Tamarisk and Palm

Tamarisk and Palm is an Akkadian disputation poem written on clay tablets and dates to the 18th century BC from the reign of Hammurabi. The poem features an argument between a tamarisk and a date palm; the Tamarisk leads in the name of the poem because it presents the first speech during the debate, followed by a reply from Palm. The text is fragmentary but appears to have followed the typical structure of Sumerian disputation poems. It was the most famous Akkadian disputation poem of antiquity, with its manuscripts ranging from the 18th to 12th centuries BC, and it continues to be the best-known Akkadian disputation today.

Some have classified Tamarisk and Palm as a Sumerian disputation, but this is on the basis of a Sumerian fragment that turns out to have been translated from an Akkadian original. There is one Sumerian topos and loanword from the Akkadian text that occurs during its cosmogonic prologue, rendered as "in those days", which refers to a primeval and mythical time outside of history.

In Mesopotamian disputation literature, debates between trees is a recurring theme. In Sumerian disputations, there is the Debate between tree and reed. In other Akkadian poems, there is also both the Palm and Vine and the Series of the Poplar. A much later example from Aesop's fables is The Oak and the Reed.