Linda Evans

Representational signalling in birds

Some animals give specific calls when they discover food or detect a particular type of predator. Companions respond with food-searching behaviour or by adopting appropriate escape responses. These signals thus seem to denote objects in the environment, but this specific mechanism has only been demonstrated for monkey alarm calls. We manipulated whether fowl (Gallus gallus) had recently found a small quantity of preferred food and then tested for a specific interaction between this event and their subsequent response to playback of food calls. In one treatment, food calls thus potentially provided information about the immediate environment, while in the other the putative message was redundant with individual experience. Food calls evoked substrate searching, but only if the hens had not recently discovered food. An identical manipulation had no effect on responses to an acoustically matched control call. These results show that chicken food calls are representational signals: they stimulate retrieval of information about a class of external events. This is the first such demonstration for any non-primate species. Representational signalling is hence more taxonomically widespread than has previously been thought, suggesting that it may be the product of common social factors, rather than an attribute of a particular phylogenetic lineage.

Ancient Egypt’s fluctuating fauna: Ecological events or cultural constructs?

Yeakel et al. present an innovative examination of Egypt’s ecological history (1), in which they rely upon paleontological evidence and artistic representations of animals to reconstruct patterns of species extinctions over six millennia. Focusing on ungulates and their mammalian predators, and drawing upon mammalogist Dale Osborn’s 1998 volume, The Mammals of Ancient Egypt (2), Yeakel et al. (1) report dramatic changes in predator–prey ratios corresponding to periods in which Egypt may have experienced extreme aridification.

Transforming into a swallow: Coffin text spell 294 and avian behaviour

Summary Coffin Texts Spell 294 describes the transformation of the deceased into a mn.t-bird. Examination of the passage from a lexical, mythological, and geographical perspective have highlighted the bird’s solar and Hathoric associations, but additional layers of meaning are revealed when textual references are also examined zoologically. This approach has shown that Spell 294 accurately describes the appearance and natural behaviour of migratory and resident barn swallows (Hirundo rustica), elucidating formerly problematical allusions and leading to a deeper understanding of the spell’s transformative process.

Butterflies of Ancient Egypt

ABSTRACT. A review of butterflies depicted in ancient Egyptian tomb scenes and other artifacts dating from the predynastic period (c. 3000 BCE) until the end of the pharaonic era (c. 100 BCE) reveals a wide spectrum of stylistic changes over time. A cladistic analysis shows relative consistency of style during the Old Kingdom period, copying of old styles during the Middle Kingdom period, and a deviation from tradition during the New Kingdom period. The utility of a cladistic approach in assigning dates and localities to ancient Egyptian artifacts with unknown origins is demonstrated. We discuss lepidopteran symbolism in ancient Egypt, and investigate how some of these depictions may highlight historical shifts in species ranges since pharaonic times.

Userkaf's birds unmasked again

First, all examples known to the author belong to private phraseology. This characteristic confirms what the palaeography of the inscription has already indicated: the doorjamb was originally used in a private building. Second, the context of the formula is not necessarily funerary. The formula is certainly attested in tombs and on a pyramidion, but also on stelae, on statues, as well as on two doorjambs and on the lintel of a house. Third, almost all of these occurrences date from the Ramesside Period. The discovery of the lintel of the ‘demeure de service’ of ‘the overseer of the storehouses (imy-Sna) in the temple of Usermaatre-setepenre in the domain of Amun, Piay’, reused as a threshold in the ‘groupe d’édifices du Nord’ of the Ramesseum, proves the presence of houses in the area of the temple. In other words, the jamb could have belonged to the door of a house built in the vicinity of the Ramesseum and it could then have been reused under Ramses VII in a ‘monument’ dedicated by the king to Ramses VI in the area of the Ramesseum, before finally being found in 2010. Clearly, neither its archaeological context nor the object itself provide any information that leads to the definitive conclusion that the ‘monument’ Ramses VII erected for his father ever stood in the temple of Ramses II. The doorjamb of Ramses VII is not the only one for which a symmetrical counterpart has been found in Deir el-Medina either: there is also the case of the symmetrical doorjambs belonging to Amennakht, son of Ipuy, ‘scribe of the Tomb’ under the reign of Ramses III. The discovery of the doorjamb of Ramses VII in the temple of Ramses II, and the content of its earlier erased inscription, might nevertheless be considered su cient to bring the Ramesseum back into play as a possible candidate for the place where the monument Ramesses VII built for his father was erected.

The 'Shedshed' of Wepwawet: an artistic and behavioural interpretation

The shedshed, a curious balloon-shaped object associated with the canine god Wepwawet, has yet to be identified conclusively. Through a comparison of the shedshed with Ancient Egyptian representations of animal burrows, and a consideration of the natural behaviour of canine species, a new interpretation of the symbol as a canid den is offered. Wepwawets role in Egyptian mythology is reassessed in the light of this hypothesis.

Userkaf's birds unmasked

A pair of birds represented on a relief fragment from the Fifth Dynasty mortuary complex of Userkaf is identified as masked shrikes, a species only otherwise attested in Egyptian art from the Middle Kingdom.

Fighting kites : behaviour as a key to species identity in wall scenes

The species of an ambiguous pair of birds represented in the Saqqara tomb of nj-‘nhḫ-ẖnmw and ẖnmw-ḥtp has been determined by examination of the animals’ distinctive postures.