2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a painting in a Theban tomb
of the XVIIIth dynasty.
The ass, the sheep, and the goat were already domesticated, but the pig was still out in the marshes in a semi-wild state, under the care of special herdsmen,[*] and the religious rites preserved the remembrance of the times in which the ox was so little tamed, that in order to capture while grazing the animals needed for sacrifice or for slaughter, it was necessary to use the lasso.[***]
* The hatred of the Egyptians for the pig (Herodotus, ii.
47) is attributed to mythological motives. Lippert thinks
this antipathy did not exist in Egypt in primitive times. At
the outset the pig would have been the principal food of the
people; then, like the dog in other regions, it must have
been replaced at the table by animals of a higher order—
gazelles, sheep, goats, oxen—and would have thus fallen
into contempt. To the excellent reasons given by Lippert
could be added others drawn from the study of the Egyptian
myths, to prove that the pig has often been highly esteemed.
Thus, Isis is represented, down to late times, under the
form of a sow, and a sow, whether followed or not by her
young is one of the amulets placed in the tomb with the
deceased, to secure for him the protection of the goddess.
*** Mariette, Abydos (vol. i. pl. 48 b, 53). To prevent
the animal from evading the lasso and escaping during the
sacrifice, its right hind foot was fastened to its left
horn.
Europeans are astonished to meet nowadays whole peoples who make use of herbs and plants whose flavour and properties are nauseating to us: these are mostly so many legacies from a remote past; for example, castor-oil, with which the Berbers rub their limbs, and with which the fellahîn of the Saïd flavour their bread and vegetables, was preferred before all others by the Egyptians of the Pharaonic age for anointing the body and for culinary use.[*] They had begun by eating indiscriminately every kind of fruit which the country produced. Many of these, when their therapeutic virtues had been learned by experience, were gradually banished as articles of food, and their use restricted to medicine; others fell into disuse, and only reappeared at sacrifices, or at funeral feasts; several varieties continue to be eaten to the present time—the acid fruits of the nabeca and of the carob tree, the astringent figs of the sycamore, the insipid pulp of the dam-palm, besides those which are pleasant to our Western palates, such as the common fig and the date. The vine flourished, at least in Middle and Lower Egypt; from time immemorial the art of making wine from it was known, and even the most ancient monuments enumerate half a dozen famous brands, red or white.[**]
* I have often been obliged, from politeness, when dining
with the native agents appointed by the European powers at
Port Saïd, to eat salads and mayonnaise sauces flavoured
with castor-oil; the taste was not so disagreeable as might
be at first imagined.
** The four kinds of canonical wine, brought respectively
from the north, south, east, and west of the country, formed
part of the official repast and of the wine-cellar of the
deceased from remote antiquity.
Vetches, lupins, beans, chick-peas, lentils, onions, fenugreek,[*] the bamiâ,[**] the meloukhia,[***] the arum colocasia, all grew wild in the fields, and the river itself supplied its quota of nourishing plants.
* All these species have been found in the tombs and
identified by savants in archaeological botany—Kunth,
Unger, Schweinfurth (Loret, La Flore Pharaonique, pp. 17,
40, 42, 43, Nos. 33, 97, 102, 104, 105, 106).
** The bamiâ, Hibiscus esculentus, L., is a plant of the
family of the Malvaceae, having a fruit of five divisions,
covered with prickly hairs, and pontaining round, white,
soft seeds, slightly sweet, but astringent in taste, and
very mucilaginous. It figures on the monuments of
Pharaonic times.
*** The meloukhia, Corchorus Olitorius, L., is a plant
belonging to the Tilliacese, which is chopped up and cooked
much the same as endive is with us, but which few Europeans
can eat with pleasure, owing to the mucilage it contains.
Theophrastus says it was celebrated for its bitterness; it
was used as food, however, in the Greek town of Alexandria.
4 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from the Description de
l'Egypte, Histoire Naturelle, pl. 61.