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Despite goats and sheep being less commonly represented in tomb scenes… they were kept in greater numbers than the more prestigious cattle.
Evidence suggests that sheep and goats were among the earliest domesticated animals used for meat in Egypt. On a ceremonial mace head in the Ashmolean Museum, Narmer listed the spoils of his unification campaign (c.3100 BC) as 400,000 cattle, 1,422,000 goats, and 120,000 human captives. In the record on the Palermo Stone of the Nubian campaign of Sneferu (c.2613-2589 BC), the term ‘small cattle’ denoted the goats and sheep included among 200,000 captured livestock. In his Giza tomb (G7948), known as ‘the tomb of numbers’, Khaefra-ankh, a priest of the mortuary cult of Khafra (c.2558-2532 BC), claimed to own 2,235 goats, 974 sheep, and more than 1,000 cattle. Rather than a precise and possibly exaggerated enumeration of his personal wealth, these numbers may relate to the herds and flocks of the estates he administered. Despite goats and sheep being less commonly represented in tomb scenes and unidentifiable among the joints of meat on offering tables, they were kept in greater numbers than the more prestigious cattle.
Goats
The main distinguishing feature between Egyptian sheep and goats is their horns; otherwise, the species were quite similar in appearance and can be difficult to separate by means of osteoarchaeological evidence. Being browsers rather than grazers, goats are among the most adaptable of animals, able to thrive in harsh environmental conditions.
In Old Kingdom tomb chapels, goats shown foraging the thickets of the desert edge have spiral-twisted horns, in a V-shape when seen from the front. These resulted from the domestication of an Asiatic wild species like Capra aegagrus with its back-curving horns, floppy ears, and characteristic chin beard. They were kept for their meat, milk, and hides, and their higher fertility meant that they generally outnumbered sheep. To mark his status, Renni, Mayor of el-Kab in the early Eighteenth Dynasty, claimed ownership of 100 sheep and 1,200 goats. A goat wearing a cylinder seal suspended from a collar was the hieroglyph for ‘rank’ or ‘dignity’.
Ibex, antelope, gazelle, and deer
Another wild goat, the Nubian ibex, was hunted for its meat, as shown on Predynastic pottery and rock art, and is depicted among temple and tomb offerings, as both live animals and carcasses. Meat from wild game was considered a luxury, and captive animals were kept on noble and royal estates.
Ibex and antelope were popular decorative motifs on household furniture, cosmetic items, and jewellery. The diadems worn by favoured royal ladies in the early New Kingdom bore gazelle heads, possibly in reference to the animals’ graceful appearance, and the Amarna princesses are shown holding ‘pet’ gazelle calves. Perhaps because they were never truly domesticated, scenes of the hunting of ibex, antelope, gazelle, and, rarely, antlered deer symbolised the defeat of the forces of isfet, ‘chaos’ or ‘disorder’. Corrals holding antelope, gazelle, and a wild bull depicted on Narmer’s macehead suggest that his victory celebrations included ritual hunts.
Antelope horns flanked the crown of Satis, consort of ram-headed Khnum and guardian of Egypt’s southern borderlands. Her sacred emblem of an arrow piercing an animal hide indicates her role as a hunter.
Oryx
The most significant among the native gazelle and antelope species, depicted in hunting scenes from Predynastic times, was the scimitar-horned oryx. Oryx carcasses and heads appear among tomb and temple offerings provided by specialist hunters such as the archers employed by Ramesses III (c.1184- 1153 BC) to supply hundreds of oryx for Ra’s festivals.
A desert-dweller, the oryx was sacred to Sokar, whose henu-barque was decorated with a backward-facing oryx head at the prow. From the late New Kingdom, the oryx was identified as an animal of Seth, and the slaughter of the beast symbolised the victory of good over evil. Late Period cippus stelae, representing the child Horus controlling the powers of magic and chaos, show the god standing on crocodiles while holding oryx and antelope together with other Sethian creatures.
Sheep
Two types of sheep are identifiable in Egyptian images. The more ancient variety, with long, horizontally spread, twisted horns, was the hieroglyph for the onomatopoeic word for ‘ram’, which was a close homonym for the word ba, meaning ‘soul’.
Ram gods
The name of the ram-god of Mendes, Banebdjedet, ‘Soul of the Lord of Djedet’, identifies him as a manifestation of Osiris.
The ram symbol appears in the name of Bintanath, ‘Spirit of Anath’, daughter-queen of Ramesses II, and in Ba-en-Ra (‘Soul of Ra’), an element in the prenomen of her brother Merenptah (c.1213-1203 BC). A ram-headed man represented the underworld manifestation of Ra, as seen in QV66, Nefertari’s tomb, and in KV14, the Tomb of Tausret (c.1188-1186 BC), the resurgent Ra is depicted as a ram-headed bird.
The same ram represents the creator-gods Khnum of Elephantine and Heryshef of Herakleopolis Magna, who is mentioned on the Palermo Stone in relation to the First Dynasty king Den (c.2950 BC). The horizontal horns were the basis of the atef crown, an elaborate confection of the White Crown adorned with feathers, sun-discs, and pendant uraei. The atef, which, like the halo depicted around the head of a Christian saint, may have been purely imaginary, was often set within or added to a royal crown to indicate the wearer’s divinity.
From the Middle Kingdom, when a longer-fleeced sheep with horns curling around the ears began to displace the older variety, ram-headed deities were shown unrealistically with both horn types.
In the Late Period, Banebdjedet was recognised as the embodiment of the combined souls of Ra, Osiris, Shu, and Geb, and was represented with the heads of four rams with curled horns.
Amun-Ra of Karnak, designated the King of the Gods, was depicted as a curly-horned ram, as a ram-headed sphinx, or in his usual human form with the horns attached to his tall, feathered crown, but less commonly as a ram-headed man. Pharaoh’s connection with Amun-Ra was occasionally emphasised by the addition of the horns of the Amun ram to the royal crown. In some coin images, Alexander the Great, claiming to be Amun’s son, wears the curling horns behind his ears. For their resemblance to the ram’s horns, Pliny the Elder named certain spiral-shaped fossil shells ‘horns of Ammon’, giving rise to their popular name, ammonite.
Images: Hilary Wilson, unless otherwise stated
