Choice Cuts: Meat Production in Ancient Egypt.

• Author: Robins, Gay
• Position: Review

By SALIMA IKRAM. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, vol. 69. Leuven: PEETERS PRESS and DEPARTMENT OF ORIENTAL STUDIES, 1995. Pp. xvii + 326.

Animals figured in almost every aspect of ancient Egyptian life. Practically, they provided food and transport, served various roles in different stages of the agricultural cycle, were used in hunting, kept as pets, and slaughtered as ritual offerings for deities and the dead. In addition, the ancient Egyptians used experiences drawn from everyday life and the environment to help them picture cosmic forces and the parts of the universe (the heavens and the netherworld) that were unknowable to living human beings. Animals played a part in giving form to the divine, and many deities were associated with or represented by an animal or shown as a human figure with an animal head. Wild animals living in the marshes and the desert outside the ordered area of fields and habitations represented the forces of chaos. The powers of animals that inspired terror, such as the cobra, hippopotamus, and lion, were harnessed for protection against enemies and hostile forces. The wild bull, with which the king was identified, embodied the concepts of strength and male potency.

The Animal World of the Pharaohs and Choice Cuts: Meat Production in Ancient Egypt both focus on animals but are otherwise very different. The first is intended for the general reader and gives a broad overview of the role of animals in Egyptian life and thought. It is lavishly illustrated with photographs and line drawings of the reliefs, paintings, and sculptures, taken mainly from temple and funerary contexts, that provide most of the author's source material. The material is divided into nine chapters that cover animals with religious significance; those used in agriculture and to provide food; those that were hunted; domestic pets; denizens of the Nile; birds (more fully treated in the author's Birds of Ancient Egypt); a group of largely noxious creatures, although it includes the harmless scarab beetle; exotic animals collected by or for the king; and finally examples of animals subjected to possibly humorous treatment.

The wide range of the book makes it a good introduction to the topic of animals in ancient Egypt but also inevitably prevents individual creatures from being treated in depth. The scarab beetle, one of the most important and widely used cosmic and funerary symbols that occurs in a range of contexts, rates less than a page...