The dove brought an olive leaf back to Noah’s Ark as proof that the floodwaters were receding.
In Genesis, Noah sends the dove out after waiting seven days. It returns that evening with a freshly plucked olive leaf, showing that vegetation was visible again above the water. Noah waits another seven days before sending the bird out once more; this time it does not return, suggesting that the land is habitable.
The olive leaf became one of the most recognizable symbols associated with peace, reconciliation, and the end of conflict. That symbolism developed beyond the biblical narrative and appears in later Jewish, Christian, Roman, and modern political imagery. The biblical detail itself is specifically an olive leaf, not a branch or a generic green leaf.
The dove and olive leaf are often treated as a single emblem, although Genesis presents them as part of a sequence of observations. The first dove flight fails to find a resting place, the second returns with the leaf, and the third does not come back.