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Ancient Egyptian Animals
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The ancient Egyptians
were very fond of animals. They had animals that were sacred, some were
pets and other were used in farming. Animals were thought to be sacred to
the Egyptians because they believed that when one of their gods or
goddesses came down to earth, they would represent themselves as a
specific species. The Egyptians thought by honoring them, they would be
pleasing the god. They also thought that animals shared an afterlife with
their humans so it resulted in animals being buried within its family
tomb.
The animals that were considered especially sacred:
Cats and Kittens:
One
of the most common animal mummies in Egypt was the cat. Cats were believed to
represent the goddess Bastet. Consequently, they were raised in and around
temples devoted to Bastet. When they died, they were mummified and buried in
huge cemeteries, often in large communal graves. From about 332 B.C. to 30 B.C., animals began to be raised for the specific purpose of being turned into mummies. The mummies were sold to people on their way to worship a god and left at the temple as offerings. Scientists have uncovered a gruesome fact: many cats died quite premature and unnatural deaths. Two- to four-month-old kittens seemed to have been sacrificed in huge numbers. So many cat mummies were made that researchers can only guess that there were millions of them
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Bastet |
Cats are very useful animals in a country that depends on grain. The cat's
hunting instincts were honoured by the Ancient Egyptians, but so was the cat's
gentler side as a warm and loving mother to her kittens. Bastet can be shown as
a woman with a feline head. There are disagreements among zoologists as to when
these animals first began to live with humans along the Nile, and about which
feline became the Egyptian pet. Cats do not appear as household pets during the
Age
of the Pyramids, though they were very popular animal companions in later
times.
Cattle were thought to be sacred and beef was often used for offerings to the gods or goddesses. A bull represented power, aggression, masculinity, fertility; these could be the attributes of kingship. . The cow's large eyes with long lashes, and her generally quiet demeanor suggested a gentle aspect of feminine beauty. Her gift of milk, which could sustain a human child, became of symbol of love and sustenance.
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Bastet |
Hathor as the royal goddess. Her name means 'House of Horus." Her image could take the form of a cow, a woman with a cow's head, or a woman wearing the horns of a cow. As a motherly cow, she gave the king her divine milk, and protected him as a cow protects her calf. She was the goddess of love, music, singing, and dance. She was one of the most important deities in the Age of the Pyramids, and her popularity continued to the end of Egyptian civilization. In the early economy of Egypt, cows were wealth. A herd of cattle was a beautiful sight because it represented wealth in the form of food, milk, hides, and work, as oxen pulled the ploughs of farmers. Cattle dung was a valuable fertilizer and had many uses in building. The Egyptians admired many qualities in cows, besides their economic benefits. The cow's careful tending of her calf was a model for motherhood. In a time when many women died in childbirth, the ability of cow's milk to sustain a human baby was deeply appreciated. Cows, like people, love music and will happily listen to a human singing, thus it made sense for Hathor to be goddess of music. The big, gentle brown eyes of cows set a standard for beauty. |
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Hathor |
This god is shown as a falcon, or as a man with the head of a falcon. In Egyptian, his name is Her - the distant one. Like the good king who sees everything in his kingdom, the hawk is noted for his sharp vision. The sudden stoop of the hawk, as he leaves the distant sky to attack and capture his prey, is like the quick and decisive action of a king in defense of his country. Horus is one of the oldest gods of the Egyptians. In the days when powerful leaders were fighting to make one nation out of smaller settlements, the early rulers were called Followers of Horus. On the Narmer palette, the King is shown with a falcon whose one human arm holds a rope that passes through the nose of a defeated rival. The earliest way of distinguishing the name of a king from the names of others was the serekh, which was a rectangle representing the palace of the king, with a hawk on the top. |
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Horus |
When Horus grew up, he claimed his father's throne. Seth and Horus struggled for the kingship, but in the end Horus' claim, as son of the previous king, was recognized by a court of all the gods, and Horus became king. In Ancient Egypt, each king was Horus. When a king died, Egyptians said that the falcon had flown to Heaven and united with the Sun Disk. The next king then became Horus. Like the Hawk, the king was a fighter, a warrior. This is why Horus, when shown as a hawk-headed man, wears an armored breast-plate.
This jackal-headed god looked after the dead, and was in charge of the important task of mummification. Anubis can appear as either a black canine with long sharp ears, or as a man with a canine head. The black colour of Anubis is not natural to jackals or to the wild dogs of Egypt; it may refer to the discoloration of a body after death and during mummification. The black colour also refers to the rich dark soil of Egypt, from which new growth came every year; in similar manner, the dead would come to new life after burial. Dogs, as animal companions, were present in Egypt from the very beginning. Sometimes dogs were buried with their masters. It may have given the Egyptians comfort to think of such an animal as guarding the cemeteries, protecting the dead. |
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Anubis |
There
are other minor animals that were held sacred by the Egyptians so because they
were beneficial others because they were considered evil. Examples of these
animals are:-
The
mongoose was respected because of its skill and power of robbing nests and
eating snakes.
The snakes were thought to be evil. Because the snake's poisonous bite, it killed many people.
Other
animals represented by a god/goddess or sacred were ibises, dogs, rams, baboons,
shrews, fishes, gazelles, and lions.
Farm
Animals
Animals
were one of the most important things about farming. Animals helped ancient
Egyptians with jobs like trampling in the seeds, pulling the plow, eating
unwanted grain or wheat and providing them with food and drink. But having these
animals may have caused misfortune like if a donkey nibbled on someone else's
crops the farmer could threaten to take its owner to court. Also if
animals were sick the Egyptians had to do all the work that they did. If
animals were not marked they may have been stolen. Some of the farm
animals were goats, pigs, ducks, cows, and geese.
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