A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 1975 (Debrecen, 1976)

Régészet, ókortudomány - Sterbetz István: Egyptian Hiegroglyph supposed to be a Swallow – in Ornithological Perspective

István Sterbetz EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH SUPPOSED TO BE A SWALLOW IN ORNITHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE In many cases the determination of animal figures found on early artistic monuments has proved to be a fruitful task. The mere fact of the proved existence of a species may be a valuable contribution to our scope of knowledge on the natural conditions, the way of life and the cultic manifestations of peoples of bygone days. While dealing with a typical bird of the Hungarian Puszta (sodic steppe), the pratincole (Glareola pratincola L. 1766), I thus became rather interested in the paper of A. Koenig (1926) on Nilotic ornithological researches, stating this very species to have been repeatedly identified on Old Egyptian pictures. Comprehensive studies by Mekhitarian (1954) and Michalowski (1969) were avaible for a further examination of the question and readily supperted the statements of Koenig. As a matter of fact, I could see the bird Glareola pr. on numerous illustrations (including some colour tables) as a hieroglyph. The slightly curved bill, the spot on the throat, the almost realistically reproduced colour, the short legs, the characteristic posture, the forktail (!) are all attributable to Glareola. According to informations received from Vilmos Wessetzky of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, this fork-taled bird standing in the specification of Gardiner (1950) for the concept of „goodness" is known by Egyptology as Swallow (Hirundo rustica L. 1758) or Martin (Delichon urbica L. 1758). A similar but not fork-tailed bird - according to the above-cited author a Sparrow (Passer sp.) - is interpreted as an opposite concept. Although a correlation between the sense of a symbol and the original meaning of the representation is by no means necessary, the former economic importance and the resulting overall popularity of the pratincole nevertheless suggest some ideas on this figure. Nesting sporadically in North Africa too, the pratincole may have called the attention of the Egyptians by the huge migrating flights coming from Europe and Southwest Asia and following southwards the valley of the Nile. Their food basis was actually secured by the immense swarms of locusts. As proved by extensive literary evidence, this bird was the most efficient natural ennemy of the locusts before the modernization of plant protection. In 1683 the Dutch traveller Van Bruyn writes in his diary, that the Turkish Governor of Cyprus punished the killing of the locust-eating with decapitation (Bucknill, 1910). Even towards the end of the last century the killing of the pratincole and of the rose-coloured starling (Pastor roseus L. 1758), equally known as a locust-eater, lead to fatal popular verdicts in the Caucasian steppes. (Radde 1884.) All over the route of the pratincole migration, along the Nile down to South Africa, there are numorous descriptions emphasizing the popularity of this bird and its utmost importance for plant protection (Heuglin 1873, Ayres 1884, Holub 1899). In possession of such informations it is proper to suggest that the Egyptians honoured this bird as their natural ally in the struggle against locusts, and that this general esteem induced them to use it as the symbol of „goodness". The determination of the species of the bird figure represented on the hieroglyph is significant for the ornithologist as well, and thus a rectification of earlier opinions seems to be desirable. 17* 259