ANCIENT EGYPT

The History, People and Culture of the Nile Valley

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Bird life along the ancient Nile

‘But Egypt is not only an ideal land to the antiquarian, the historian and the artist: it is also one to the ornithologist, or even to the simple, unscientific bird-lovers who take their pleasure in watching and studying the habits and homes of their feathered friends. ’ – Lady William Cecil, Birds Notes from the Nile Westminster 1904).

 The rich bird life of ancient Egypt throngs the houses of the dead. Wild and domesticated birds appear in scenes of everyday life and hunting, adding to the rich symbolism of Egyptian art and helping to bring to life the valley of the Nile in ancient times. Patrick Houlihan identifies the bird species of Egypt and describes their importance to the ancient Egyptians, in part one of a two-part series.

 Located at the northeastern corner of the African continent, Egypt lies on a major migratory flyway for birds of the Palearctic region. Twice each year, during the spring and autumn, since time immemorial, astonishing numbers of them wing through the country while on their long journey from Europe and Western Asia to central and southern Africa. Some of these travellers are drawn, in particular, to the extensive wetlands and lakes of the Nile Delta, which serve as an important wintering area for migrant water birds from most of the Palearctic. In addition, Egypt is also home to a surprisingly large and diverse indigenous avian population of its own, inhabiting a fairly wide variety of haunts.

 Living so close to the natural world along the Nile, pharaonic Egyptians depended on an intimate knowledge of the annual cycles of the animal world around them, and thus became closely aware of the habits and movements of the local avifauna. From inscriptions along with the encyclopaedic natural history scenes adorning the walls of the ‘Chamber of the Seasons’ in the dynasty V solar temple of Niuserre at Abu Ghurab, we know that the Egyptians were conscious of the seasonal migrations of birds in their country, and could distinguish between resident and passage varieties.

Some of the famous 'geese of Meidum'. This is a pair of red-breasted geese.

 Observing migratory species even allowed them to mark the passage of time with figures of speech. In the well-known late New Kingdom literary work The Report of Wenamun, complaining about his long stay at far-off Byblos in Lebanon along the Phoenician coast, and wishing to return home to Egypt, Wenamun observes: ‘Do you not see the migrant birds going down to Egypt a second time?’ while in a Ramesside period text, an Egyptian official grumbles about the hardships of his distant post abroad and laments: ‘I spend the whole day watching the birds.’

Birds played vital roles in both the secular and sacred spheres of Egyptian culture. People also clearly delighted in the intrinsic beauty of these feathered creatures. Always accomplished animaliers, the Egyptians created innumerable dazzling bird images over the millennia, images which occasionally formed integral elements in masterpieces of Egyptian works of art. More than seventy different types of them can be identified from iconographic sources alone. Furthermore, various species, and parts of them, figured prominently in the decorative hieroglyphic script. In Sir Alan Gardiner’s classic Egyptian Grammar sign list, sixty-three standard hieroglyphs are enumerated which represent birds or their diverse parts. A number of birds also developed close associations with an array of gods and goddesses in the pharaonic pantheon. In these articles, we will survey an assortment of the bird species with which the ancient Egyptians were well acquainted and examine the place that avian life had in their remarkable civilisation.

  Rare visitors

 The Egyptians have bequeathed us an extraordinary record of their knowledge and utilization of birds. The evidence comprises extensive pictorial, textual and bone remains. Taken together, this impressive documentation conclusively shows that the abundance of bird life in Egypt was far greater and even more wide-ranging during the time of the pharaohs than it is today. Some of the birds routinely encountered in Egyptian art and hieroglyphs have now become locally extinct or are reduced to being extremely rare visitors; this is best exemplified, for instance, by the saddlebill stork (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis), the helmeted guineafowl 0'umida meleagris), hermit ibis (Geronticus eremita) and the famous sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus) among many others.

 The loss of these species from the contemporary landscape is primarily due to the ever-increasing disappearance of prime swamp habitat from the country, largely the result of human expansion and drainage of these areas. It is these once extensive wetlands which, traditionally, have provided abundant food, breeding grounds, and needed protection for both the indigenous dwellers and migrating avian visitors alike. The decline in numbers is, however, also significantly related to the over exploitation and disturbance of the endemic bird populations.

 In antiquity birds were first and foremost esteemed as an important source of food and so, not surprisingly, the extant records often relate to them in this capacity. Taking full advantage of the abundance of bird life in their country, the ancient Egyptians’ diet was enriched by their regular consumption, especially delicious and highly nutritious migratory ducks and geese. Just how plentiful and comparatively easy water-birds are to get in Egypt is demonstrated by the fact that from 1979 to 1986, by a conservative estimate, between 260,000 and 374,000 of them were taken annually in the Nile Delta alone, using essentially the same level of technology (of course, excluding firearms), as in the days of the pharaohs. There is, moreover, sound ecological evidence, already mentioned, for thinking that four or five thousand years ago, the available wildlife was far richer still.

 Temple poultry

Force feeding a crane and a duck in a poultry yard. Force feeding was used for both domesticated and captive species. They were then used for consumption or sacrifice. 

 By the middle of dynasty I, as indicated from a representation fashioned on a gaming disc discovered in the tomb of the chancellor Hemaka (S3035) at Sahara, clever Egyptian fowlers had apparently already perfected the method of employing large, hexagonal-shaped clap-nets to capture enormous numbers of migratory ducks, geese and cranes at one fell swoop.

 This technique of trapping became a recurring motif in the decorative programme of tomb-chapels in nearly all periods, and is also attested in religious imagery. Most of this hunting presumably took place in the formerly extensive swamplands area of the Nile Delta, but probably also in the Faiyum. Those birds not immediately dispatched upon being captured were then fattened, sometimes even forcibly fed, and kept until needed for consumption or sacrifice. Members of the aristocracy maintained, as did temple complexes, substantial numbers of poultry on their domains.

 These birds had considerable economic importance. The repertoire of daily life scenes decorating the walls of tomb-chapels of the elite from the Old Kingdom onward routinely include episodes illustrating the lively activities of busy poultry-yards and aviaries. These are shown teeming with various kinds of choice eating – ducks, geese, cranes and doves – which are frequently accompanies by brief captions above them, giving the birds’ names and numbers. A wall painting in the dynasty XII rock tomb of the nomarch Khnumhotep II (BH3) at Beni Hasan, unusually pictures the owner clap-net-ting water birds on a pond behind the cover of a blind. Flanking the water are two small flower- ing acacia trees, on whose branches are roosting a bevy of nine passerines. Five species can immediately be distinguished; these are amongst the most estimable and enchanting bird portraits in all of ancient art and include the turtle dove (Streptopelia turtur), hoopoe (Upupa epops), red-backed shrike (Lanius collurio), masked shrike (Lanius nubicus) and redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus).

 Beyond question, the most renowned rendering of water-birds to have come down from ancient Egypt are the ‘Geese of Meidum’ now housed in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, which image is counted among the great master-pieces of Egyptian art. Originally the panel formed the lower part of a clap-netting composition from the early Dynasty IV mastaba of Nefermaat and his wife Atet at Meidum. This large fragment of wall painting exhibits a frieze of six geese on a grassy flat, and features three distinct species: white-fronted goose (Anser albifrons), bean goose (Anser fabalis) and red-breasted goose (Branta ruficollis). Owing to their striking realism, brilliant colouring and near pristine state of preservation, the ‘Geese of Meidum’ image has in the past been referred to as the first ornithological record in history.

 Also highly regarded on the tables of ancient Egyptians was the common quail (Coturnix coturnix). A fledgling quail was used as a standard hieroglyph as well. Migrant flocks of these comparatively tiny game birds were annually trapped during the spring in harvest grain fields, as handsomely displayed in the tomb chapel of the dynasty VI mastaba of the vizier Mereruka at Saqqara, and once again on a fragment of wall-painting from a Theban tomb chapel from the New Kingdom, using a technique still utilized in rural Egypt to this very day. After being netted, the quails were sometimes tied to sheaves and presented as offerings to the deceased tomb-owner. There isn’t any evidence from ancient Egypt for the well-known method of quail capture that occurs in the country today along the Mediterranean sea coast during the autumn, when great waves of migratory birds arrive after their long flights of passage from Europe and are easily taken when they alight. One might well assume, nevertheless, that in antiquity it is likely that it did take place in one form or other.

 Egyptian farmers, then as now, were also keen to trap flocks of marauding birds to prevent them from pilfering valuable crops in orchards of fruit-bearing trees during the time of the harvest. During the Old and Middle Kingdoms, some tomb chapels include scenes of the netting of golden orioles (Oriolus oriolus) in orchards of sycamore fig trees. Once caught, the birds are shown being caged, and presumably would have been prepared and consumed as a welcome meal. From the New Kingdom, there are a number of bird-scaring episodes pictured on tomb-chapel walls, where women and children are portrayed making noises and waving long strips of cloth in order to frighten and drive away flocks of hungry birds from trees and vines that are heavy with tasty ripe fruit.

From this time, crafty, large black crows (Corvus sp.) are also periodically detected in Egyptian iconography, drawn on figured ostraca and painted papyri pilfering fruit. In pharaonic Egypt, just as today, the predaceous black kite (Milvus migrans) had a reputation as a bold opportunist. These aerial pirates were always ready to snatch a fish from the catch of an unwary fisherman. Farmers too were plagued by the highly aggressive black kite, and occasionally turned to magical charms to keep fields safe from this cunning species.

Let us now turn our attention to the familiar chicken or red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus), a farmyard inhabitant which today has penetrated to nearly every corner of the earth. It appears to have arrived in the country comparatively late in Egyptian history. The fowl may have been introduced to the Nile Valley by way of Mesopotamia, where, through trading links with India, the original home of the species, it was already known by the time of the Third Dynasty of Ur (ca. 2113-2006 BCE). The earliest appearance of the chicken known on Egyptian soil is an attractive, but sparingly rendered, black ink drawing of a rooster on a limestone flake, found by Howard Carter in the course of Lord Carnarvon’s excavations in the Valley of the Kings during the winter of 1920-1921. The figured ostracon is almost certainly the work of an observant draughtsman who lived during dynasty XIX. The bird was likely to have been imported as an extraordinarily rare prize, an object of marvel, not to be consumed at the table, but rather exhibited with pride along with other exotic fauna in a royal menagerie.

A cockerel can also be observed on an embossed silver bowl from late dynasty XIX or early dynasty XX, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. And with this, the monuments then maintain a complete silence regarding this rarity until dynasty XXX, when we next encounter a rooster on a fragment of a finely decorated limestone lintel from the tomb of Hapiu, now in the Agyptisches Museum, Berlin. On the relief, rather unexpectedly, this pert bird appears as a beloved pet, sitting before its deceased owner. Evidently, at this late date, it was still considered unusual enough to warrant the privileged position of a pet.

A pair of roosters is also depicted a little later amid a myriad of offerings and victuals brought to the important dignitary and priest, Petosiris in his splendid tomb-chapel at Tuna el-Gebel, which dates from the reign of the Macedonian King Philip Arrhidaeus, the half-brother of Alexander the Great. Therefore it is only at the very close of the pharaonic era that this fowl is attested as an article of food in ancient Egypt. With the rise of the Ptolemaic Period, and in the centuries following, the bird became a more abundant denizen of the Egyptian farmyard.

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