page_title: Cultural views on the navel
section_title: Literature and philosophy
hierarchical_section_title: Cultural views on the navel / Mediterranean, Hebrew and Middle Eastern cultures / Literature and philosophy
caption_attribution_description: English: A Belly Dancer in Marrakech (Morocco)
context_page_description: The cultural views of the navel vary significantly. In some cultures the navel is seen as sexually and culturally significant, and its exposure has been subject to a variety of cultural norms and taboos, based on concepts of modesty. The views, customs and fashions relating to the navel change from time to time, and such exposure has become more widely acceptable, as reflected in design of clothing.
context_section_description: In the Hebrew Bible the Song of Songs emphasizes the navel as an important element of a woman's beauty. It contains imagery similar to that in the love songs of ancient Egyptian literature. Song of Songs 7:2 states: "Your navel is a rounded bowl." The verse preceding the line mentioning the navel (Song of Songs 7:1) states, "your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand", ) and the verse following states, "Your belly is a heap of wheat." Thus the treatment of the navel appears placed textually in between the description of the curves of a woman through thigh and the stomach or midriff. "Belly" also suggests the womb, and the combination of the imagery of the womb with that of wheat suggests the link between eroticism and fertility through the imagery of the navel and curvaceous thighs. These passages also celebrate a curvaceous stomach and midriff and plumpness as aspects of female physical attractiveness.
  The ancient Mediterranean, Hebrew, Israelite and Middle Eastern worldview commonly incorporated beliefs that shrines, important places (such as cities or capitals), or other such places of prominence had a position of centrality to the world and hence equated to the child-bearing, life-giving navel of a mother. These domains constituted what contemporaries could regard as important bonds that linked the universe. Thus Nippur, an ancient city of the Mesopotamian people, was often described as the "navel". This usage expressed connotations of the prominence of the location and the way it was seen to function as a place of centrality and as a link between earth and the heavens and the Universe. The Ancient Greeks regarded the conical stone Omphalos (meaning "navel") located at Delphi as the center of the earth.
  In a similar vein, Jewish Midrashim state: "God created the world like an embryo. Just as the embryo begins at the navel and continues to grow from that point, so too the world. The Holy One, blessed be he, began the world from its navel. From there it was stretched hither and yon. Where is its navel? Jerusalem. And its (Jerusalem's) navel itself? The altar." This passage expresses the centrality of the ancient city of Jerusalem and of the altar of the ancient temple of Jerusalem within a cosmic framework equated to the navel of a mother and the source of life. Similar concepts appear in the Book of Jubilees 8:19 and in the Book of Enoch 26:1, which describes Mount Zion as "The center of the navel of the earth". Samaritan tradition sees Mount Gerizim as the navel of the earth, the only place not submerged in the deluge in the account of Noah's Ark. The phrase "navel of the earth" occurs in (Ezek 38:12; Judg 9:37) Aramaic tibbur ("navel") and the concept recurs in Ezek 16:4. According to Samaritan tradition, God made Adam from the dust of Mount Gerizim. The belly-dancing tradition of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures also celebrates the navel. When Pope Urban II called (1095) for the First Crusade, he referred to Jerusalem as "the navel of the world".
caption: A belly dancer in Marrakech in Morocco
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