Afterlife

• The cypress is a hard and long-lived tree but tends not to grow back when it is cut. Because of this, it is often associated with the cessation of life or the passage into the afterlife for eternity. In some ancient religions, it was one of the trees seen when the dead entered the underworld. The Greeks and Romans used the wood for coffins. The Egyptians also used it to protect mummies. Christians and Muslims placed cypress trees in cemeteries to ward off evil spirits.
  
  

Universe and Immortality

• In Turkey, the cypress tree often symbolized the universe. With its roots underground, its trunk above ground and its leaves in the sky, it represented three distinct levels. The fact that the tree is an evergreen also meant that it symbolized immortality. The cypress tree was the tree of life to the Ottoman Empire.
  
  

Greek Mythology

• The Greeks had several myths based on the cypress tree. In one, Cyparissus (whose name literally means cypress and has been used to describe a genus of cypress trees) killed himself following the death of his pet stag. Apollo then transformed him into a cypress tree, from which the sap ran as tears. In another myth, the god Apollo was born and raised in the sacred Ortygian cypress grove in Lykia. Artemis is also associated with a grove of cypress trees.
  
  

Iranian Culture

• Cypress trees also make an extensive symbolic appearance in the Iranian epic poem Shahnameh by Ferdowsi around 1000 AD, which attempts to recount the entire history of Iran from the creation of the world up to the seventh century conquest of Persia by Islam. In the story, a great cypress tree sprung from a branch brought by Zoroaster from paradise.
  
  

Freedom and Truthfulness

• In Persian cultures and elsewhere the cypress tree may also be a symbol of uprightness and freedom, its barrenness representing liberty. It was also associated with truthfulness since the essence of the cypress tree was considered to be without deceit or falseness.