Ancient art fills in Egypt's ecological history

Ancient Egyptian rock inscriptions and carvings on pharaonic tombs chronicle hartebeest and oryx — horned beasts that thrived in the region more than 6,000 years ago. Researchers have now shown that those mammal populations became unstable in concert with significant shifts in Egypt’s climate.

The finding is based on a fresh interpretation of an archaeological and palaeontological record of ancient Egyptian mammals pieced together more than a decade ago by the zoologist Dale Osborn1. Thirty-eight large-bodied mammals existed in Egypt roughly six millennia ago, compared to just eight species today.

“There are interesting stories buried in the data — at the congruence of the artistic and written record,” says Justin Yeakel, an ecologist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, who presented the research this week at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For example, the philosopher Aristotle said 2,300 years ago that lions were present, though rare, in Greece; shortly thereafter, the beasts appeared in the local art record for the last time, Yeakel says.

Ancient Egyptian artefacts, like this elaborately carved ivory knife handle from 3300-3100 BCE, helped scientists determine how mammal populations in Egypt have changed over time.
Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, Brooklyn Museum

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http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-art-fills-in-egypt-s-ecological-history-1.13528

Ancient art fills in Egypt's ecological history