Egypt holds countless treasures from the many ancient Pharaonic antiquities which reveal to the entire world the greatness of the Egyptian civilization and its innovations.
In their pantheon, the ancient Egyptians reserved a privileged place for birds of prey, especially the falcon, but also the kite, whose sounds were considered the laments of the goddesses Isis and Nephthys. With her wings outstretched, the vulture goddess considered herself the protector of Upper Egyptian royalty.
The most famous sacred bird in ancient Egypt is undoubtedly the falcon. The African sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus) is a species of ibis, a wading bird of the family Threskiornithidae. It is especially known for its role in Ancient Egyptian religion, where it was linked to the god Thoth.
Ancient Egyptians worshipped a god named Djhowety, also called Thoth, the god of learning, magic, and wisdom represented by the sacred ibis, the long-legged bird that was common along the banks of the Nile River. They painted its images on tomb walls. Because the Egyptians thought of the bird as holy, it became known as the sacred ibis.
Sacred Ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus)
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The sacred ibis has a large, white body with blue-black plumes for tail feathers. The bird's legs, neck, and head are gray or black. No feathers grow on its head and neck. The ibis is up to 27 inches (68 centimeters) tall and has a pointed, sharp, downward-curving bill that is several inches (centimeters) long. These birds weigh 3 to 3 1/2 pounds (1 1/3 to 1 1/2 kilograms).
The ibis, an animal associated with Thoth, personified the solar god Ra’s mental power, wisdom, science and letters. This lunar god, originally from Hermopolis, was represented with the head of an ibis or in the shape of a baboon.
A mummified falcon. Among the birds whose mummies have been found and mummified in large numbers are the sacred ibis, falcons, owls, chickens and other birds.
For about a millennium starting in 1100 BC, ibises were frequently mummified as an offering to Thoth, believing that mummification would put the birds on a direct line to the afterlife. As a result, several million sacred ibises were killed, gutted, embalmed and folded with the bill tucked between the tail feathers. The carcasses were then wrapped with linen dipped in resin, and inserted individually or in pairs into urns that were placed in vast underground caverns in cities all along the Nile.
The vast stores of ibis mummies in Egypt were brought to light by Geoffery Saint-Hilaire and Jules-César Savigny, two of the 167 savants [5] who accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte to Egypt from 1798-1801. Savigny noticed that the ibis often appeared in hieroglyphics and tomb paintings, and reasoned that this bird was important to Egyptian culture.
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Even though the ibis mummies from Saint-Hilaire were not exactly the same size as contemporary birds, Cuvier also used those measurements to bolster his arguments of the fixity of species-evidence that species were created once by a deity and did not change through time.
The species did not breed in southern Africa before the beginning of the 20th century, but it has benefited from irrigation, dams, and commercial agricultural practices such as dung heaps, carrion and refuse tips. It began to breed in the early 20th century, and in the 1970s the first colonies of ibises were recorded in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Its population for example expanded 2-3-fold during the period between 1972 and 1995 in Orange Free State. It is now found throughout southern Africa.
The sacred ibis is a large wading bird that feeds in rivers and lakes. The ibis is extinct in Egypt but still lives across sub-Saharan Africa. Flocks of ibises feed during the day and roost at night along the muddy banks of rivers, lakes, and swamps.
What Is The Significance Of The Sacred Ibis? - Archaeology Quest
The sacred ibises eat a wide variety of foods. As the birds wade through the shallow water, they probe the mud with their long bills in search of invertebrates, or creatures without backbones. Other prey from the mud are mollusks, crustaceans, frogs, and dead fish. They also snatch worms, locusts, spiders, grasshoppers, and insect larvae from the shore. At other times they may eat reptiles, small birds, birds' eggs, and carrion, or dead animal flesh. Since they do not have feathers on their necks or heads, the birds do not get blood in their feathers when they are scavenging on carrion. The food search may take the flock miles from their roosting sites.
The sacred ibises are social birds that nest in large colonies. They do not migrate like other birds between breeding grounds and winter ranges. They fly between feeding sites or may move to avoid the rainy season in some parts of the continent. Their wingspan is between 44 and 49 inches (110 and 125 centimeters). In flight during the mating season, bright red plumage is visible on the undersides of their wings.
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Breeding season begins in March and ends in August. The males arrive at the breeding grounds first, and the females arrive a couple of days later. Large colonies of 100 pairs may occupy the same small breeding ground and build their nests close together. Nest sites are in trees or flat-topped bushes or on the ground among rocks. Each female lays two to five eggs in a nest of rushes, twigs, and grass. Both parents take turns sitting on the greenish-white eggs, which hatch after 21 to 29 days of incubation. After 44 to 48 days of feeding and care by their parents, the young may leave the nest for the first time. Their parents feed them a few more days, and then the young are independent. Each male and female mate for only one breeding season before they separate.
The oldest recorded life span of a sacred ibis is 21 years.
The Saqqara Bird
The Saqqara Bird
The Saqqara bird holds a distinctive and famous place in the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, located in the center of Cairo Governorate. This small and mysterious wooden artifact made of sycamore wood is displayed on the upper floor in Hall 22. However, the Saqqara bird remains a perplexing puzzle that intrigues the curiosity and confusion of scholars and enthusiasts alike.
The Saqqara bird is considered a unique archaeological model that has attracted the interest of many researchers and enthusiasts, due to the inconclusive determination of its true purpose. It is a small artifact made of sycamore wood, currently on display in the Egyptian Museum.
The Saqqara bird piece was found in 1898 during the excavation of the tomb of a person named Pa di Imen and the search for artifacts within it. The Saqqara bird is characterized by its relative lightness, estimated at 39.12 grams, while its wingspan is estimated at 18 cm. The Saqqara bird is considered a simple wooden model, but it demonstrates the skill of the craftsman and ancient Egyptian art in carving.
The Saqqara bird features a largely simple design, but it perhaps illustrates the concept of movement or streamlining. Its tail has some small holes of unclear purpose and is characterized by its horizontal straight shape. Despite this apparent shape, it is almost certain that it was not made to actually fly.
This structurally and dynamically rendered it incapable of flying and soaring due to its weight and the lack of essential flight requirements. There is also no scientific or archaeological evidence indicating that it was part of a flying machine or capable of flight.
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