the bones of King Saul and his heirs are buried beneath a tree (1 Sam 31,13; 1 Chr 10,12; cf. Gen 35,8) and in Ezek 31,14-18, kings imaged as trees are felled and consigned to Sheol. I will be exploring in a future publication the possibility that sacred trees played a role within ancestral cults of kingship in Judah.