As part of a thesis about art motifs of the Ancient Near East (Iraq/Iran/Israel/Egypt) I am trying to work out what plant or flower this image could be a depiction of (attached). I know it's not much to go on. I do know that this plant or flower had varying number of leaves/petals ranging from 4 to 10 at least and was around 5000 or more years ago. At first I thought it was a daisy, but then the leaf pattern on the 'petals' got me thinking it could be something else. It also could be a plant with a berry or some type of fruit or nut in the centre owing to other contexts. Sorry this is quite a hard, wide-ranging question, but this is still one of the great mysteries from the art of this time and it would be great to get a steer from a botanist. Last question, have any or many flowers become extinct over the last 5000 years? Sorry for my ignorance - I know nothing about botany! thanks in advance
That there are 7 petals/sepals is odd -- that's a rare number. Plants usually have petals and/or sepals in multiples of 3 (for one major lineage of flowering plants) or multiples of 4-5 (in the other major lineage). That there are a number of different depictions of presumably the same plants suggests it is an artistic rendering. As for extinct plant species, yes, quite a few, though few of economic use to humans (with Silphium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia being a potential exception)
