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Animals such as elephants, rhinoceros, and hippopotami used to live in different parts of Egypt, however these animals do not exist in Egypt today. Animals were very much appreciated and important in Egyptian history; even some deities were represented as animals; as Hathor the goddess of fertility, love and beauty was represented as a cow. [1]
The Egyptian dog Abuwtiyuw, [1] also transcribed as Abutiu (died before 2280 BC), [2] was one of the earliest documented domestic animals whose name is known. He is believed to have been a royal guard dog who lived in the Sixth Dynasty (2345–2181 BC), and received an elaborate ceremonial burial in the Giza Necropolis at the behest of a pharaoh whose name is unknown.
According to Plutarch, the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, in preparing for her own suicide, tested various deadly poisons on condemned people and concluded that the bite of the asp (from the Greek word aspis, usually meaning an Egyptian cobra in Ptolemaic Egypt, and not the European asp) was the least terrible way to die; the venom brought ...
In ancient Egypt, cats were represented in social and religious scenes dating as early as 1980 BC. [2] Several ancient Egyptian deities were depicted and sculptured with cat-like heads such as Mafdet, Bastet and Sekhmet, representing justice, fertility, and power, respectively. [3] The deity Mut was also depicted as a cat and in the company of ...
In certain cases, such as the Apis bull, the animal could even be a way to communicate the desires of the deity. The Apis bull cult was the main source of this type of religious animal mummy in ancient Egypt, as most other animals were mummified in large quantities for religious offerings. [32]
The wildlife of Egypt is composed of the flora and fauna of this country in northeastern Africa and southwestern Asia, and is substantial and varied. Apart from the fertile Nile Valley , which bisects the country from south to north, the majority of Egypt's landscape is desert, with a few scattered oases .
The African sacred ibis was an object of religious veneration in ancient Egypt, [26] particularly associated with the deity Djehuty or otherwise commonly referred to in Greek as Thoth. He is responsible for writing, mathematics, measurement, and time as well as the moon and magic. [ 27 ]
The Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus), also called the white scavenger vulture or pharaoh's chicken, is a small Old World vulture in the monotypic genus Neophron. It is widely distributed from the Iberian Peninsula , North Africa , West Asia and India .