Archaeologists have made a discovery of a 6,000-year-old zoo in Egypt that has been affectionately dubbed by one of the researchers involved as “the most exciting discovery ever made”.
The discovery was made in the city of Kom el-Ahmar, or in its Greek name, Hierakonpolis, or (Falcon City). It has a Greek name because the Greeks exerted a lot of influence in Egypt. Cleopatra herself came from the Ptolemaic dynasty, which had its origins in a Greek general.
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Hierakonpolis is a very old city. It was the capital of Upper Egypt (the Egyptian portion “below” on the map) between 3200 BC and 2686 BC, a period during late Egyptian prehistory, a period known as the predynastic period.
That period only as a city in fact. Its origin as a settlement, or any point of concentration of human habitation, can be traced back to more than 4,000 BC, as reported by the Daily Express.
Although it is so old, the city, however, was only discovered at the end of the 19th century by English scientists, and the biggest exploration efforts began in 2001, under the leadership of Dr. Renee Friedman.
Dr. Friedman even has a series on an English TV channel entitled ‘Ancient Mysteries: Animals of Egypt’s Underworld’. In the series, she talks a little about the gods and zoomorphy of Ancient Egypt religion.
The importance of location
“Hierakonpolis is a very important site for the beginning of Egyptian civilization. It has been known to be an important site for over 100 years, very important artifacts were found there in 1898,” reports Dr. Friedman.
“We found this cemetery and started excavating it, but not only did we find human graves, we found these very strange animals that it took us some time to find out what they were,” he says.
She reports that they went so far as to find seven baboons, a wild cat and a hippopotamus in a den, along with humans. The more researchers dug, the more animals they found.
First zoo in history
Many of the bones of these animals are able to show that many of them possibly suffered very serious injuries, and that they were treated with human care.
She believes this is possibly an indication of animals exposed in a location. In other words, the archaeological site may be the first zoo in history, according to Dr. Friedman.
“So these animals were kept alive on site, I don’t think the point was really to bury them, I think it was to show them off,” he says. She doesn’t think that this case, specifically, has a religious relationship, but a form of demonstration of power.
“Having these animals would prove that the ruler of the place was very rich and powerful – killing animals was easy but bringing them back alive is much harder – imagine an elephant, leopard or lion.”
There are so many bones in the 6,000-year-old zoo that while she was recording one of the episodes and messing with one of the walls, a baboon bone came out in her hand. And believe me, this was not something agreed.
Even after finding so many bizarre things, only 20% of the area has been excavated, meaning a lot still remains a secret, and many mysteries still await to be unraveled.
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